After watching the three Rick Lavoie videos, I feel enlightened and informed. I feel that he does a great job giving insight to how someone, as an educator (or parent, friend, sibling, etc. can help the child obtain success. Rick says, “we know how to teach the learning-disabled child, but now we have got to get to the parents, special education teachers, regular education teachers and to the people who deal with these kids every day.”
There are many tools in which one could use (or even just keep in a metaphorical bag of tricks) that Lavoie has shared with many people, mostly ladies with large glasses and wildly voluminous hair. The knowledge and techniques Rick shares should be considered…show more content… I think that this is so important for children with learning disabilities because according to chapter 6 of the textbook, “they are at a greater risk for depression, social rejection, suicidal thoughts, and loneliness.” Lavoie notes that the hidden curriculum should be learned from the students, colleagues, support staff, or the yearbook team, and then taught to children with learning disabilities. I believe this could be applied to many people who also may not understand the unwritten culture, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about it since watching the second video in February. While I have been especially focused on noticing unwritten rules and constructs, I’ve noticed them at work and in the community. Another impressive list Lavoie highlights is what kids do socially correctly and how to teach that to the students who are struggling socially. This includes smiling or laughing, greeting others, extending invitations, conversing, sharing, compliments, and good appearance. For teacher pleasing behavior, Rick suggests teaching students to be punctual, participate in class, use teachers' names, submit work on time, use required formats, avoid crossing things out, request explanations, and arguably most importantly, thank the teachers. To set a child up for success, one should teach their student to do these tasks and…show more content… He talks about preventative and corrective discipline. He doesn’t believe in yelling at a student, rather using your voice effectively. Rick says, “we are too reactive with our children,” we aren't proactive enough. If you suspect a child will react in a certain way, preventative discipline would be acting in advance to set the environment for the child to succeed. This could be as simple as reminding them to wear something nice when they go to a fancy dinner. “Our students with learning disabilities need consistency, like they need oxygen” Lavoie says. This means posting rules, routines, or schedules, and setting an agenda so the students can have structure. Corrective discipline should be used when the punishment is related to the student's behavior, or the task assigned to the student. Rick mentions that the punishment should be immediate and definite. The punishment should not be an imposed or unrelated school task, this is a questionable practice because it sends the message that school is inherently bad. He also mentions in the questionable practices, that you shouldn't be taking things from children without giving them back. At the end of the day, children learn their morals and values based on what they see adults and others do. It would be hypocritical and a bad example to not give a student item back to them. When providing discipline, it's important to
