Special Education Today

Let’s see, what to write? Well, it is February in Michigan. Those who live in Michigan would not need me to write anything more; they would just nod and know exactly what I meant. But for the rest of you, it’s grey . . . VERY grey, it’s cold, and it’s getting a little old!



My new semester has begun, which means new students. Our young adults (ages 18 to 26 with disabilities) are assigned to job sites typically for one semester at a time and switch to a different site every semester. Our students spend half the day on the job with a job coach (like me) and the other half at school taking classes that are geared toward independent living.



My group is In-House Custodial, fancy for “we stay at school and clean it.” I am assigned students who are new, are not ready to go out to other sites, or are difficult to place for one reason or another. I also take on stragglers who arrive at school late and have missed their ride to their normal job site.

My group this semester is going to be a bit challenging. I have a few students back from last semester. Pam* has a worsening visual impairment and now uses a cane, but she has a wonderful attitude and works very hard to compensate for her sight loss. Bridget* has food issues and needs to be in a controlled environment like ours, but just when I think I am making progress with her, I find out I have been lied to again! Tim* has an inoperable brain tumor and is undergoing oral chemo; he is now using a wheelchair because his balance has been affected. He is a sweet young man who never feels sorry for himself (just needs to take a nap now and then, which is just fine with me).

Among my new students is Doug*, who resides in a group home and has been suspended already in his first two weeks! Craig* is also new and seems like a nice young man when he is able to actually get out of bed and get to school.



This semester I have had to set some new boundaries. For example, I set the limit of students I can take at once at six. Because I have been assigned one student who is partially blind and another who uses a wheelchair, I asked for some extra help and received two wonderful parent volunteers for two days each week! I really appreciate having those extra hands around.



I am trying to get my group to gel, but so far there have been so many disruptions that I do not feel we have properly begun yet. This week I got the flu and missed two days -- that certainly didn’t help the “gelling process.”

It’s February and I must be really low on vitamin D because everything is a bit of a struggle right now! How are you all getting through the winter blues?

*Names have been changed.

I have to admit, although I am overjoyed at my new job and absolutely love my work, the looming discussion of budget cuts is making me a nervous wreck. It has definitely affected me, not only in how much money I’ve been putting away lately and how much spending I have personally cut back on, but in the decisions I make for my class as well.

Last summer, I spoke with so many teachers who had gotten pink-slipped. They all had thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of learning materials stored away in their garages—materials they had purchased themselves. Some of those teachers were unable to find jobs again or changed careers altogether; of the ones who were lucky enough to find new employment, some were unable to get the same placement or grade level as before and had to go out and buy all new stuff. Granted, most districts supply their teachers with money to help them supplement curriculum materials, but the budgets aren’t necessarily huge and sometimes teachers are forced to go way out of their way and wallet to get materials that their students really need.

I’m usually one of those teachers who jump at a new learning game or book that will help my students. But lately, I find myself walking around the learning store just long enough to convince myself that I can actually make half the materials or just teach the subject a different way, so I will put the items back on the shelf.



The uncertainty so many of us have been carrying around day-in and day-out has sparked conservation on every level. I’ve made lists that span from how I can stretch a single learning tool for as many tasks as possible, to how I can keep from buying more books and make the ones I have last longer and be more functional. When I arrived at my new classroom last fall, I discovered the teacher before me had torn her workbooks apart and kept the pages in page protectors somewhat cataloged in binders. I found that this method not only keeps the pages nice and makes for easy copying, but because the workbooks are dissected, I use them so much more frequently than I would if they were just on a shelf. It was a lesson in really making my books work for me. While that has helped me stretch my existing books, I have also been making a lot of my own worksheets, data sheets, and planners to keep from buying new, expensive workbooks.



While this conserving mentality has helped me keep my sanity, it has also changed how I teach and how I feel when I am teaching. I think all of this extra time spent creating and planning has drawn me a little closer to what I am teaching. I feel so much more in control of how we are learning, even though I am still following the same guidelines and standards that I always have. I can catalog my own lessons that correspond closely to our textbooks, but still feel like I am tailoring the lessons for my students.



It’s not like this is the first time I’ve ever created a task, but really I think it’s the consistent making of worksheets and activities for each subject that has changed the way I view our curriculum. I have “go-to” books for certain subjects, and I know what the worksheets look like and how I can use them, but when I am making my own worksheets to teach a concept I’ve gone over a hundred times before, it makes me think about it like it’s the first time I taught it. I may even be putting the same old graph or information on the paper, but I enjoy considering how I can creatively present it and make the pages and information work around the lesson. In some ways I prefer this to planning a lesson around how I am going to break down and present an already-made worksheet.



Even with the pending budget cuts, there is still so much to be enjoyed and created to take my mind off of the stress and uncertainty. It’s hard to be a teacher sometimes, especially when I am constantly feeling insecure. But I feel like the growth and experiences I’ve gone through so far this year have made it all very much worthwhile.

Saturday was a short day, but I was able to find some good sessions.  It seemed to be a day for Twitter as I was able to attend sessions by @briandowd & @assistivetek.

Brian Dowd, @briandowd, shared his experiences as Assistive Technologist for Alton School district (in Southern Illinois), as well as Region I & III in the same area.  One difficulty of his position is how large an area he has to service in a given week!  His solution, a Wiki, it allows teachers to get resources and ask questions.

Brian Friedlander, AssistiveTek, shared some technology supports for writing.  Now, I was unable to stay for the entire session (due to having to get ready for my presentation), but I did hear some very interesting points!  He spent some time talking about some of the new features of Inspiration - Drag & Drop editing, mind mapping, presentation mode, and more.  He also showed some of the ways that other programs, like Solo Suite 6, could integrate in to provide word prediction and such.

The last presentation I attended, well that would be my own!  I was very excited to again present at ATIA.  For those of you new to the blog it's about my idea to help my students with SCD research and present on a topic (for example desert animals).  You can see the presentation here - My Crazy Idea....

I'd like to take a moment to thank several folks for coming to the presentation (and not heckling) - Jeanette, Chris, Brian & especially Lisa, along with all the others who stayed around to the very end for my session.  It was a blast to present, and I can't wait to do it again.


Patrick


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My new job sure has changed me.

First, a little history. I was home raising my children for quite a while; my last full-time teaching  position was in 1984. I did some part-time work in between but mostly was at home. I have a 25-year-old son, 23-year-old daughter, and 13-year-old son. I was married for 25 years when my husband decided a young woman from work looked better to him. I was devastated, to say the least. I had to sell the house, help the kids through the trauma, and finally get a job. So at 51, here I am, returning to the workforce.

The job has changed me because I realize “I can do it!” For starters, I have much experience with children and my own daughter with disabilities. And even though my formal education took place years ago, I remember more than I thought I would.

I still love to learn and am catching up on the many changes that have since occurred in the field of special education. I love the CEC SmartBrief that is delivered daily to my e-mail inbox. I have even printed out some articles to keep in my files for future ideas. I ask questions, lots of questions. As an “older” educator I don’t mind questioning the system. As a parent myself I can relate to the parents of my students.



On a personal level, I feel more professional. I look more professional. Check out my school picture—a little different than my original profile picture, huh? I have some decent work clothes now. I act more professionally. I don’t feel intimidated by the other professionals I meet in my job. My resume now has current experience on it.



I feel more independent. I have my own money coming in, instead of just trying to live on the alimony and child support. I see hope for the future, that I will be able to support myself when the divorce payments end.



I guess that is it . . . I have hope. Hope that I can support myself fully someday. Hope that I can make some difference in the lives of my students. Maybe because I have hope for the future, I can give these young adults hope for their own futures.

This is my third year as a teacher of young students with cognitive disabilities and it has been the toughest one by far. Not the teaching part—I love sharing in the learning process and helping my students make discoveries about themselves, their environment, and so much more. It’s the “everything else” part that’s so tough.



I’m not even talking about writing IEPs. I’m not going to say it’s my most preferred activity (the computer program we have here in Virginia makes it arduous sometimes), but I know that I’m doing it to shape my students’ entire learning trajectory in a powerful way. Some of the plans come together like lovingly made mittens at this point and it’s very satisfying.

I’m drained by the politics. Not petty lunchroom stuff, but top-down stuff. I’m frustrated by what I perceive to be a lack of accountability for teachers who aren’t making things work and a lack of support for teachers who are. It’s difficult for me to be an advocate for my students when I feel that my school’s practices are sometimes not in their best interests.

But I don’t have to paint my buttons yellow to remember what the sun feels like; my students do that for me every day. Even today, after a series of very tough interactions with a tough new student, my kids shined right through. We did a sensory exploration walk around the classroom that had us looking under tables with magnifying glasses, listening to the clatter of our own maraca/tambourine/bell/triangle/cymbal marching band, tickling our noses with feathers, and taking in the taste and scent of some (quite stale) gingerbread men.



We played in the sunshine on this mild winter afternoon and laughed and ran and slid and jumped. I stopped feeling trapped by all of the “everything else” things for a few minutes as we marched a crooked march around the classroom and squinted in the sunlight on a playground bridge.



These children are why I slog through everything else. They are why it’s worth it.

I originally had an entirely different blog in mind, but just like in special education, life has its way of forcing us to be flexible, especially in unfortunate circumstances.



Early this week I was informed that a professor who mentored me through my credential and master’s program—and beyond—had passed away. I was amazed at the effect this had on me, and I have come to realize that if there is anything to encourage a teacher to stay positive and passionate no matter what, it is the example set by a single teacher who did just that.



Jeanne was a tremendous life force to so many people. Always on the cutting edge of research and technology’s impact on education, she was involved in projects that improved the lives of children with disabilities while simultaneously and enthusiastically teaching and inspiring us to do the same. She was the kind of person who did not just visit us and teach us because it was what she was paid to do…it was her passion. She took us under her wing and shared everything she could with us. She gave us her love for this field.

I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a good educator. I’ve always appreciated my teachers, but some have had a bit more of a lasting impact on my life, one that I hope to someday impart on someone else’s life. Jeanne was one of those educators, and for me one of her greatest legacies was in how she handled difficult situations.

Even as an adult in my credential classes, I remember noting occasional small changes in my instructors’ moods. I knew when some teachers were frustrated by our lack of participation, or upset with our lateness coming back from break. There were times I was possibly one of those students who made a teacher feel unappreciated.



Jeanne never drew attention to whether or not she felt we were distracted or disinterested. Instead, she redirected us, teaching us by example. I noticed that if we were tuning out, she told a story. If we were tired, she changed the format of the lesson. If we were having problems with our classes or family lives, she stopped and listened to us. She moved the class around us so that it was our class, rather than just one we were attending. Our learning was a group effort, and every one of us felt valued in the process.



Outside of our credential classes, Jeanne was our mentor and helped us transition into the teacher role. Becoming a special educator does not just mean getting a new job; it means learning to balance and integrate a whole new set of emotions into your life. There are frustrations and challenges that credential programs will never be able to fully replicate, and they have a funny way of seeping into our entire world. It’s hard to leave our work at school, and frequently we take it home with us.



When I think about what makes a good mentor, I realize it is so much more than just giving good advice, answering questions, and making sure your mentees are enjoying themselves at work. Being a good mentor means recognizing the whole process of becoming a teacher, and that is just what Jeanne did. She took us on and guided us through our new sense of life, as a whole. And her extraordinary personality and point of view encouraged me to learn and grow.



When mentors and educators are able to teach so much through their life’s work and outlook, rather than solely by what they ask us to read and write, it is a life-changing gift. I know for a fact that I will never read anything even remotely related to the brain and how it processes information (her passion) without thinking about Jeanne. She changed the way I saw my own life and its purpose, and I can only hope to be even a fraction of the teacher she was to us.



I hope to emulate these lessons in my own teaching, and perhaps someday help someone enter this field as joyfully and enthusiastically as I was helped. It’s altogether heartbreaking to lose someone who has led us so far—but uplifting to know they left footsteps for us to follow.

As a new teacher, one thing that was hard for me at first was my tendency to take school home with me. It’s inevitable to be preoccupied with your job sometimes, but I was engulfed.



Part of the problem was that I went straight from high school to college to graduate school right back to elementary school again as a teacher; school has been my schema since I was a baby. There’s also the fact that I never really literally leave work at work, because all teachers have more to do than can be done in the hours they’re paid to do it in, so stuff just gets done at home.

There was more to my inability to leave work at work, though. I simply didn’t let go of the thoughts of my students when I locked up my classroom at the end of the day. They didn’t go away when I closed my computer, sat down to dinner with a friend, or went to the grocery store. … In the busy moments and the still moments, my students from that first class were with me wherever I was.

Their needs were so great and my hopes for them were so high. Looking back, I think that discrepancy was what the initial heart-wrangling was all about. It felt like a huge responsibility—one I wanted, one I felt prepared and excited for, but a scary and important one nonetheless.



I teach kids how to eat, how to walk, how to read, how to speak. I believe in their ability to do those things and in their right to access the learning they need to be able to do so. So I walked around with their present levels of performances shuffling around inside of me and with their goals hanging over me.



I would talk about my kids constantly. Every funny story, new word, successful moment, and messy disaster, I wanted to share it with my family and friends. My friends (liberal arts majors in their early twenties) were uncomfortably amused and more often generally horrified by my stories. They agreed that one of my students calling me “mean lady” was fairly hilarious but got quiet when they discovered the bruises on my arms were from where a child had bitten me.



To tell each story, I felt like I had to fill my audience in on all the details about the kids so they would therefore understand why it was funny or cool or sad — and sometimes it was too much. My friends were very interested in my job, but they would get stuck amid all the acronyms and passionate blustering. . . . and start to quietly zone out.



There was no dramatic realization that caused me to suddenly stop holding onto my students too tightly in my thoughts. It’s only looking back now that I realize how differently I carry them with me today. I think it takes experiencing the success-setback-success pattern over a whole school year for us teachers to start feeling a decline in the urgency of our students’ needs and our expectations.



For example, it took my student Saria more than two years to say her own name correctly, which she can now do in a full three-word sentence. After two years of squeezing words out of her like the last toothpaste left in the tube, this child now talks incessantly. When she leaves at the end of the day, I’m not thinking as much about the fact that she still can’t count to five. Instead, I’m enjoying the peace and quiet.

I have a daughter with special needs. Those words are so easy to write, but they were so hard to accept.



Dana lagged behind other children her age; the doctor called it “delayed milestones.” I hoped that she was just a late bloomer. Starting school was a nightmare for both of us. She was shy and scared and did not participate. She just wanted to be left alone in a corner and talk to herself.

I worked hard with her, trying to catch her up to her peers. Every year teachers would raise concerns and I would work even harder. Eventually she was tested and we discovered her IQ was below normal. I decided I wasn’t going to let a test dictate what my daughter could do. She was behind her peers, but not enough to qualify for special education. One school psychologist even tried to label her as ADD (which she is not) just to get her special education services. I did not appreciate this gesture. I was so afraid of a label defining my child.

When Dana started fifth grade, I was told that she could qualify for special education classes once she tested two grade levels behind. I was not about to sit around and wait for that to happen. I took her out of the public school system and home-schooled her for the next five years, concentrating on reading and social skills. Those years were wonderful years of progressing at her own pace, one-on-one attention, and the two of us having a much less stressful relationship. Instead of working with her in the evening when we were both exhausted, accompanied by plenty of tears (hers and mine), we could now work in the morning—in our pajamas if we wanted to—and she could even have time to play and attend Girl Scouts!



By the time she was in the tenth grade, our local public high school had come up with a wonderful program for at-risk kids like Dana. She went back to a formal education and stayed in that high school program for four years. During that time I went through a divorce and some counseling. I had to face some things in myself and in my life. A side benefit of that experience was coming to grips with the fact I had a daughter with cognitive impairments. No matter how hard she or I worked, that was not going to change. I was finally facing a future that wasn’t bleak, just different. It was freeing.



Now Dana is almost 23 years old and for the past three years has attended the vocational school where I now work. This is our first year there together and it is going well. She loves not having to ride the bus to school since she can now ride with Mom. She dreams of getting her driver’s license (she has her permit), finding a job, and having a boyfriend. She collects angels and wants to paint her bedroom purple. She makes the best chocolate chip cookies ever. She and I have a “girl’s night” every other weekend, which usually involves take-out food and a chick flick! I try to encourage her while also helping her face the reality of her disability. I enjoy her!



Dana is part of my story and this has helped me immensely in my teaching. I sense that each young adult I work with has parents who, like I do, struggle with the reality of having a child with special needs who is growing up but in some ways will never BE a grown-up. I try to work with students in a patient and loving way, like I want my child to be treated. I have learned that information needs to be broken down in simple steps and in different ways to accommodate each individual student. I have learned that there is fine line between pushing too hard and encouraging just enough to help them become as independent as possible. Most of all, I enjoy my special students — just as I do my daughter.