Social interaction

Your stance is the model that your students will follow. If you treat all students with equal regard and caring, they will follow in your footsteps. Openly articulate your interest in having your classroom be different. Speak to the sad injustices that the world vests on people with differences - all differences - and set a different tone and example.

I find young children have a tremendous sense of fair play and when encouraged to be caring of others, they most often are. Too many schools and teachers in them foster a sense of competition between students that causes students to treat each other with disregard.

Is your classroom a place where all students may be successful? If it is, that sets a tone of cooperation among your students.

If it’s not, there’s no activity that can override the message that competing and cutting others out is the only way to success.

When I taught reg . ed I had the kids do an activity so they could feel LD. I cut out of a shoe box a space for the child to put in his hands. I then set up a mirror in the back and had the kids look into the mirror and trace the maze by looking in the mirror and not at their hands. The box kind of looked like an overpass.

I also bought a wheel chair and let the kids go in it for one day. They loved it. The first few kids to go got so many stares and a thousand questions. They realized how hard it was to get around campus.

I also did a ADHD type activity where I played bad music, turned on the TV, and gave hard to follow directions where I did not repeat myself.

On the reverse I had my ADHD kid be the teacher while we all played with things and rocked back and forth in the chair. It was done in a nice way with the child’s permission. Kids interupted and took out books they wern’t supposed to. I got that from the time I was on the phone and my own kid kept interrupting. So when she got on with her friend I kept bugging her so she would know how it felt. I know it might cruel but it worked out. Some of you might object but it worked for me..

Bud

Thank you for the advice. I am studying to be a teacher and I have a course on Inclusion where I have chosen to research the social aspect of teaching students wi th disabilities.

Thanks again
Ashley