Special Needs Meet ​“Life Skills” In Cross Class

When Wilbur Cross English teacher Margaret Stevens told her class of multilingual students that the word of the day was ​“invent,” her students put their fingers to their bottom lips to feel the vibrations as they pronounced the word aloud with a ​“va” sound rather than a ​“ba” sound more familiar to Spanish speakers. 

That exercise took place as part of a new effort at the East Rock public high school to teach ​“life skills” to students with special needs who are also still learning English, along with peer mentors, all in one class.

Stevens walked her students through that exercise on a recent Thursday in her English as a Second or foreign Language (ESL) Life Skills classroom at Wilbur Cross High School at 181 Mitchell Dr.

The class is brand new to Cross this year. It includes 14 students, the core of whom are special education students learning English, along with peer leaders who offer personal support to each student. 

This is the first year Cross has introduced an integrated life skills class for peer leaders, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students, and special education students to learn together. A majority of the ESOL students in Stevens’ Thursday class spoke Spanish as their dominant language. 

This is also Stevens’ first full year back teaching in New Haven’s public school district after leaving more than a decade ago from her first teaching experience at Fair Haven School. 

The school’s special education program typically has its students take life skills classes. This is the first time 10th and 11th grade peer leaders have been included.

Stevens’ classes focuses on building writing skills for students at varying levels of literacy and building students skills in self-advocacy and confidence. 

So far this year the class has explored what living with a disability means and that success is possible when skills are developed by learning about historic figures who, despite impairments, have successfully made positive changes in the world. 

Stevens added that the class ​“helps [students] to see that they’re only limited by their dreams and the support that they receive.” 

Stevens started Thursday’s class by putting a collage of images on the classroom smart board and asking the students which pictures matched their moods. The check in with how each student felt at the start of the class received responses like ​“sleepy” and ​“sad” from the students. 

“Que es un impedimento?” Stevens asked the class while reviewing the previous class discussions about what having a disability means. 

One student responded that a disability can affect one physically or mentally. 

“Are disabilities a problem?” Stevens followed up. 

Several students including Alyce shook their heads no. 

“Why not, Alyce?” Stevens asked. 

“Because it’s not bad,” Alyce responded. 

“What do people with disabilities need in order to be successful?” Stevens asked next. 

“Support,” responded Jeremy. 

“You need yourself,” Alyce added. 

Stevens asked Alyce to explain more. ​“Why do you need yourself, Alyce? Why is it important to believe in yourself?” 

“Because I always work hard and I never give up,” Alyce said. 

During the hour long class the students learned about French educator Louis Braille who invented the raised-dots reading and writing system called braille.

Before reading up on Braille, Stevens walked the students through an online vision simulation that showed the class the viewpoints of several eye conditions like glaucoma, cataracts, and diabetic retinopathy. 

“How hard might it be to read when you have these conditions?” Stevens asked. 

Several students answered, ​“Very hard.” 

Stevens then announced that the Thursday word of the day was: ​“invent.”

“Everybody practice saying the word ​‘invent,’ ” Stevens called out while putting her hand to her mouth to point to the movements of her lips as she said the word. 

“The ​‘V’ in Spanish is not the same as a ​‘V’ English. Put your teeth on your bottom lip and say ​‘va.’ Make it vibrate,” she said.

The students put their fingers to their bottom lips and practiced aloud pronouncing ​“va” instead of ​“ba” as the letter V would be pronounced in Spanish. 

To work around an impairment, Stevens said, one can invent something. Some students said they still didn’t understand exactly what the word means. She defined the word ​“invent” as creating something new.

As the students practiced sounding out the word they filled out a worksheet noting down how many syllables the word has and whether the syllables are open or closed. 

The class then moved into following along with a two-page reading that Stevens read aloud about Louis Braille’s life from losing his eyesight to creating the writing system braille. 

“Should all people learn to read?” Stevens asked while reading Braille’s story aloud. 

“Yes, because if you don’t learn to read how are you going to read a stop sign?” one student answered. 

“Why is it important to read?” Stevens followed up. 

Another student answered that it’s important so they can read text from their family in Spanish or English. 

“It’s a huge skill to read in Spanish and English,” Stevens said. 

“Why do you read, Tommy?” Stevens asked. 

“Aprendemos,” Tommy answered. 

After reading Braille’s bio, Stevens asked the students to review questions about the passage to confirm their understanding. 

“What did he create while he was blind?” she asked.

One student responded that his invention ​“helped people read” specifically for those with vision impairments. 

“Do you think that he felt proud of his work?” 

Alyce said ​“yes” and added she hopes to help people one day.

“I’m so proud of you, Alyce, you are my hardest working student even though you sometimes go through hard times,” Stevens said. 

Meanwhile another student, Catherine, said they don’t feel as proud of themselves. ​“I can’t do anything,” she said. 

Stevens disagreed and reminded Catherine that she is often the person who helps her when she struggles to get her classroom computer working. She encouraged Catherine to consider a career in Information technology (IT).

Just because things are ​“dificil a veces a cosa,” Stevens said, ​“Does that mean you cant achieve your dreams?” 

The class disagreed and shared their career goals of being a vet tech, police officer, engineer, chef, and working for the FBI.

“With the right support and the right skills you can do anything,” Stevens reminded her students. 

The students ended the class by completing a worksheet asking them to identify the story’s main idea and picking supporting details for that main idea. 

"Sanctuary & Love"

Until the middle of last school year, Stevens was an assistant principal at City Hill Middle School in Naugatuck for a year. While there she learned that the ​“life skills classroom was where I went for sanctuary and love” which helped her decided that she wanted to not just return back to teaching, but to New Haven. 

Click here to read an essay from Stevens about her return to the classroom. 

Mid-year last year Stevens returned to New Haven to teach at Cross after a nine-year teaching hiatus. 

Cross principal Matt Brown added that educators like Stevens who have a perspective of administrative work and classroom teaching are what ​“make Cross a special place and New Haven a special place.”

She previously taught as a bilingual language arts and social studies teacher at Fair Haven School from 2006 until 2014. 

She returned because as an assistant principal she struggled to balance work and her home life as she typically worked 12 hour days as an administrator. 

From 2014 to 2021, Stevens worked as a professional learning specialist for Area Cooperative Educational Services (ACES) in Hamden then took the assistant principal position in February 2021 and stayed until November 2022. While there she helped students to create the school’s first Black student union and after her departure it hosted its first student cultural celebration. 

She has one day off before then starting at Cross mid-year last school year. 

Because of her years-long hiatus from the classroom, when returning to New Haven Stevens had to learn to use Power School for first time, a digital grade book, and Google Classroom. 

Before class dismissal students gave big hugs to sophomore Maria Hatje Faggioh as Thursday was her last class because she plans to finish off her high school career in Brazil, after attending Cross for the past year. 

Hatje Faggioh who was a peer leader during the ESL Life Skills class said it was her favorite this school year because she loves to help others. She also spent the last three months meeting her peers and typically working closely with her newly met friend Alyce. 

This year Hatje Faggioh also took an education course to learn about what it could look like to pursue a career in education. The school introduced the education pathway to students this year to learn more about being an educator. 

“I learned to communicate in different ways and have a real life place to apply those skills,” she said. 

“I’m really grateful to be back in classroom. My reach might not be as far in terms of how many students I impact on a daily basis but I feel like it carries a lot of weight,” Stevens said.

Hatje Faggioh added that the class helped her personally grow by building relationships with her peers, which brought her a sense of community.

See below for other recent stories about the 2023 – 24 school year at Wilbur Cross.

• Hispanic Heritage Celebrated At Wilbur Cross Panel
• AFT Prez Gets Hands-On Education At Cross
• At School Year’s Start, Wilbur Cross Keeps Growing
• Cross Duo Seeks To Repair Disrupted Educations