If it's about the learning, if it's about what's best for kids, our teachers need tools to apply practical, effective intervention in the in the classroom. Looking at a set of student test scores should not indicate intervention placement.
When we support these decisions by saying... "It's about the learning, it's about what's best for kids."
How do we really know? Is it best for every kid? What are we saying about the way we look at ability?
This somewhat benign statement, along with the only slightly more infamous; "This is how we have always done it", has been the foundation of exclusion for years. Our placement decisions and intervention options may be the best our system can do right now, but that doesn't always equate to what's best for kids.
In comes RtI to "fix" the problem. Except for the fact that without a system to support the translation of RtI theory into practice, we've just found another way to exclude.
For example, lets take a student with a primary disability of SLD & a secondary of EBD who's achievement has fallen 2 grade levels below expected performance benchmarks for both math & reading. Both areas of learning have highly sequential and ordered task requirements in demonstrating proficiency, yet instead of providing intervention in the classroom to build logical models/competencies of processing and expressing we find a "program", a research based curriculum to target the deficit.
Is it because of the behavior of the student? Is it because of the research behind the intervention? Is it because of limited capacity educate children in the classroom setting?
Meanwhile,despite the questions above, in order to be a part of this intervention this student must be pulled from class for "specialized instruction", pulled from class altogether and placed into an "course replacement", or....
WE MUST STOP placing students in full replacement courses. WE MUST STOP exchanging elective classes for a targeted math and reading intervention, etc. These are reactive, and poorly planned & intervention options. This kind of reactivity to intervene (because the intervention is there, it has 10 spots, so let's try it) is not what's best for kids. This "hit-and-hope" style of planning makes it about the intervention and not about the learning.
Teachers should be experienced, possibly, dare I say, expert learners. So in this fashion I again challenge all educators to learn. Learn about their students & their profession. To reflect. Reflect upon their practice, their interactions, their experience, the experience of their students. To build. Build with those who can lead, challenge, energize, inspire and excite. Finally, I challenge teachers to explore. Explore the dreams of their students, explore the possibilities of imagination, and to explore new ways to learn.
This is where intervention must begin.
When we support these decisions by saying... "It's about the learning, it's about what's best for kids."
How do we really know? Is it best for every kid? What are we saying about the way we look at ability?
This somewhat benign statement, along with the only slightly more infamous; "This is how we have always done it", has been the foundation of exclusion for years. Our placement decisions and intervention options may be the best our system can do right now, but that doesn't always equate to what's best for kids.
In comes RtI to "fix" the problem. Except for the fact that without a system to support the translation of RtI theory into practice, we've just found another way to exclude.
For example, lets take a student with a primary disability of SLD & a secondary of EBD who's achievement has fallen 2 grade levels below expected performance benchmarks for both math & reading. Both areas of learning have highly sequential and ordered task requirements in demonstrating proficiency, yet instead of providing intervention in the classroom to build logical models/competencies of processing and expressing we find a "program", a research based curriculum to target the deficit.
Is it because of the behavior of the student? Is it because of the research behind the intervention? Is it because of limited capacity educate children in the classroom setting?
Meanwhile,despite the questions above, in order to be a part of this intervention this student must be pulled from class for "specialized instruction", pulled from class altogether and placed into an "course replacement", or....
WE MUST STOP placing students in full replacement courses. WE MUST STOP exchanging elective classes for a targeted math and reading intervention, etc. These are reactive, and poorly planned & intervention options. This kind of reactivity to intervene (because the intervention is there, it has 10 spots, so let's try it) is not what's best for kids. This "hit-and-hope" style of planning makes it about the intervention and not about the learning.
Teachers should be experienced, possibly, dare I say, expert learners. So in this fashion I again challenge all educators to learn. Learn about their students & their profession. To reflect. Reflect upon their practice, their interactions, their experience, the experience of their students. To build. Build with those who can lead, challenge, energize, inspire and excite. Finally, I challenge teachers to explore. Explore the dreams of their students, explore the possibilities of imagination, and to explore new ways to learn.
This is where intervention must begin.
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