All Means All

It has been an terrible couple weeks. Not because of school, but because I have been sick and I just cannot get over it. I am uncomfortable, a bit ornery, an really tired. My class has not suffered because of a wonderful program called student teaching. My student teacher took over about three weeks ago and has done a wonderful job adjusting to our flipped model.
I bring this up because I have been doing everything I can to get over this sickness. I took a day off and slept the whole day, I have been pounding the Vitamin C like there is no tomorrow. I have taken different forms of medicine to try them all out. The one thing I have not done is slow down much. I have college classes I am taking, an endorsement class, a student teacher (I still need to do the planning and lesson building with him), and I still have this habit of learning more about what to do in class. So I guess I have not been doing everything. I need to take some time off and relax. That just might help me get over this sickness.
Which brings me to my main point. If we look at learning as being healthy and not learning as a sickness, why are we not always trying to do everything possible to get our students to learn? I was reading the book "Simplifying Response to Intervention" and there was a part that said, "All students can learn, except the ones we decide cannot." It goes on to say that we say that all students can learn ann yet we pick out a couple in our classes that we feel will never learn. They are the ones that tend to cause all the problems. They are the ones that we tired off telling the same thing to over and over. The authors go on to say that, "all students mean all students that will someday be financially responsible adults.“ So if they are not learning, we need to treat that situation as a sickness and try everything possible to get that student to learn. Programs, interventions, differentiation, before school programs, after school programs, and even those things that are out of the ordinary.
There is a sickness in some our classrooms that needs to be taken care of. It makes us uncomfortable and the first solution we think of is to not worry about it. That does not take care of the problem, it only keeps it hanging on and transfers it to another teacher. Don't give up or forget any student in the class, or any class. I think of the show Phineas and Ferb. Dr. Doofenschirtz is a problem, and yet all the stories he eludes to when talking about why he is doing something evil tell about something bad that happened to him when he was young. He is looking for love and acceptance.
So what do we do? Keep working and finding solutions. If there is a kid that is making us uncomfortable because of the problems they are causing, find a solution. Do not put those kids off and let them by without finding a solution that works for them. All students can learn, means ALL students can learn. They deserve it.
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