As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve never really worked in a moderate/severe classroom before or with students who have moderate/severe disabilities.

So, earlier in the school year, our SpED supervisor had me go observe another mod/severe teacher at an elementary school nearby.

It was through this teacher that I understood how to better develop my independent stations so kids could build up their on-task behavior working on things they could do independently. She said, not only did these stations help her kids build stamina to work but it freed her up to do more individualized instruction because that’s what the kiddos needed.

Before leaving her room, she told me about this program called LessonPix where she pulled all her visual icons from. For their visual schedules, for their stations, for their communication boards.

She said, “Don’t let this overwhelm you. This has all taken me 17 years to create and organize. I built upon it every year I’ve been teaching. A good place to start is just doing a three-drawer system for one of your kids and build from there.”

So, the following week, I started to work on this three-bin system for one of my little ones. I remembered what she had told me about LessonPix being a good place for icons for her task boxes.

I liked that one of the icons she used for her beginning-level 3-drawer system had both the number symbol and the word.

So, I pulled up the website, logged in, and typed in “numbers” in the search feature. Everything that popped up were only the number symbols. None of the icons were showing me what I had seen in her room. 

I spent an additional 25 minutes browsing the website after school. Convinced they must be on it because they were in her classroom. I was frantic, trying to get it set up for the following day and I also needed to work on an IEP.

Frustrated that I couldn’t find it, I closed the computer and drove home to work some more.

On the car ride home, I had this “aha!” moment that made me feel REALLY DUMB. I realized that I had spent so much time searching for number icons on this website that had both the word and the number symbol. When it was something I could have easily made on Microsoft Word in 30 seconds or less.

When I got home, I scrambled out of the car, ran up to the apartment, and opened up my computer. As I had predicted, it took me no more than 50 seconds to make these icons and print them.

It made me realize just how in-the-fog we are when we are bogged down with so many responsibilities. I couldn’t think straight. Everything felt black or white to me. I lost my ability to problem solve because I was so hyper-focused on doing it “the right way.” The way that I had been told.

That has happened a lot over the course of this school year.

Everything feels different and I feel like I need to follow things to a T in order to get the outcome I want.

It’s comparable to following a recipe as an inexperienced cook. When you’re making something you’ve never made before, you buy all the ingredients it lists and don’t stray from the precise amounts and the detailed directions.

But as you grow more confident in the kitchen, you wing it a little better. You don’t always need your measuring cups. You eyeball your seasonings and can easily substitute “this” for “that” when you’re missing something.

But when you’re in the kitchen for the first time, you can’t substitute. You don’t know how to do a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g so you think the only way to produce delicious food is by following the recipe exactly as it is listed.

Anyway, all this to say that it’s January now. And, though it’s not 17 years of experience, I’m more experienced today than I was back in August.

And I also recognize that, sometimes, the best way to problem solve things pertaining to my classroom is to shut my laptop and walk out of my classroom. My brain doesn’t function well at the end of the day. After it’s had to make a zillion decisions all day long.

Sometimes, just stepping away from it all is the best way to find what you’re looking for.

I’m happy to report that, as of last night, my independent station corner is coming along really well! Again, this has been built very slowly. And it’s not organized in any sort of categorical way (e.g. numbers, letters, fine motor activities, etc).

Eventually, I’ll get there.

But, for now, I am just happy that I’m building.

Slowly but surely.

Question of the Day:

Was there a time in your life when the solution was really quite simple but you were so “IN THE THICK OF IT” that you couldn’t think straight? What eventually led you to the solution?