Nicole held a brief fieldwork meeting today. The question she wanted us to walk away thinking about was "what did we learn about public schools in our most recent fieldwork experience?" Many students remarked on neglect by the teacher to particular students, or the troubles with the new SLO exams that the students are taking at the beginning and end of the year. Luckily  I didn't see many students if any being neglected at my placement, but I attended public school, so I certainly know that it does happen. And no, my mentor teacher wasn't thrilled about the SLO tests either, nor was she worried about them however.
  By doing my fieldwork this semester in a public school, I learned about modifications. Honestly, that box feels like a load of bull in our lesson plan format when I am writing theoretical lesson plans for students who I do not know, because they do not exist yet. To successfully use this box, you have to know, who am I modifying this lesson for and why? When you know the answers to who and why, suddenly, the modifications box is possibly the most important section of the entire lesson plan format. For example, when I was working at Union Vale Middle School, I was assigned to teach the sixth grade class for six weeks straight. Every week, I wrote two very different specific modifications; for who and why? One student had multiple learning disabilities, with signs not un-like downs syndrome. Another student was blind. This gave me specific guidance on how to use this box that was otherwise useless to me, for these students could not have participated in my lessons at all if I did not specifically modify it for them. This was perhaps the most meaningful lesson that I learned working with this class; making simplified versions of lessons as well as making equally challenging, yet three dimensional modifications. This is what I learned about public schools. The general public is filled with diversity, different kinds of learners, and different kinds of people who all have very different specific needs. It makes me want to leave the modification box blank when I write these theoretical lesson plans, simply because I will not know how to modify them until after I have gotten to know my students in need of modifications.