Practicum Experience Paper

For the disability ministry project, we were asked to choose a practicum experience where we shadowed or spoke to someone helping someone with a disability. For my project I chose to spend some time in the class for disabled children at the high school I graduated from. Throughout the glimpse of time that was allotted for this particular practicum experience I learned a lot of exciting things about disabilities, but also made some disconcerting revelations. While spending the day at school I was able to interact with the students, teachers, and overall staff of the high school; gaining insights, perspectives, and forming thoughts on everything I had witnessed. From start to finish, my day back at school has left a lasting impression on me. Upon first entering into the entire assignment I emailed the teacher in charge of the disabilities class in my high school. The teacher was very friendly and very eager to have me come in and spend time with the students. One of their biggest concerns was the privacy of each of the students as well as the parameters of the assignment. The teacher asked me to write up a disclaimer and description of what the project would embody, as well as the promise to keep student names out of my final paper. This was then sent out to each student’s parent/guardian, notifying them that I would be spending time observing and just spending time with their child. After this preliminary step had been taken, I awaited my day to go back to high school. After arriving at the school and signing in as a visitor my observations began immediately because school had started and all of the kids had gone to class with the exception of the disabled students. I was then told that one of their daily jobs is to clean the cafeteria. Each student had a wash rag and begun cleaning tables and pushing in chairs. As I walked into the lunch room I had sat in so many times before, my heart saddened because I had attended this school for four years of my life and had never known it was their responsibility to clean up after me. It was a humbling experience because I came to the realization that many of my peers have no idea how blessed they truly are to walk into a clean lunch room every day. As I am helping to wash off all of the tables my mind travels back to each time I complained about having a dirty table. I also have to think back to all the times I had friends making bigger messes and leaving the table in a worse condition then when we had upon entering the lunch room. This tells me so much in the sense of humility and working on myself. Romans 12:16 writes, “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but willing to associated with people of low position. Do not be conceited.” In my opinion this is one of the hardest lessons to learn and I am curious to know the effects of having students made aware of the extent of the disabilities program within the school and how it would not only impact their behaviors, but also help them grow into young adults that practice humility. After cleaning the tables and pushing in the chairs the students were allowed to go back to their classroom. Upon walking into the …show more content…
I am somewhat disappointed to discover that even though I had hoped the teachers would have nothing but love and compassion for their students, I found their words and actions to be harsh at times. This would be one area that I would suggest improvement on by providing the teachers an avenue to appropriately release their frustrations. I would also suggest training special needs teachers in how to handle situations in which they may already seem frustrated. With this being said, I also feel as though this is equally as important for parents with special needs as well. Providing parents and teachers with the tools to help channel frustration, pain, or even suffering caused by the suffering their loved one is experiencing will help better the relationships between all those involved and will ultimately result in a happier life for the disabled