Kristy Westfall

Service Learning Experience
September 24, 2007 3hrs.
15 hrs. total

Wow, what a day! I had a few unique experiences happen today. First, "A" was walking around the room so I went over to her and asked if anything was wrong. She said, "I have to go to the bathroom." I said, "Okay, you can go." Her aide had left the room to return some books to the library and "A" had seemed to be doing okay. As she went into the bathroom, she began to get upset and started to raise her voice. She wanted me to stay in the bathroom with her. I said, "How about if I keep my foot in the crack of the door and keep my hand inside." The bathroom is inside the classroom and Mrs. F was right there when this was happening. My body and head were outside the bathroom. "A" was okay with this and things were okay for the rest of my time there. When her aide came back, I told her what happened. She said that was normal for her. Her mom is aware of it and the aide does exactly the same thing that I did. This experience took me by surprise because, as we all know, you are not to be alone with a student in that type of situation. But, I thought it was good to write about because it could possibly happen once we are teaching.
Next, a second autistic child in this class began coming for the whole morning. "B" spends half of the day in the autistic class and is now trying to spend the whole morning instead of a few hours in the class. Today was the first day of this. Quite interesting. "B" was yelling out in class, pulling up his shirt, and did not want to stay on task with the class. He was especially upset when his center group did not get as many points as other groups. Points are given for the quietest group, the cleanest group, and the group that completes the task at the center. I noticed that centers are better since this has been implemented. "B" was taking the points personally and was not quite comfortable with it.