Walk-In's Welcome

If you've ever had the opportunity to walk through the halls of an elementary school, there should be several huge, glaring nuances that catch your eye. However, let's say you have not been inside an elementary school since 5th-6th grade graduation. In case you haven't noticed, there have been monumental changes to the way our students are given individual instruction time.

Students are being "grouped" according to academic level, only to more different extremities.

While Response To Intervention (RTI) may seem like a relatively new concept, teachers and administrators have always had their own ways to utilize it.  I wholeheartedly believe that teachers act purely based upon the needs of students, which is a good thing.

I guess the real question that I'm trying to get at is this:

Is intervention the real solution?

So very often, we want to believe that, as educators, we can "fix" the way our students think, read, write, communicate, and see. But what if we are taking the wrong approach to how we deal with student needs? What if we could reassess the needs of both our schools and students? As Grant Wood says, "We can't intervene our way out of ineffective core instruction."

What if we took a look at what is being thrown at students before we actually throw it? There is so much potential in our students, if only we take a look at what is truly inside of them. I will admit that intervention is important. So very, very important. Providing students with extra help has and always will be a necessity. An educational right, even.

However, educators may be intervening on the wrong side of the desk. We will always have students who need the nudge or extra time, but should we be classifying every single student in the United States? If I have learned anything this week, it would be the importance of giving every student the right to an equal education. Herding students like cattle into individual stalls creates a divisive wall between students who are above and below average.

Maybe it is time to take a look at the instructional methodologies and core content that we have been sticking to for so long. As Standard One of the NCPTS states, "Teachers [should] advocate for positive change in policies and practices affecting student learning." Part of this includes speaking up for policy revision as necessary.  If I were a teacher right now, I would see what I could do for my students so that they are not wasting their time going through the motions of a system known as RTI. This is also written around Standard 4, which represents the need for "teachers [to] plan instruction appropriate for their students."

I want to take what I have learned from this reflection on intervention, and apply it to my future classroom. I have learned a great deal this week from the #edtalk on Twitter this past week.  I can clearly see that intervention is a frustration for many educators, and I cannot wait to see what changes come in the future.