Running head: ASSIGMENT

Service Learning Experience & Reflection

Mawi Mawi
Ivy Tech Community College

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For this assignment, I chose Easter Seals Crossroads: Disability and Special Needs
Services located in 4740 Kingsway Drive, Indianapolis, Indiana as my volunteering site. I spent
more than two hours each day for four days to complete ten hours volunteering. It was really fun
and most importantly, I have an opportunity to learn more about children with disabilities from
my volunteer experience.
The first thing I noticed about is that the classroom. It is like an apartment and is located
in the second floor of the building. It has the kitchen area, living room (in my opinion), one
bedroom, bathroom, and one additional extra room. In the kitchen area, there are oven, stove,
refrigerator, sink and ceiling cabinet where the teacher used to store her things, such as snacks,
cups, plastic spoon etc. Half of the main room is used for toys in the shelves, some blocks, cars
and all kinds of toys. Some tables and chairs are set in the other half of the main room where
students are doing some activities with adults. Three long tables with six chairs around are set up
for daily activities and snack times. There is a book nook at the corner. In the room next to the
main room, there are a set of TV with DVD player, and some DVDs. Confortable chairs are set
in front of the TV. Since the room is big enough, there are sand table, another set of table and
chairs. I did not notice the light changing, but some of students works and drawing are hang on
the wall.
The classroom is a special education for children with disabilities; but it is especially
designed for parents night out. Therefore; amount of students is not stable. Along with them,
there are a few general children who are the siblings of children with disabilities. We can say that
this classroom is kind of inclusion classroom, but it is not a classroom where the teacher pushes
in, pulls out. All the lead teacher and assistants stay until the end when the children leave. There
are about 7 to 8 adults in the classroom, all of them are really capable with children. The way

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they talk and their tone are normal. They dont use different tone because children are special
needs. The room is non-threatening and playful area. The students are playing by themselves and
with others, and interacting with others. The classroom is not different with general classroom.
At the first day of my service learning, there are 15 students, and at my second day the
amount of student decreases to 12. On my third day, there are 17 students and 13 students on my
last day. The class period starts at 6 PM and ends at 10 PM. Between 6 PM to 6:30 PM are
students arrival time. As students arrive, we wrote their names on the sticker and stick on their
back. 6:30 PM to 8 PM is students choices activity. Some of them are hanging in the TV room
and dancing together. Some of them are playing with toys and blocks on the carpet. Some of
them are working on the table where some do playing dough and other activities such as
coloring, dropping color in the soda tray etc. At 8 PM, we go outside and do outdoor activities
for about half an hour or 45 minutes. After coming back from outside, it is snack time. Between
9 PM to 10 PM is the time for teachers choices activity and movie time. Students have to work
with adults on the table, and some are watching movie and playing. At 10, students leave.
In the classroom, I think that teachers and assistants are not really strict with students
behaviors and discipline. I think that the psychology is different compared to general classroom.
Teachers never scold the students, and also there is no disciplinary control action, such as timeout etc. Teachers try to use soft or normal voice when children do something wrong, and they try
to lead students to the right way by using words. For teachers choices activity, students have to
make their own balloon-egg covered with baking powder and newspaper, but students are not
forced to make one if they dont want to do. In general classroom, students have to do the
activity when their turn comes. They are not allowed to refuse. In developmental classroom,
students do not have to do something that they dont want to do, likewise; teachers dont stop

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them if they want to continue the activity. Teachers need to have ability to manage behavior
problems. Many students with disabilities have behavior problems in addition to their other
exceptionalities. Special education teachers must be able to deal effectively with more than the
usual troublesome behavior of students (Hallahan, Kauffman, Pullen, 2014, pg. 37). In the above
scenario, teachers deal effectively when it comes to students behavior problems.
Most of the things in the classroom are just as my expectation. The first thing I noticed in
this classroom was the ratio of adults and students. At least eight adults are with the students.
Sometimes, we could work one-on-one with students since we had enough adults in the
classroom. In special education, the important accommodation that needed for special needs
students is extra adults and assistants in the classroom. In general, one lead teacher and an
instructional aid is enough, however; in special needs classroom, the more the amount of adults,
and the better for the children. Making maximum effort to accommodation individual students
needs is one of the expectations of all educators (Hallahan, Kauffman & Pullen, 2014, pg. 35).
There was a boy who has disability of hard of hearing as well as low vision. I noticed that every
times the adult talk not only with used words but also with touch and action. Sometimes they
touched his face and show fingers or hand at the same time to draw his attention whenever they
wanted him something to do. In cued speech individual uses hand shapes to represent specific
sounds while speaking (Hallahan, Kauffman & Pullen, 2014, pg. 278). Another little boy had
glasses on and was always busy with his plying, and never pays attention to anybody in the
room. He played by himself, did not interacted with others, and he just took toys from others
without asking if he wanted it. Other thing that I noticed in the classroom was that a boy was
throwing tantrum. That boy was exhausted and wanted to go to sleep, however; he just threw
tantrum and run away without telling anybody what he wanted. In this textbook, children with

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disabilities make a fuss when nobody realizes what they want to do. This kind of incidents
happens all the time in the special needs classroom because there are always some
misunderstanding between teachers and students. A balance between behavioral control and
academic instruction is one of the major educational considerations regarding emotional or
behavioral disorder (Hallahan, Kauffman, Pullen, 2014. pg. 206).
There are three siblings who are diagnosed with the same genetic disorder which just
makes me believed that some disabilities are depending on genes, generation and inheritance.
Among the siblings, the youngest boys situation and symptom looks the worst compared to the
other two. Some genetic disorders are inherited from the parents, while other genetic diseases are
caused by acquired changes or mutations in a preexisting gene or group of genes
(MedicineNet.com, 2015).
To be honest, I was a bit nervous to volunteer in special education classroom. I thought
that it was going to be really tough and children would be out of control. I thought that there will
be a lot of throwing tantrum, crying, screaming and incidents going on in the classroom, but in
reality, most of the children with disabilities act like children without disabilities. Early in the
19th century, children with intellectual disabilities and emotional or behavioral disabilities are
referred to idiotic and insane children, and the first systematic attempts were made to
educate these children (Hallahan, Kauffman, Pullen, 2014. pg. 9). In reality, these children
played happily, draw some pictures neat and nice. We teachers know their habits, such as things
that they like and they dont, unnecessary incidents wont happen.
In order to create affective instructions in teaching special education, ability to
task analyze the steps required, personnel needed, and environmental supports necessary

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are needed. In this scholastic article, the author states a few steps of affective teaching
practice for special educators.

Collaborate to improve the experiences of students with disabilities in physical

education in order to meet overall health goals as well as specific IEP goals
relating to academic and social skills,

Use the BRIDGES (Build, Recruit, Individualize, Dialogue, Generate, Empower,

and Strengthen) framework to promote strong school-home connections (Sayeski,
2015).
Before students are assigned for parent-night-out program at Easter Seals

Crossroad, they need to fill the form that includes the information about the children,
such as students name, diagnose, health situation, medical or food allergies, their
behaviors and so on. The main goal for this form is to build the connection between
parents and teachers, and also students and teachers so that teachers can aware of what to
expect about the children and make instructional plan for the classroom. Before the
children arrived, the lead teacher gave brief information about each child to prepare our
expectation. This also is the method she used for collaboration to make small wins.
I really enjoyed my service learning experience. It gave me not only the chances
to meet with students with different disabilities but also to observe the students and the
strategies and methods used by teachers. I am pretty sure that I will be able to use my
experience in the future.

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References
Hallahan, P. D., Kauffman, M. J., and Pullen, C. P. (2014). Exceptional Learners: An Introduction to
Special Education. New York. NY: Pearson.

Sayeski, K. L. (2015). Big Picture, Small Details. Teaching Exceptional Children. 47(3).
Retrieved from EBSCOhost database. Ivy Tech Community College database,
http://web.b.ebscohost.com.indianapolis.libproxy.ivytech.edu.allstate.libproxy.ivytech.ed
u/ehost/detail/detail?vid=10&sid=68582b56-4975-48b7-95e27701a2d75d52%40sessionmgr114&hid=123&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d
%3d#db=aph&AN=100096979
MedicineNet.com. (2015). We Bring Doctors Knowledge to You. Genetic Disorders Overview.
Retrieved from http://www.medicinenet.com/genetic_disease/article.htm

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