Blog #5 Interventions

As part of my mission as a teacher the words “whole child” are what always sticks out to me.  I believe in really seeing the child in more than one light of “academics”.

If interventions are not utilized in a purposeful manner then the risk is that it will be ineffective.  I liked this definition of intervention best: “care provided to improve a situation” (http://www.definitions.net/definition/intervention).  Although in this source it is applied to medical situations, it got me to thinking.   When we provide an intervention to a struggling child, aren’t we providing care in order to strengthen the child’s weakness?   

Would you stop providing care for a bleeding patient?  Of course not.  What if that patient could not pay?  Would you let him/her bleed to death?  Of course not.  Our human nature is to care for one another.  We don’t like to see someone suffer.  Why is it when it comes to education that we don’t provide the same care?  We see the ‘care’ being denied to many of our students for varying reasons.  Whether it be funding, not enough time, class size, not enough staff, etc.

When watching the YouTube video Response to Intervention at Tigard High School- I loved how one woman put it “I think we need to be thinking flexibly so students can move more fluidly from classes to better meet their needs, instead of having the schedule dictate.”  This is exactly where I would hope someday all our schools will be.  Those making decisions at the government level need to realize that we are dealing with real lives, children coming to school with real problems.  Again, when we teach to the whole child we take all of these different areas of the child’s life into consideration and develop a plan for that particular child.  We can’t turn a blind eye to the other issues taking place in a child’s life which will in turn affect academics.

 

When we are advocates for our students and their families we can make big things happen.  More networking needs to happen when funding is cut.  We don’t have control over the funding, I am not sure we ever will.  But we can come together and advocate for these kids and get their stories out.  When can network and collaborate together to help these children in all areas of their life, not just the academics.  Interventions at the early stages such as Help Me Grow, Success by Six, counseling agencies, etc.  Recently funding just hit my class, YSU has had to cut the SMARTS program.  This program offered intervention (in my eyes) to struggling students, teaching them in a different way.  I am sadden that this amazing program has been cut and its loss will negatively impact the community it served.

I have been in plenty of classrooms where there are students in need but we are waiting on more data.  We analyze the data, but we have to wait for resources.  A child can be struggling for months before he/she receives help… as teachers, we have to provide our own interventions or find our own resources, that’s the job… to provide care for these kids when they need it most!  It may require that we put more hours in to get it, but advocating is our best asset to helping these children get what they need!