Personal Narrative: My Experience With A Disabled Student

On February 6, Lydia Gagnon shared her experience with a disabled student. It surprised me to hear that the disability was blindness. The ministry of Education favors the integration of special needs students. However, I never thought it meant blind children. It made me realize that I could encounter a similar situation too. Similarly to Lydia, I use a lot of visuals. I appreciated that she shared her ideas of using real objects to facilitate the child’s learning. She said that she asked the other students to say the French word for each image she showed them, then she had them say it in English. Although I strongly adhere to using only English in class, I consider this option an excellent way to help the disabled child. As Lydia stated, I would also inquire from the specialists in the school for ways to adapt to a disabled child, this adds …show more content…
She talked about her strategy of giving diamonds to teams when they adopted appropriate behaviours. This was done sporadically, so the students never knew when they could receive diamonds. It was like a competition between teams because the team with the most diamonds received bonus points at the end of the week. What I like about this strategy is that it rewards the students within their team while I focused more on individual rewards systems during my last practicum. I think this technique is easy for the teacher to implement as well as it is immediate and concrete for the students. This is a valuable asset for me because I like to have the students set up in teams. When praising teams, it encourages students to work in collaboration and promotes positive interdependence and individual accountability. After all, each team represents a microcosm of what awaits the students in the future. The diamond reward is a fun idea to have for my career and adds to C7: To plan, organize and supervise a class in such a way as to promote students’ learning and social