My Way or the Highway

During my short time as a special education teacher I have been faced with many challenges. Many of them I have been able to work with my colleagues, however, there are still very many difficulties that I face  everyday to support my students. One of the most debilitating issues for my students is when it comes to making inferences, determining theme, and using background knowledge. All of these can be seen in practice in English and Language Arts, but surprisingly they are also found in every other class!

My ninth grade students with disabilities, and without, all have similar challenges when it comes to making inferences. They are required to read a paragraph and determine what they think is a logical inference, but the issue is that they lack background knowledge of the topic to fully inform their decisions. This lack of background knowledge holds my student's comprehension hostage. They have not been privy to many experiences in life due to their socioeconomic status and historical lack of social mobility. I struggle to know how to give them practice in making inferences while also exposing them to knew information. 

Many students struggle to  determine theme and make inferences because these are more abstract ideas and less concrete. More often than not teachers create a mentality of "my way or the highway" because they tend to have the correct answers. This mentality and environment hinders student's independent thinking and leads to students to believe that their ideas are not as valuable as their teachers. Ultimately I have seen this unfortunate situation play out many times. For example, my students lack the confidence to allow themselves to step outside of finding the verbatim answer that the teacher is expecting. My students consistently ask, "Mrs. Gilkey, is this right?", rather than saying, "This is what I believe because of this information." When you are consistently trying to find the "right answer" you struggle to allow yourself to explore the reaches of your mind. The concepts in U.S. History force students to analyze how past mistakes, or battles, can inform our future governing decisions and this requires background knowledge and determination of theme. Many of the content is relatable for my students because they have been in similar situations on smaller scales, but they are so scared of being wrong that they don't allow themselves to step away from the specific and see the bigger picture.  Who knows what they could find if given vocabulary, confidence, and the ammunition necessary to successfully make inferences, determine theme, and utilize background knowledge.