Tom Hall is a new paraeducator working in a middle school classroom with a special education teacher, Annie Simpson. Ms. Simson is Tom’s mentor and is responsible for providing guidance, support, and regular check-ins to help him adjust to his role.
Annie arrives for their meeting with a cup of coffee and an armful of papers, which she drops onto her desk. “Sorry, Tom – it’s been one of those days. So, what did you want to talk about?”Â
Tom is feeling stressed after a difficult week managing the classroom. He’s struggling to engage one of his students, Jake, who has autism and can be easily overwhelmed by sensory overload. Tom has been trying different strategies but feels that nothing is working.Â
Tom schedules a meeting with Annie, hoping to get some guidance. He is wondering: does the issue lie in the strategies themselves, or in his implementation? Or perhaps, is he misinterpreting Jake’s responses? Tom is hoping to get some insights from his mentor.
Tom relates his struggles with Jake; Annie nods and says, “I understand.” Assuming that Tom does not understand the strategies, she reviews the purpose and steps for implementing the strategies. When Tom tries to clarify that he understands the purpose and the steps but can’t figure out why they’re not working, Annie offers alternate strategies. She goes to her filing cabinet and brings out folders containing other strategies Tom might try. Again, Tom tries to focus the conversation on his specific concerns around getting to the root of the problem, but Annie spends the remainder of the meeting sharing stories of students with similar challenges she has taught in the past. She also observes that Tom is looking tired and needs to make sure he is getting enough rest – then proceeds to share her own attempts at making time for herself. Â
Their scheduled meeting time runs out; Tom leaves the meeting frustrated, with no deeper understanding of his issue and no clear next steps.
In the previous unit, we discussed active listening as a key skill in relationship building. We can see in this scenario that the absence of active listening is certainly an obstacle to effective communication. What other obstacles to effective communication do you notice? How might the mentor have better understood the para’s needs? How might their meeting have been more productive? These are some of the questions we will answer in Unit 4.