In
light of current challenges and trends in public as well as private education,
let me share some of my experience in that field.
I worked with special education students for more than 30 years! I have a variety of outside experiences that I
utilized in the classroom, ranging from sports to hobbies. By incorporating my lifelong experience in the
classroom, I was able to motivate students in a variety of methods. Some of these methods included a behavior
modification system utilizing bogus money the students could earn in the
classroom for proper behavior, and imposing fines for improper behavior. I am an avid believer in teaching life skills
for students to use in modeling behavior. I believe that teaching life skills is the
first step in learning to modify a student's behavior for success in other
classrooms and society. Once a student
incorporates these life skills, they have the ability to survive in almost any
environment that may be hostile or detrimental to their self-esteem and self-confidence.
One
of the ways I incorporated these concepts in my classroom was to make up
stories about my students. Each
individual student became a character in the story I told to the students. The stories soon became favorites and were
later published as the Holiday Favorites
series. (For more information, visit
Amazon.com or search on Kindle e-reader.)
A “behavior
mod” system was used to reward students for the proper response to questions I
asked about the story using a simple method concerning Who, What, Where, and When.
The students soon learned by using the discovery method of taking notes for better
recall to answer my questions. They used
discovery in other classrooms by utilizing these same skills.
I believe more
creativity should be allowed by school systems and employed by teachers to meet
individual student needs.
(See the story
published today for Kindle:
Santa and the Stranger by George F. Kohn, author of Holiday
Favorites series available on Amazon.com)
