bootism-shoe-religion

I was very excited when one of the assignments for this class was a unit. I don’t really have much practice in unit planning. The experience I do have is only in planning one lesson not thinking of a two week period. I think this is due to being in special education. The College of Education in the special education program does not require you to do a unit for the special education placements. They only require a unit for the general education placement which is in elementary. Although it would be more work for me I think that they should require us the complete a unit in the special education program, because it would prepare us for the general education placement. The reason I am enjoying putting this pedagogy project together is because I feel I need as much practice as possible on lesson planning. Also if I do it now then I may not have to do as much when I’m a teacher since I will have some lessons prepared already.
I loved putting this unit plan together. I did have some indecision on what I wanted the final writing assignment to be. I really liked both critical pedagogy and multi genre. Then I came to the conclusion that I could do both. This is one time I did use the internet a lot. I wanted to find different genres done by famous people or works. I did not want to use a piece that was unfamiliar to students. Also I do not know very many well known authors of poems, stories, etc. I used things that were familiar and fun to me.
At first I wasn’t intending to tailor this unit to special education but it just ended up that way. I was putting the unit together and the end product was something that could be very easily modified in slight ways to fit a special education class. I said my mantra over and over again but I guess it did not work, because this unit turned out to be more of a special education unit than a general education one. I guess I can see how a person who is use to the general education way would have a hard time thinking in the way of differences. Similarly I have the mind set of special education which I’m always thinking how to accommodate a student continuously, and not looking at the bigger picture.
In another of my blogs I mentioned that lesson design is different in the special education world versus the general education world. Not to bash the accommodation section of the lesson plans. But I must say that it takes a lot more than just a thought to accommodate a student. There are so many accommodations that student’s need that one statement would not cover it. No two students are the same in their disabilities. There are similarities but everyone is different. I think that is something that should be well understood by all teachers.