Help me give my students the tools to present their 'best self' everyday in their internship. I teach my students the importance of hygiene - these personal hygiene supplies will be the tools they need to be successful!
I teach high school students with intellectual and developmental disabilities who are in their final year of school. The students in my class spend five hours of their day at a business in the community learning vocational skills. The rest of school is spent learning independent living skills and social skills.
The goal is that the students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in my class will be employed by the time they complete high school.
Nationally, only twenty-six percent of individuals with intellectual disabilities are employed full-time. My goal is for all of the students I teach to be employed!
My Project
Life Skills is part of the curriculum in every special education classroom- one of the most important life skills an individual can learn is good hygiene. My class of high school students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, who are in their final year of school, still need these skills taught or reinforced. My students participate in 3 ten-week internships throughout their final year of school. Each morning when they arrive in the classroom, my students complete a hygiene checklist, indicating which hygiene tasks they completed that morning. The hygiene tasks include applying deodorant, brushing teeth, washing face, and wearing a clean uniform. Of course, there are days when my students are unable to check off each task as 'complete'.
My students face a lot of challenges in the workplace, poor hygiene does not need to be one of those challenges!
Although the goal is for my students to complete all hygiene tasks at home, I first need to teach them to complete these tasks (if they don't know how to already) in the learning environment. Once the students have mastered their ability to complete each task, they will take a hygiene checklist home so that they have a visual reminder that they can refer to as they prepare for work each day. After a year of instruction, visual and verbal reminders, completing the hygiene tasks independently should be routine. My students will be prepared for a job by learning marketable skills in their internship and by having good hygiene and looking professional in the workplace.
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