At my favorite coffee shop, I am reveling in the fact that I am required to journal for EXC 625 at National University. Journaling has been important in my post-college development in every aspect of my life. I would have to say I have my "masters" of reflections with ten years and over ten journals. It is therapy for me. It helps me lay out thoughts, ideas, and emotions, then move them around over time.
I would like to also mark this month, and the end of my third class at National University. With the help of my wife's loving counsel, and diligent personal time spent working on ideas, I have cracked through a barrier I have had with institutionalized education in the last two weeks. Granted, it's a small crack right now. However, I am getting my work done by putting my head down, and hitting the keyboard. I believe that I am reaching this break through because I am gaining confidence in myself and in my ideas; that the education system can take on a new form, a new life, from the wreckage of our current way. Major love to everyone who is a teacher in these times!

This is a reflection on the past 1-2 weeks as I take EXC 625 at National University; children with exceptions in the classroom.
I have made an exception for myself on my assignments which is oddly fitting. This class "as is", would not do me half as good as if it were geared towards working with special ed students in a shop setting. I modified some assignments(classroom observation) to give me an opportunity to look at the shop classroom from this perspective. There seems to be something that a shop classroom has that an academic classroom lacks. Further, it seems that special ed students generally do better in a shop environment, than in an academic classroom.
The question is then begged;

"Are some learners simply being excluded in the academic classroom approach in general?".

By making this modification to the assignments I am opening up a path I believe is important to study and bring new meaning to in order to bring back the Industrial Arts as a foundation in our schools.

I started this week wondering how I can write about observing Hyde's woodshop for mainstream Special Ed students and how they and their support staff function. I ended the week in a chance meeting with a SJUSD math teacher with a special ed credential while meeting with Prof. Kimo. This offered up a juicy modification for my observation assignment. During a visit to his private shop, we talked about how to teach math through a shop setting. We talked around an example he brought to the table of a middle school student that had drawn a 9 page schematic of a complex machine she had thought of to remove dust. However, as I understand it, this student has very little chance of ever passing Algebra in a general education classroom setting. Is she exceptional, or is she being somehow excluded?

(photo credit: Thanks lawson 8th grader 08')
I spent the better part of 2008 substitute teaching in SDC(Special Day Classes) classrooms in Cupertino Union School District. I started that year(2008) only being called for Instructional Aid positions all across the SDC board in k-5. I was fresh from positive experiences in elemetary school and Middle school as a sub and wanting to stay in my comfort zone. By the holidays I was getting frustrated and I was still working with different special needs kids almost daily. They ranged from gifted and blind, to obnoxious and rude and everything in between. I worked with a blind 6th grader who I got to know fairly well. I have run after kids out of the classroom and around a playground because that's what they were want to do all day. I have listened to teens talk openly about all the medications they are on. I have seen SDC teachers in their worst and best times(those are sometimes in the same day), and I feel deeply that these people are saints for their efforts and for their just being there.

This is a brief summary of resources about the California Assembly Bill(2648) Multiple Pathways for vocational education paths in public schools. It is a resource for my own record as I work on an Industrial Arts teaching credential, and help develop ideas and a program that will leverage this policy while helping drive it's development through discussion. Presently I have not been able to find any internet discussion about the Bill other than this web forum hosted by WestEd, which is now closed.