Pittsburgh Conroy Pittsburgh, PA Pittsburgh Public School System Art Classes: taught 17 classes a week, 153 students, 50 minutes each, students ages 5-21, special needs specific school Co-op Teacher: Thomas Hawk ([email protected]) Principal: Rudley Mrvos
My first student teaching placement was at Pittsburgh Conroy, which is an all special needs school located in the North Pittsburgh Public School System. It is a STAR (students and teachers achieving results) school, which is a school-level award to recognize schools making extraordinary gains in student achievement. Schools within Pittsburgh Public Schools earn STAR status by being within the top 25% of Pennsylvania schools. I never saw myself teaching in a special needs school setting, but honestly it was by far the best teaching experience. Being taking out of my comfort zone at first, I needed to quickly adapt myself for the new learning environment, and then take all of my past teaching experience and apply it to this new situation. I was very lucky to get placed with a co-op teacher who let me run the show from day one. During the in-service week before school started, I attended meetings, restraint training classes, created bulletin boards all around the school, and reorganized the classroom. Being in another person's classroom is a huge adjustment, because you don't want to overstep their authority, but you also have to make it your own home as well. During the first days of classes, my goal was to turn bare walls into being bright and colorful, filled with collaborative works of art created by every student. I think that all student artwork should be displayed and recognized. Another new part of this experience was working not only with special needs students, but also multiple para-professionals, nurses, and teachers that attended every class. Take a look below at the various art centers and lesson plans that I did with the lower and higher functioning classes, along with domain evidence during the eight-weeks, that I was at my first placement.