Hello my name is Tomas Esquijarosa and I am a student at Miami Dade College Kendall Campus.

This is an assignment for Human Diversity in Education (EDF2085) taught online by Dr. Aile Montoya.

During the summer of 2014 I interviewed for the position of paraprofessional* at Cutler Ridge Middle School.

I was interviewed by the school’s principal Mr. Paul Pfeiffer. I was offered the job but I had to turned it down because it was part-time and I was looking for a full-time position.

The experience left me with a curiosity for Special Education and I vowed to follow my intuition and pursue my curiosity.

Shortly after I enrolled in this class I contacted the assistant principal at CRMS, Ms. Wendy Garcia-Costa and expressed my interest in doing my 15 hours of Service Learning at that location. She recommended to do them under the supervision of Mrs. Ana Luisa Deliz, one of the senior educators in the Special Education

Department and that has been an experience that I will never forget.

Please follow me on this assignment I will try to introduce you to this fascinating field.

* According to Wikipedia

Paraprofessional is a job title given to persons in various occupational fields, such as education, healthcare, engineering and law, who are trained to assist professionals but do not themselves have professional licensure.

Mrs. Ana Luisa Deliz

Special Education

I met Mrs. Deliz October 3, 2014.

The meeting took place on a Friday and my visitation schedule was between Noon and 3:00PM. I scheduled it that way to allow myself enough time to coach at Gulliver Middle School later in the afternoon.

I learned that the division that she is part of is made out of four teachers, two paraprofessionals a full time nurse.

The day is divided into blocks and the students are rotated around the day to accommodate their schedule which includes a lunch break of 30 minutes.

The student population is made out of six, seventh and eighth graders and it looks evenly balanced between Hispanics and blacks, boys and girls. No Anglos.

Unique Learning

System

The rest of the professional team is made out of:

Ms. Font, Math

Ms. Sands, Language Arts and

Mr. Cabrera, PE and Special Olympics.

Ms. Colleen Clarke RN (pictured)

The group works together and efficiently.

It is my intention to get to know them better as the weeks go by.

Because of the special needs of the students a variety of activities are offered and they range from computer activities, watching movies or simply doing puzzles.

On this particular day there was a school lockdown (due to an incident in a near by school) and all was handled well.

There was an event that took place at the end of the day that caught my eye and I will share it with you.

The students are required to behave.

I was impressed with the persistence of the teachers. There are no exceptions to this rule however the students know that if they behave well they are rewarded at the end of the week.

The department has a scoring sheet where they tally the weekly results and at the end of the day on Fridays they parade in front of all the classes and teachers and get their rewards. They are praised if they did well and reprimanded by reminding them if they did not do well that they have try harder. This can be a touching moment because at this stage they all want a treat.

The department has a “store” which is located in a closet. It contains donations that they have received from parents and other sources. If the student tallies less than two zeros they can opt for the “store” or other goodies. It makes it for a very rewarding experience just before they about to go home for the weekend.

In the following slide you will find examples of what the Weekly Pay sheets look s like.

*Behavior in this demonstration means= following directions, completing classwork, safety, dressed properly.

BLANK FORM STUDENT FORM

Food for Your BodyLevel H/I

by Kathy Staugler

Illustrated by Travis Schaeffer

I selected this activity for a few reasons:

• It allow the student to take the activity home and work with the parents or guardians.

• The activity required a film presentation that participation was encouraged by the teacher. During the showing of the film, the teacher would pause and engaged the class with intellectual questions.

• The activity also required classroom participation in a form of cut and paste.

I will include examples in the following slides.

The 15 hour experience for me was short.

My intention is to learn more about this field.

This is an unexplored world for me. It is challenging and it fascinates me. This experience touched my heart

and I am glad that I was able to be part of it.

Thank you goes to the school administration, Mrs. Deliz and the rest of the staff.

I leave you with some captions of the classroom I visited.

Tomas Esquijarosa