Senior project is over! Looking back, I’m very surprised by the ways my project changed its shape and focus. Starting out, my essential questions were “How does pedagogy differ in classrooms directed to different demographics of students? How much does day-to-day change in different classrooms?” While those questions were definitely a good framework for what I thought my project was going to be about, looking back on my 6 weeks, it turned out to be a very different experience. I definitely have answers to those questions: it seems that in lower grades and in the privileged types of schools that I’m working at, a lot of the progressive pedagogy ran through in both places. Many of the lesson plans and the ways information was presented were very different, but the overarching curriculums seemed to be fairly similar. Day-to-day, the schedules were very similar, with a few additions, like Social Emotional Learning at Stephen Gaynor School, and more field trips at LREI. Those questions were both fairly easy to answer, and I was able to get answers within the first few days. Overall, my time felt much more about gaining experience in classrooms, with classroom management, and with different types of learners.

I definitely met my goals and expectations for this project. Starting out, my goals were mainly about learning what it’s like to be in a classroom in general, and learning what it’s like to be in a classroom geared towards students with learning differences, and I absolutely am coming away with a huge amount of real-world experience. Even though at Stephen Gaynor, my role was mostly observational, I learned a huge amount about lesson planning, classroom management, and the different ways things can be shifted and expanded to fit the individual learner. At LREI, I had much more of a hands-on role and I felt much more integrated into the classroom, which aligned more with my initial goal. In having the hands-on role, I was able to have more hands-on experience, doing things like reading a book to the class, taking groups from place to place, and assisting in different lessons. 

 I knew going in that my challenges would be about expanding my comfort zone in places I wasn’t immediately familiar or comfortable in and learning to work more independently. For the most part, I was right about what my challenges were going to be, except that learning to work independently became more about learning to take initiative and not have to be given directions to get something done. The challenges were more present at Stephen Gaynor, where I wasn’t familiar with the school or the culture, and it took me a few days to figure out exactly what my place was and what routines I could be a part of, but after a little while, I felt like I was able to step out of my comfort zone. Looking back, I wish I had spent a little bit more time working on working with the class as a whole, but I made some really strong individual connections, and I learned a lot about the curriculum. At LREI, my transition felt pretty seamless, and a lot was already in my comfort zone, so I had to work hard to not get too complacent, which was mostly about classroom management and working with the larger group. The only way for me to get passed that was to really just do it, so there were a few times when I was able to give directions or keep the attention of the whole class for a while, which felt like a really big accomplishment.

This project definitely raised a lot of questions about privilege for me, my own privilege, and the privilege of the students I was working with. A huge flaw in my planning process was that I chose two schools that serve predominantly white populations. Besides the fact that the students at Gaynor have learning differences, they are much like the students at LREI in most other demographics. When researching which schools to work at, I reached out to a few D75 (public school special education programs), but I didn’t pursue other perspectives as much as I could have and should have, which really just comes down to my whiteness and the communities I come from. Beyond that, I had a lot of questions about privilege in special education: are students of color overrepresented or underrepresented? What kinds of special education programs do SOC end up in? What kinds of teachers end up in schools like Gaynor? 

This project has absolutely reaffirmed the ideas I have about what I want to do. Working with kids, regardless of learning background, is one thing that I can say with confidence that I’m good at, and after this experience, I know that it’s something I really love to do. I’m really proud of the ways I was able to engage in different classes and with different types of students, I really feel like I showed up and worked hard and learned a lot.