I am the teacher for a Site Based Day Treatment (SBDT) program at the biggest high school in a high-need community in California. SBDT is the fancy name for a special class serving students with the disability of emotional disturbance. I teach Geometry, English, World History, U.S. History, and Economics to 9-12 graders. My students stay in my room for 3 or 4 periods a day and join the mainstream for P.E., electives, and sometimes one academic course.
All of my students struggle with severe mental health issues, ranging from bipolar disorder to oppositional-defiant disorder to schizophrenia. A few of them are academically on track but need a more structured classroom environment to deal with behavioral challenges. Other students are far below grade level because of their disability Many of them have endured trauma. Half of my students live in group homes or in foster care, and all of them come from disadvantaged households. Their backgrounds mean they have had limited or sporadic access to any culture besides their own
Every day I am shocked by the limited range of experience my students have. Many of them have never left the city they live in; none of my current students have left the country. Again and again, I find myself struggling to use words to describe abstract ideas and foreign experiences to my students. Many of them are visual learners, and they have a really difficult time conceptualizing things without images to relate the words to. As I prepare my lessons I repeatedly come across images and video clips that I want to show to my students. The text books we use have pre-made power point presentations and movies that I can't use because I don't have the technology. The special education department used to have a projector but it was stolen over the summer and there isn’t enough money to buy a new one.
A small donation toward my classroom would make an enormous difference. A projector would help me engage my students in academic tasks; it would help me broaden their experience with visual information from around the country and the world; a digital projector would expand my options as an educator, and would empower my students as learners.
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