Teacher as Guide

While reading chapter 3 in the Marintello and Cook book, I was very interested in learning the different teaching styles that are adapted in integrated learning. Before this chapter, I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around how I would fit into the world of interdisciplinary curriculum. I have always been the person with a plan. I can be flexible with my plan, but I need to walk into a classroom with ideas and an outline in hand. So while reading the first couple of chapters in our assigned books, I was beginning to think that this teaching method was not for me. In my mind, an integrated curriculum teacher was only equipped with a theme and then the rest of the curriculum for that class was a "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of structure. This style of teaching would give me a headache every night and I would lose sleep. However, as I read more into the teaching roles, I found one that I think would fit my personal teaching style. I like the idea of presenting a theme to a class and them giving them options on how to approach that theme. I am all for students experimenting and trying to find their own meaning within that theme, but I also feel that students need structure, foundation, and guidelines to follow in order to really blossom. Last year, I observed a classroom that had, for the most part, very little structure. Each child was working on his/her own project. This project came from a class theme and then the children were welcomed to go work within that theme any way they chose. These kids were bouncing off the walls. Each child was doing his/her own work (to and extent) and the teacher did not have enough time to get to each child because no one was on the same page. I would say that about 5 out of the 20 children were actually working on their projects,while the rest of the class were playing games, reading, talking to each other. There was no structure...and it drove me nuts. However, I feel that there can be (and should be) a happy medium. Children need guidance. Children need structure and direction and need to be able to work within classroom parameters. But I also feel that they need to be able to use their talents and be able to find and create different methods on how to do and present their work. This is why I am fond of the Teacher as a Guide role. I also feel that this role works well with the type of children I work with. Working, primarily, with children who have autism, I see many of my kids not keeping up with their classmates. Listening to a teacher lecture for 30 minutes, and then having to do pencil/paper work is not affective learning for a lot of my kids. They need to be more hands on and more involved in the process in order to prosper. I hope to be able to provide this teaching model for them because I want nothing more than for them to succeed!