on accomodations in the classroom

As teachers, we have students in every class (even Advanced classes) that have learning disabilities, dyslexia, emotion problems than interfere with school, and mental illnesses. It's a struggle to plan lessons that differentiate between low level students and high performing students. Thank God that this year I have less of a problem with this because 3 of my 5 classes are Pre-AP and the other two are "Regular".

Last year, my first year of teaching (as they say in East Texas, "God Bless my Soul"), I had high, high students in the same class period as my lowest low kids. That was a hard class. Ugh I pretty much hated them...the rotten little stinkers...and they knew it. I have reasons though, and back to lesson planning for such different intelligence levels; there was no way that I could plan a lesson that would interact with the "smart" students and keep them engaged while also reaching the "low" students so they could understand what the hell I was talking about. Chaos ensued. My smartie pants kids caused trouble so I had to chastise them which took time away from the low kids who could have used that 5-10 minutes for themselves.

As teachers, we are supposed to differentiate lessons.
Here's what differentiation is:
"Differentiated instruction is a teaching theory based on the premise that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse students in classrooms (Tomlinson, 2001). The model of differentiated instruction requires teachers to be flexible in their approach to teaching and adjust the curriculum and presentation of information to learners rather than expecting students to modify themselves for the curriculum." (source)
Being a public school teacher, achieving success with this is terribly difficult. Limited resources, limited time, limited brain cells (mine/theirs).

That class I mentioned had about 8-10 "GT" students, 8 were "average", and 5ish were accommodated, special ed, or dyslexic.
ALL in the same room, the same 45 minutes.

Talk about difficult lesson planning! My high students were bored and my low students were stumped.

There are ways to scaffold lessons, mainly I did this by group work, and lots of it.
The high kids helped the low kids, etc.
I also modified tests, verbally reviewed lessons, and rephrased questions for my low kids.

Actually getting "higher learning levels" into their brains? Um, nope. I did my best though and I taught "average"lessons so that everyone understood.

Yes, the GT kids acted out cause of boredom but what I focused on was my low learners. They often had to struggle to understand, but that is exactly what I wanted.
I mean, if I didn't lift heavier weights every time I exercised, would I get stronger? In the same way, they must exercise their brains. I don't keep my class stagnant.

-tha angry teacher