fat city

Fat City Frustration, anxiety, and tension the perfect storm for an underachieving student. In the video FAT city Rick Lavoie runs a workshop to help understand what a learning disabled child go’s through every day inside a classroom. Things that a normal student would be able to comprehend with minimal effort could be a colossal struggle for a student with a learning disability. It was an eye opener to people who haven’t been in the classroom and Lavoie used many exercises to put the average person in the shoes of someone with a learning disability. The statement that made had me thinking the most was his view on sarcasm in the classroom. I’m a sarcastic person and although I may have good intentions with my sarcasm I never thought about how it could feel to a student in the classroom. He said that sarcasm creates a victim whether it’s a normal student and especially a learning disabled student. He used the example of when someone answers slowly and you make a sly remark everyone may have a good laugh about it, but the person who was singled out will be thinking about that the rest of the day. This was a perspective that I was not conscious of because I don’t get embarrassed. The thought never occurred to me that people might take my sarcasm personally and this would result in a worse learning environment, less rapport with students, and lowering the confidence of one of my students. Lavoie hit home with me on that one instead of thinking about getting some laughs I should be concerned with how my students are going to feel if they are singled out. Fostering an environment of openness and caring will help much more then singling people out when you want to act funny.