A Need for Help
Do you know a student that needs help but cannot receive it because the school does not have a resource room? Or do you know a student that was able to achieve more in school than many people thought they would because they got help from a resource room? Many schools are blessed to have a resource room in their school and are able to help students that are in need of some extra assistance. Resource rooms are a great way for students to get the one-on-one attention that they need. With every school’s resource room, there will be a different set of faulty to help out in the resource room. With different facilities they may do some things a little different then how some other resource rooms are run. No matter how the room is run, it is still there to assist kids that need the extra time and attention. Resource rooms are there to help various kinds of students that need help in reading, writing or math. With the students getting help it will provide confidence and the help them to exceed.
Resource rooms are a great way for students to get one-on-one attention that they may need to improve their academic skills. They can get help with reading or math, or they can get help with both of the subjects if they need it. With the students getting the assistance that they need, they can improve test scores and grades in the subjects. With the students getting the one on one attention that they need they are able to ask any kinds of questions that they may have without feeling like the other students in the class are judging them. I myself have experienced being in a resource room. The resource room was not as high quality as some of them found in schools today. Still, we still would read the same material as any other resource rooms would do. Going there to get help with reading about two times a week, I would read stories out loud to the teacher and then have to answer questions about the readings. Reading in the resource room and messing up was not a big deal or a worry I had; knowing that no one there was judging me made reading a lot easier. Knowing no one was there to judge I become a lot more comfortable and faster reader.
With being able to feel more comfortable and relaxed, resource rooms can also be a great help for students that are not doing well in math or reading. Being able to go to the resource room for any of those subjects, provides the students with will be able to get a double dip of the subject that they are struggling with. Going to the resource room after they have already had the subject like math in the normal class room, gives the student that need help with math, another taste of what they learned in the classroom. With the student being able to learn a little more on the subject, they will have full comprehension on what they have to know. If they did not fully understand in the classroom they will be able to work on it in the resource room until they fully understand it. This will allow the students to not fall behind farther then everyone in the class. If they can learn what everyone else learned that day they will be able to stay on track better with the class. Steven, a boy that was in my 5th grade class, also went to a resource room. In the morning, we would have our math class and then in the afternoon he would go to the resource room and learn the same thing we did in the morning only he would have different problems but would have to use the same skills that we learned earlier that day. With him being able to work on the problems more than once a day, he would sometimes understand better than those of us that did not have the extra assistance. Because of the help that he was getting, he was also doing better on his tests. As the year progressed, he did not have to go anymore because he was able to learn the material with only having one dip of the subject, not two.
While getting my education I have seen the reason why having a resource room is so important. Not only from a personal experience, but also after following a teacher this year and having a student in the classroom that needed the extra help. Going into the education system with hopes of being a teacher myself, I understand why we need to have resource rooms in schools. Without them, students will start falling behind, or the class will, because the teacher will have to slow down her teaching to make sure that everyone understands the material that they need to learn. Without a resource room I do not think I would have been able to be as successful as I was with my schooling. I would have fallen behind and become stressed out that I was not as smart as the other students in my class. Seeing a student who has to go to a resource room now shows me the importance of this service. Some students still need the extra help, and if they do not get it they will fall behind just like me in grade school. When I become I teacher I am sure that there will be students that will also need to go into a resource room. If they do not get the help that they need they may fall behind and never catch up, or I might need to give them some more one-on-one attention until they fully gasp the material. If the teacher giving more one-on-one attention was to happen, it may take away from the other students who are ready to move on during the next class. If I was to work with a student on math a little longer, it may hold the whole class back from moving into science. Not having a resource room in the school system will hurt many students, not only those that directly benefit from their services, but everyone.
Some people out there may think that resource rooms are not needed and they are just a big waste of money, time, along with the notion that the students are missing out on other important things during the day like art or P.E. To start up a resource room takes money, and sometimes the money that a school does not have or does not want to invest in. They will have to hire some more staff and it may have to be a person with a special degree so they know how to handle a resource room. They might also have to spend money on some different materials for the students to work with, to read, or to do problems with. Many schools do not want to fund for more books and materials or to hire new staff. They would rather put their money in different places like getting new books instead of helping the students that need more help.
Having a resource room also takes time; if a school does not get new staff and has to use staff they already have, it may cause some scheduling problems or force teachers to work over time. With teachers already putting in many long hours this can be very hard for them to find more time to work with the other students and come up with more work for the students that need the help. Teachers also have to work their schedule to make sure that the students will be able to get a double dip of the subjects. If the teacher is not able to come until the afternoon, they have to make sure that they have their reading and math aredone in the morning. This can cause problems if they have to fit specials like P.E. or music into their schedule in the morning. People also think that the students should not be taken out of the classroom. If they are taken out of class they may miss some other important information. Many people do not think that the students should have to miss out on specials like recess or music because they may be something the students really enjoy, and having the go to a resource room may seem like a punishment and they may not try to learn the information that they need to.
If the school is unable to fund a resource room, yet the administrators are putting their money towards something else, the school needs, they may be hurting their students more than they realize by not giving them the help that they need in a resource room. Time is something that teachers cannot buy, but if the teachers need to help out in the resource room or change their schedule around that is something that they may be able to do. It may take some time outside of school, but in the long run it will help the students out a lot more and the students will be able to learn and understand the material better. The students missing out on things like recess or music is not good, but if they can schedule it so that the students do not have to miss it all the time, maybe having them miss it every other week or one week they miss music but they will still be able to have P.E. and they week after that they can switch it around. Even with some negatives, they are nothing that cannot be fixed and worked out so that the students get the help they need. Being able to get one-on-one attention and a double dip of assignments is much better than having student fail knowing that teachers could have done something more to help them out. Future teachers should know that a resource room in schools is a much needed thing, and if the schools they are going to teach in not have one, they should encourage the school to get one. Having students fail and not allowing them to achieve all that they could be is not fair to them or their families. We should make sure that every school has a resource room and the students that need the help are getting the help that they need. We need to make sure that we are are not failing them and they are able to achieve all that they can be.
