Educational video

I have to say this video made it to my top five “must watch” educational videos. I know we were asked to chose one aspect of the movie that impacted us the most and write about it, but I find it very difficult to just choose one since there are so many of them that I find extremely relevant. The speaker showed how the thinking process of a student with a learning disability works; how lonely, singled out and afraid they feel most of the time, and how frustrating this can be for the student and the teacher as well. The whole idea of “showing” somebody how it feels to be a certain way is very powerful. You can spend years researching and reading literature about students with learning disabilities but nothing is going to give you a better understanding than actually putting yourself in their position. I feel this is the same with English language learners (ELLs). Through my graduate program here at Nazareth, I have come to see how little content teachers really know about them. ELLs are usually “studied” at the same time students with disabilities are discussed without giving much depth or a second thought. An ELL is NOT automatically a student with a disability. However, they do go through the same situation that was described in the video. What content teachers fail to see is that the cause of it, is their language barrier not a disability. This is not to say that ELLs do not have learning disabilities. Of course some of them do but statistics show that they largely overrepresented in the special education population. Teachers and future teachers hear about ELLs all the time. They know ELLs are going to be part of the classroom and part of their APPR score. If they are lucky they might even talk about ELLs during their graduate classes in conjunction with words like “scaffolding” and “differentiation”. But nobody shows them how does it feel to be one. Unless you start seeing them through different eyes and putting yourself in their shoes you will never be able to be as effective as you can as their teacher. Please don’t think I am bashing content teachers! I am most certainly not. I believe they come to the classroom with a lot of knowledge and great intentions. However, I do believe that the lack of exposure and relevant information about these student populations (ELLs and students with learning disabilities) will sadly result in a lack of understanding and empathy for them. I have an idea. What about a video just like this one to show teachers (I guess during their PD hours since they don’t do it in their graduate programs…) how do ELLs feel when they are sitting in their classes? Understanding and empathy are strong feelings that can totally change the way you look at these students