Teachers want to talk about the child who isn’t moulding in with everyone else. He or she is just not doing well. Sometimes the teacher just needs to ask “why isn’t he getting it?” The teacher doesn’t understand the child’s inconsistencies and wants to talk it over.
[The teachers] need support. They want to know that what they’re doing is right. Even teachers who have been at it a while were saying, at the first of the year, “We don’t hnow how to handle [integration of students with disabilities]. I’ve never had to deal with this before.” When I simply out lined what the objective was for the student in the class they took right off. It’s amazing. They’re doing it right and I just provide a lot of positive reinforcement. For example, I tell them, “You don’t need my help, you know what you’re doing a you’re doing a good job”
Sometimes teachers really need a practical suggestion, some little thing that clicks for them. Sometimes it is related to the student and sometimes to the teacher. Maybe it’s an adjustment of teaching style, and the suggestions you make don’t fit their style. You have to know what their style of teaching is to really reach them.
Daily Responsibilities, Long-Term Planning
Meetings! A lot of meetings! That’s part of the planning, of course. You meet with parents, you meet with teachers, teacher’s aides and others. You’d like to have more time to yourself, but you’re usually in meetings, I find.
This typifies the role of a teacher acting as a consultant in a school. The major actities identified by methods and resource teachers usually involve partnership with other teachers. This includes extensive discussions with the teacher about the student’s difficulty and needs, and content and structure of the individual program.
The work of methods and resource teachers is highly varied, with requirements changing all the time, and people relying on their assistance daily. For these reasons, M&R teachers reported, they have to be both flexible and responsive so they can be available when the teacher needs support, which means they must plan their time very carefully.
