The Life That Chose Me

I'm not sure if I've answered this or not.  I do know I've talked about why I'm teaching and such.  But the blogging bit is different.  And somewhat similar.

Last year, I came across a few education blogs and became somewhat interested in what other teachers were talking about.  Only somewhat, because not many were talking about things that explicitly interested me.  That's the cool thing about blogging.  If you don't like what's out there, you can start your own.  I like parts of what is out there.  There are a lot of education blogs that function as a variation of the old Paul Harvey's News and Comment show. The Education Wonks and Eduwonk come to mind as two blogs that move briskly from topic-to-topic in fairly rapid fashion, providing access to both news and editorial thoughts on education topics and policies.  Many of us teacher blogs try to emulate their success to varying degrees.  I've been known to rip into a news story on occasion, and editorialize. 

Then there are those blogs who go into more limited areas, plunging deeper into editorial and policy content with a more narrow focus.  NCLBlog, Sp. Ed Law and Teach Effectively come to mind as blogs with more focus and depth into specific areas. 

The above are a wealth of information that teachers can draw upon.  The question is: what do I do with that information?  Most of the time, the authors hit relevant information and insightful commentary and readers are left to be dazzled and amazed by the intelligence of the writer.  But, and this is kind of hard to say to people I like reading, but teachers remain mostly untouched.  The same is true of parents and other folks interested in teaching and the learning of students.  And there are so many doing it, it gets a bit dry after awhile.

There are also some teachers who have some good storylines, and they blog about day-to-day drama, and the daily grind of teaching.  Mad Tedious, Reflective Teacher and Ms. Ris are some good ones.  Good writing and good stories that are amazing and inspiring.  Unlike the news and comment blogs, we get to know the writers and learn to care about them and their students.  They may venture into the politics of education but they bring it home.  These are the more entertaining to read.

On all of these blogs, there is some education of the reader taking place.  Being educators, what else would you expect?  And so it is, with me.  I'm enjoying putting together an edublog and the challenge that goes along with balancing content with entertainment.  Unlike a personal journal, an edublog is explicitly written for others to read.  While it can be cathartic for a writer to let loose with thoughts, I think we are all hoping to help larger segments of the population.  The focus is on the audience as much as the author.  It isn't written just for myself, although I do often get something simply from writing things out.

  My major focus is special education and everything that goes with it.  I'm aiming for other teachers to give information about special education.  I'm aiming towards parents as a parent, trying to offer up useful material.  Against the educational focus there is the storyline of the day-to-day drama of my own classroom and a secondary storyline of being a parent of a child on the autistic spectrum.  The second still needs more fleshing out which I can do over the summer.

It's taken a few months to shake all of this out and to see how it all fits together.  There's been complexities to deal with the ambitious nature of this blog, but it has become a definite labor of love.  If it weren't enjoyable, I wouldn't do it.  But I do see people searching for answers and ending up here.  I hopeful that readers will find some use in reading my various ramblings.

dick

For your information and distribution:

An Open Letter to Families who have School Children with Developmental Disabilities, from Steve Hall, Georgia State Director of the Office of Developmental Disabilities

Beyond this date, April 25, 2006, please widely distribute to families that have children of any age with developmental disabilities in Georgia’s public schools. This memo should be given to parents.  It contains important information for families to think about and to begin planning for when their son or daughter becomes an adult.

Significant and rather magnificent changes are coming that will have great impact on people with developmental disabilities.  The State Office of Developmental Disabilities is writing new Medicaid Waivers that will give each person an individual budget of financial resources based on his or her exact needs.  These resources must only be used to purchase services or supports of significant benefit.  But let me back up a bit, introduce myself, and the reason I am writing this letter to you.  I would like to explain what a Medicaid Waiver is and why it is important to you.

            I am Steve Hall and I am the Georgia State Director of the Office of Developmental Disabilities.  I lead a team of folks that are dedicated to the health, safety, well-being, and the realization of a meaningful life for everyone in Georgia that has developmental disabilities.  Over the past several months we spoke at dozens of public forums and conferences statewide about the coming new Medicaid Waivers for Developmental Disabilities.  At those meetings, time and time again, families of children who currently attend public school in Georgia would come to me and say, “Steve, this is so important.  Few families are even aware of what you are talking about.”  Sometimes special education teachers said the same thing.  Medicaid Waivers are how States “waive” or change the federal Medicaid rules in a manner to better serve their citizens with developmental disabilities.  Before there were Medicaid Waivers, most of these federal Medicaid funds were used by each state to run their government institutions.  A more proper name for the Medicaid Waivers is Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) Waivers. 

            What happens to your children, teenagers, and young adults during their public school years is very important to me and the citizens of Georgia.  What happens in school makes all the difference in the world.  I have been a school teacher, school administrator, have taught teachers going back to the university for their masters degrees, and have worked as an executive leader for almost two decades.  Based on these experiences, I must share three best practices with you that I learned along the way:

1.                  Good Special Education greatly reduces the need for supports and the taxpayer cost of supports throughout the person’s life.  Good Special Education supports the student in the regular classroom.  Good Special Education provides community-based instruction outside of the classroom to better prepare the child for an adult life in the community.

2.                  The best special education services occur in the regular kindergarten classroom, elementary classroom, middle school classroom, junior high classroom, and high school classrooms that are located where the other children in your neighborhood are in class.

3.                  For most children with developmental disabilities, the Individual Education Plan (IEP) should be written to include non-school building instruction in work and other community environments during the school day, beginning by at least age 14. 

Georgia’s new Home and Community Based Medicaid Waivers are prepared to support children and adults to live, work, and participate in full community life alongside other citizens who do not have developmental disabilities.  “Places for them,” day centers, sheltered workshops, and taxpayer dollars staying with the government to run institutions are being replaced and closed all around the United States, including Georgia.  Instead of facilities, buildings, and other “for the disabled only” programs, taxpayers are investing in people with developmental disabilities themselves and want professionals to provide the services and supports in the real life of the community with everyone else.

      Employment is very important.  Over 200,000 people with developmental disabilities, who professionals and parents thought could never hold a real job, are employed throughout the United States through a practice known as Supported Employment. In the past, our own fears and lack of knowledge was the greatest barrier to people having a real job and becoming taxpayers.  In addition to meaningful productive work, membership in clubs, groups, churches, and associations is just as important.  Parents do not live forever.  This is why I have written this letter to you.  People with disabilities need to be valued members of their community so they are not solely relying upon their parents for resources, safety, companionship, and love.

      Our children will be successful throughout their adult lives to the extent that we as parents recognize the importance of their living alongside others who are different from themselves—not just people who have similar disabilities, not just people who are paid to be with them, and not just family members who already love them.  I want you to remember that your son or daughter did not do anything wrong.  People who have never done anything wrong are not put in special places just for them or excluded in any other way from the workplaces, groups, or places where all the rest of us live, work, and enjoy ourselves.  Special centers, special classes only for others who have such disabilities, and any program that takes our children away from the other children, do not result in people spending the rest of their lives with the rest of us in the real world.  All citizens with disabilities, including those men, women, and children with the most significant disabilities, should develop relationships with other citizens and be a valued member of the real world.

      Disability World is not the real world.  When children begin their educational lives in rooms and other places separate from children of the same age, they start down a path that most often ends as an adult existing outside of where everyone else in society lives, works, and plays.  An adult with a developmental disability who is a part of, not apart from, society is the result when children are alongside the other children that they will spend their adult lives with right from the start.

      I hope this letter is helpful.  I do not expect you to agree with everything that I have said and it is you, as your child’s parent, who will always know what is best.  If you agree with what I have said, then many others agree with you, and if you disagree with me, then you  have plenty of company also. 

      The purpose of this letter is to share my knowledge and experiences that when children with disabilities are educated alongside children who do not have disabilities, and it is done right, then the outcomes as an adult are better.  Less support is needed when they become an adult.  People live longer.  They are happier.

      You are welcome to copy, email, and share this with others.  I am looking forward to working on behalf of your son or daughter throughout his or her adult life.  Please let me know what you think about what I have said, whether you agree or disagree.  Your opinion matters to me.

                                                                  Sincerely,

                                                       Stephen R. Hall, Ph.D., Director

                                             Georgia Office of Developmental Disabilities

                                                            srhall1@dhr.state.ga.us

Liz asked a very good question: Why is Lindamood-Bell marketed as an intervention for ASD when it’s mainly a reading program?

The answer is pretty obvious. Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) hype is like a runaway freight train. Like ADHD in the 90’s, this thing is huge, and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Autism is simply the hottest thing going in health, education and now business. Once something makes the claim as a treatment for ASD, the marketers can slap a premium price tag on it, and it is going to sell, sell, sell.

I’m only now beginning to understand the vitriol that some in the autism community (meaning those actually diagnosed with ASD) treat the numbers bantered around by parents and other professionals. The whole epidemic mentality of fear has created a ripe and fertile climate for quackery the likes of which humanity has not seen since the plagues of the dark ages. I’m getting increasingly weary of it. Is it easy being a parent of a child with ASD? No, but parenthood isn’t easy, anyway.

So what should one consider when looking at treatments for ASD? Make sure to read this article first. Here are more proactive considerations:

1. Consider monetary cost. Sorry, but cost is a consideration, even when it comes to the care of our children. Money is NOT unlimited and putting the entire family on the road to financial ruin will not save anyone.
2. Consider the cost of time. Time is arguably in even shorter supply than money at times. Are siblings and spouses going to be sacrificed on the alter of “curing” autism? Are there other interventions that might be more efficient and effective that get sacrificed for the miracle cure?
3. Consider the cost of effort. Time, effort and money are the three considerations that need to be put together in order to weigh benefits against investments. If you are a caregiver, and are depressed from the lack of sleep, the exhaustion, and fatigue, you are probably visiting other psychopathologies upon your family. You might treat ASD in some marginal way only to incite some sort of mental or personality disorder upon them.
4. What works with ASD children also works with regular children. The reverse isn’t as often true, simply because NT children learn and get on in spite of what parents and caregivers do, sometimes. However, increased structure, increased diligence and increased supervision that goes on with ASD children can benefit ALL children. In fact…
5. Consider the impact of any intervention on the family as a whole. I would be reluctant to put my ASD child through anything that I wouldn’t put my NT child through. Degrading the quality of life for the entire family in order to try some questionable treatment is not a fair trade-off. At the same time, there may be activities and interventions that benefit several members of the family. Instituting routines and consistency makes everyone’s life easier but it takes discipline to establish and stick to them. Keeping a routine can also help insulate the family from the frantic pace of life your neighbors have adopted and the stress that comes from always running. Increasing the security of a home to prevent ASD children from eloping increases the general security of the family.
6. Protect your marriage, if you still have one. Raising a child is difficult, and raising one with special needs even more so. The statistic that I was able to find cited an 80% divorce rate for parents of children with ASD. If 4 out of 5 parents are getting divorced, this gives some indication of the stress levels involved. The chairman of the Autism Society of America, Lee Grossman, is a member of the divorce club. Marital satisfaction declines after the birth of a child in the most typical of families. The cascade with children with ASD is even more precipitous. Even if a partner is marginal in the support they are providing, it is still better than no help at all. The literature on the effects of divorce upon typical children is fairly conclusive: it is not something that is good. Having a happy marriage might be the single, most comprehensive intervention parents can offer themselves and all of their children. If someone offered you a $100,000 dollars to try an intervention that had a possibility of making everyone’s life better, would you do it? The monetary cost of divorce can easily get up to 6 figures, not to mention the emotional and physical costs involved.

I’m merely suggesting that parents lower the stress level and consider a more holistic view when it comes to treatment of ASD. There needs to be a point at which parents stop looking for causes and cures and move on to accommodation and adaptation. ASD, in and of itself, is not life threatening. It is not a death sentence. Is it a real disease or ailment? Is it something we need to “cure?” Are individuals with ASD freaks of nature that must be fixed?

I believe we are obligated to do the best we can with the time that we have. The temptation for parents of children with ASD is to allow ASD to consume every resource, every bit of time and every bit of energy that we possess. I believe that is a serious mistake that will lead anywhere but to a happier, saner place.

dick

Actually this is a continuation of the fleecing that has been taking place and continues to take place.

This time, the target is Asperger’s Syndrome. Full-blown autism is a difficult condition for parents to deal with. Asperger’s can also be difficult for someone who has no prior experience with it. But this is the population that, as adults, come resent a lot of the efforts to “cure” them. FWIW, I believe that as young children, parents are going to do the best they can with the knowledge that they have. But like NT children, once they reach the teenage years, they should be getting a progressively larger chunk of the say and responsibility. That includes plugging them into an Aspie community if they want.

I frequently get traffic from those looking for information about Asperger’s, and when I follow the site back, I can read others who are posting on the subject. But there are also a number of ads at the top of the page:

• Effective with Asperger’s Syndrome Diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome? Lindamood-Bell’s process-based programs are proven effective in the development of the sensory-cognitive functions that underlie learning. www.lindamoodbell.com
• Effective Language Help for Asperger’s Engaging, affordable software proven to improve your child’s language skills. Buy it today. www.animatedspeech.com
• Natural Remedies for Aspergers Syndrome Natural remedies for the treatment of Aspergers Syndrome. Guaranteed. http://www.nativeremedies.com

The last one caught my attention, so I decided to visit, thus supporting Technorati’s support of my place. I’m always fascinated by the whole biomedical remedy brand of quackery. And Native Remedies does not disappoint.

Actually, I will confess to being one who is searching for the possibility of more natural treatments that might hold out promise apart from the the more traditional meds, such as the Concerta we are now trying with our son. If there is some sort of herb or plant, something I could grow myself, I might give it a try. So if I visit an herbal medicine site, I look to see what is the active ingredient.

But Native Remedies gives no such information. Instead of saying they are treating anxiety with St. John’s Wort or lavender, they simply say that they offer something called PureCalm. Instead of treating ADHD with Ritalin or Concerta, how about the all-natural Focus ADHD Formula combined with the all-natural herbal BrightSpark for symptoms of defiance. and who knew that meltdowns could be eliminated so easily with the magical elixer called ….are you ready for this?….

Tantrum Tamer.

For the mere pittance of $161.95, I can remedy all of the symptoms of Asperger’s, including sleep disturbances, anxiety, temper control, hyperactivity and concentration. Conveniently billed to my Visa card.

Never once do they say what is actually in these miracle, all natural, herbal remedies. Are these tinctures first filtered naturally through the kidneys of the packaging people, after they’ve been smoking some of these miracle weeds? This may be one instance where smoking various weeds would be a job requirement!LOL!

Okay, I’m being silly. But these things are not FDA approved, they are not regulated by any agency. You could be taking (or worse, giving your children) some sort of tea brewed with the manure of various animals. Too bad i never stumbled upon this racket when I lived on the farm. Is it too much to ask what exactly is in this stuff? What gives BrightSparkle its sparkle?

To those following the Technorati links to find me, I welcome you. But watch where you walk. You might step in something.

dick

I haven't written a whole lot about my life as a parent of a child with ASD, as my work provides a good amount of daily drama. But this is not to say there is no drama at home to keep life interesting.

Thomas is our oldest at 7 years old, diagnosed with PDD-NOS which is on the autistic spectrum. He is currently in his second year in kindergarten. He reads on the 3rd grade level and has for quite some time. However the reason he was kept back relates to his behavior and his social development. Those who have kids with high functioning ASD know something about which I speak.

His behaviors primarily involve being easily distracted and being impulsive. "Easily distracted" meaning an inability to stay on an academic task for more than 5 minutes. "Impulsive" being defined as doing things that he knows better and will often express regret about right after doing it. But he still does it. Stuff like running outside and into the street. Or hugging his little brother or smaller classmates too tight around the neck.

Today he had his annual neurology appointment. And like last year, she wrote a prescription for Concerta. Unlike last year, we're filling it.

Going the medication route is a hard pill to swallow for this old behaviorist. I do have a considerable amount of his behaviors under stimulus control, with myself as the discriminating stimulus. Transferring that to Jane or his teachers has not been so successful. And it requires an inordinate amount of diligence to deliver consequences for certain behaviors and reinforcers for others. In fact, with all of the impulsive stuff, he doesn't have much access to reinforcement.

So the idea is that the medication takes enough of an edge off the impulsivity that he can get into a more positive cycle of reinforcement or what Alberto and Troutman describe as "trapping." Apparently, they are taking some data at school, so we'll see. We're going to try it this weekend before school starts to see what it does. We're planning on doing this blind with the school system, just to see if the data path changes. It's going to be an interesting week.

dick

I went over to the document linked by John over at the AFT NCLBlog, and started reading it.  John was being enormously kind in posting some of the relatively tame suggestions and the less controversial language and proposals.

It’s useful to put my reading of this document in perspective.  While John is a member of the AFT, which is considered the more militant of the two major teacher unions in the country, I’m note a member of any of the unions.  The Council for Exceptional Children is not a union, although some of the same functions are performed, such as offering liability insurance and its own political lobbying.  In the state of
Georgia, I can join the Georgia Association of Educators (GAE), which is the state branch of the NEA.  Or I can join PAGE (Professional Association of Georgia Educators), which is actually a larger force in the state.  However, neither of these is a very strong union at all, as unions go.  There really is no proper collective bargaining, as you folks in other states know it.  If I have a problem with an administrator, my union representative is not going to be able to do much for me, aside from maybe giving me a referral to a competent attorney.  In the state of
Georgia, unions outside of the pilots at Delta, are notoriously anemic.  They call it having “the right to work.” 

I do agree that much of the way unions do business seems to be outmoded.  Back when I worked in a factory, I wasn’t written up by management.  I was written up for breaking union rules!  That’s just what the union gave management (tougher rules) in exchange for the $0.25 raise.  Unions seem to become as inflexible or more so than the management on some issues.  There are troublesome policies that seem to rule school cultures.  For instance, if I were a school principal, I’d like to be able to hire and fire employees based on their performance.  I’d like to have the best instructional team I could put together.  But unions seem to protect those with the most seniority, which is not always the same as having the best.

Mr. Pyle is a case-in-point.  The man has at least a decade of seniority over me, which means he is getting paid substantially more than me.  He does not attend conferences or classes to extend his knowledge.  He is not interested in learning how to be a better teacher.  He is interested in getting by long enough to retire.  He has said that he wants to stay in the classroom with me, so that I can continue to carry his load in addition to mine.  My paras are sharper than he is, when it comes to student instruction and behavior management.  He’s interviewed at two middle schools and neither of them has called him back.  And I’m thinking that our own administration is reluctant to give him a class of his own.  Which means I’ll be stuck with him.

I started writing this with an intention of panning the Hess and West Article as not having much of an effect on student learning.  But when I look at my own classroom and the reluctance of an administration to do much about a person who at least shows up everyday, on time, I’m thinking…  The fact is, Mr. Pyle’s students are not getting the same education as the ones on my caseload.  Mr. Pyle and his paras feed their students during breakfast and lunch.  Me and my paras teach our students to feed themselves.  Mr. Pyle and his paras change the diapers of their students.  We do too, but we are also trying to trip train them to use the toilet.  We change the position of our wheelchair-bound students, standing them and stretching them and making them work their muscles.  Mr. Pyle might take them out of a chair and lay them on the floor…and leave them there for a couple of hours.  My team works on communication and I’ve designed intensive programs for the paras to carry out with individual students.  Mr. Pyle rarely does any communication work with his students.

Here’s the problem with anything coming from a government think tank, foundation, institute or whatever: there is no state test in existence that measures any of these things.  My students are not taking a state test.  Any merit-based pay scheme will not cover what we do or even what our kids are learning.  Or what an art teacher does.  Or what the vocational agriculture teacher does. 
Reading and math are important for 99% of the students in school.  But not to my kids and their parents.  Being able to eat, use the bathroom independently, communicate or just move around are much bigger issues.  If you can’t move, communicate, use the toilet or eat, math and reading are not going to mean much.

This does not mean I am against a differing pay structure.  Compensation based on scarcity might have some effect, at least for those subjects in higher demand.  True, teaching 4^th grade might be every bit as daunting as teaching physical science.  I know lots of jobs that are tougher than teaching physical science where the pay isn’t as good.  Like the temp job I had moving furniture.  Or the hot summers spent on the farm.  Or the summers spent training in the Army Reserve.  But there is more of a shortage of science teachers than elementary teachers or furniture movers.  Even the military offers differential bonuses based on specialty supply and demand, even though pay and benefit is the same within rank..

I think a more robust evaluation system would have a far greater benefit to student learning than any pay scheme.  The evaluation would have to be more in-depth and occur more often and it should be done by people who know what they are doing.  Administrators can know good instruction in the broad sense, but I think a peer review should also be involved somehow.  Test scores could be one indicator, but how about student and parent ratings and reviews?  The point being is that there should be several sources of feedback for a teacher and any decision as to merit should be based on more than one single assessment or observation.  Just as one test does not sufficiently measure student learning, one observation or test score does not measure a teacher’s ability.

The best teachers who have the most powerful impact on their students are the ones who are introspective, reflective and are always looking to improve and fine-tune themselves.  This is why I like peer-review as an indicator.  We all know those teachers who are really with it.  And we also know those that are just putting in the time.  I have not seen a merit-based pay scheme that has a lot of merit.  I'm open for suggestions, though.

dick

dick

This post is prompted by Rob, who left a comment where he said he was going to get his Master’s in order to teach special education. Two of my paras are currently working towards the business, albeit at a lower level and slower pace. Princess is actually just trying to get a B.S. knocked out, so she can get her foot in the door. I think she’s taking something along the lines of nursing management or something. She’s still in the core part of it, with math, history, English, psychology and such. Coach is working on the community college level, getting an associates in early childhood before moving on to a more focused program. Patience has an associate’s in something, and I’ve encouraged her to make a move to go back and finish a B.S. before she has to pay for her own daughter’s college. These three have seen enough to see the reality of the job; the good, the bad and the ugly. The fact that Coach and Princess are still keen to go on is a testament to their dedication to the cause. Not that they haven’t had cause for doubt at various times. Sometimes the ugliness gets me scratching my own head. “What was I thinking?”

Special education is actually a fairly broad field. The good news is that if you get burned out of one area, you can move over, or down or between areas. For instance, I got my feet initially wet with learning disabilities and then moved on to EBD, before landing in with the severe and profound. Settings can also vary a LOT. Within EBD alone, I served in a self-contained setting in a regular school, and then served in a psychoed and then for a few years in a psychiatric hospital. Most of these were on the high school level, although I did teacher younger kids in the hospital as young as 5. Don’t ask me how a 5 year-old gets into a psych hospital. You don’t want to know. But one thing is certain: opportunities abound. Job security for a fully certified special education teacher is pretty much a done deal. But it’s important to be mindful of this: there’s a good reason for that job security.

According to the article linked in my last post, the attrition rate for special education teachers is hideous, and more than twice the rate of anyone else in education. While math and science teachers can be lured out by better opportunities elsewhere, special educators are more often driven out by the workload, the high liability and just the general stress of dealing with a population that is there precisely because they stress regular education beyond its tolerance. Fully 50% of special educators that begin teaching this fall will leave within 5 years. 50% of those remaining after the first 5 years will leave before they have done 10 years. So you basically have what looks like a 75% turnover every 10 years. But even this does not reflect future need as more kids are being diagnosed with developmental disabilities, including the pervasive ones like autism.

One reason I’ve survived the stresses and pressures is because I am always planning for a change. That doesn’t mean I necessarily carry it through, but I’m always looking. I expect change, and am up for dealing with it. Being able to cope with change is such a key part of this business. One reason Mr. Pyle is constantly depressed and frustrated is because he deals with change very poorly. He wants things to stay the same all the time. But it never does. Ever. Things change and change is hard.
Georgia’s services are not what I would call outstanding, but they hold their own against most other states. Remember the U.S. congress has never ever met their obligation of covering 40% of the funding for special education. They have never even funded it at 20%. NCLB is going the same way. Get used to it.

I might not have gotten this far into special education if I hadn’t become a parent of a person with special needs. That extra fire in my gut seems to be a key to my resilience and determination. Is pure dedication good enough? I don’t know. To put this in perspective, it’s important to note that Princess has three younger adoptive brothers with special needs. Coach has dyslexia and went through school with an IEP. You see a bit of a thread running through here? I’d like to think I could still do what I do as well as I do it without having to be so intimately involved with exceptionalities. But that’s nonsense. It’s just part of who I am. I think all teachers who make it past 10 years are there because they are called to it. This seems especially true for special education, where many start out trying to answer the call, but few are actually fully ordained into it.

Many of my colleagues in both regular and special education have come up to me and told me they couldn’t do what I do. I used to think that absurd since so much of what I do isn’t especially rigorous. At least not intellectually compared to the folks doing regular ed stuff on the high school level. But I have come ‘round to seeing that there is something more to it and not everyone can do it and not everyone should do it. And I’m not sure I’ll always be doing it.

I admire those folks looking to get into this business of special education. It is not getting any easier and I don’t see the trend reversing any time soon. One has to be a bit of an oddball to get into education nowadays, and this is doubly so for those coming into special education. If you’re a skilled oddball, we really need you in special education! If you’re not very skilled, go learn and acquire the skills you need. Learn to be observant, take and keep data, train and supervise your paras, communicate with parents, use research-based methods and do your own research. Oh, and try to keep ahead of the paperwork. Love the paperwork. Embrace the paperwork. Become one with the paperwork. How hard can it be?

dick

Before moving on, I do need to apologize to Janet, whom I offended in my prior post.  In her comment-turned-post, she did clarify a great deal about her own circumstance.  Namely, she wasn’t a special ed teacher, but a paraeducator in special ed.  That is significant, since I count that as a good way to get experience in the field without actually taking over the class.  Who ever her supervising teacher was, that teacher was lucky to have her since paras who are invested in their education (i.e. working towards a master’s) are generally of higher caliber than those who might simply be looking for just another job. 

Sorry for the snarkiness.  But there’s enough snarkiness to go around for/from everyone:

But then there is the special ed perspective. I don't know how much y'all know about special ed, but some of the techniques used would probably surprise, if not apall you.Okay.Moving on…I was misrepresented as pitting regular education teachers against special education teachers.  Are you kidding?I guess I’ll need to say it again; there are no bargains in this business.  None.  No one gets off light.  I am one of the few who came over from the regular ed side of things and got trained up in special ed.  And even worked as a para while working on my master’s!LOL!  The regular education experience can be every bit as grinding, dramatic and hideous as anything those in special ed can imagine.  And why wouldn’t it, since many of them contend with the same students as we do, in addition to the rest of the  “regular students.”  But we all know there are very few “regular” students, and that all of them are exceptional in some way.  Most special educators see only a fraction of the students regular ed teachers see on a daily basis.  At the high school level, it is not uncommon for a typical English teacher see 150 students each and every day.  Which means if you’re an English teacher and you give a quiz with ten questions, you have to grade and score 1500 different responses!  One thing I definitely do NOT miss is having to grade papers every night.  It was an eternal task in tedium that never ended.  If there was a major test, that would involve even more responses to score.Where I’m at, doing what I do, the administration doesn’t bother me much as long as I keep the peace and avoid drama as much as possible with either staff, students or parents.  The administration isn’t exactly sure what we’re supposed to be doing, anyway, which is part of the problem when it comes to looking for and hiring qualified people.  However, the teachers of core subjects are getting messed with all the time.  In fact, many school systems are chaining these teachers to the oars by making them accountable for performance on test scores and AYP, which I wrote about in my April 7th entry.  There is enough work to go around for everyone, and we really are supposed to be pulling together in educating students.  Different students learn in different ways and it is a mistake to assume that every teacher will be able to reach every single student.   Or that any teacher can reach every student. There’s room for all of us, and we’re all necessary.    And none of us suffers from an over abundance of appreciation, thanks and compensation.  I admire all teachers from all of the fields.  I admire the young teachers for getting into a business that is getting more difficult, more frustrating and more thankless.  I admire veteran teachers for sticking with it.  The main thrust of my last post was to assert that teaching is a legitimate profession, and isn’t something that can simply be outsourced to whoever happens to be standing in the town square with a degree and needs a job.  Passion certainly is a big part of it.  But so is knowledge and expertise.  There are skill sets and areas of knowledge that a teacher should possess that isn’t available to just anyone.  Otherwise, we have no business comparing ourselves to specialized fields of law and medicine.  For more reading on the shortage of special education teachers, there is a good article out of
Utah that highlights the challenges facing districts all over the country:On Saturday,
Davis was honored as the
Utah Teacher of the Year by the Council for Exceptional Children. She spends her days in a Provo High classroom with 10 teenagers who have multiple, severe disabilities, and she said the No. 1 quality required for the job is simply the will to do the work. "It definitely does take some patience, but probably the biggest thing is just the want to be there, the desire to be there,"
Davis said.

She teaches a similar constellation of students that I do, at least by the sound of it.  And passion and desire are very necessary components of the job.  Hopefully that inner fire will result in learning to become proficient.  Desire and passion are certainly necessary, but not sufficient.  As the article goes on to state:

Ted Kelly, director of special education for the Provo City School District, called
Davis "a guardian angel." But teachers like
Davis are getting harder for districts to come by."We have seen over the years that our veteran teachers are retiring, and as our new teachers come in, they just don't stay in the profession very long," Kelly said. He said he usually needs to fill four or five special education positions every year, but next year he projects he'll have 10 spots to fill. Paperwork, federal requirements and stress can make the job frustrating, Kelly said. It requires "an internal quality that I think people have that are tolerant and caring and that kind of thing — balancing that between the education and the skills to really individualize for students' needs, along with handling a great deal of stress."

Good article, relatively short and worth a read.

dick

One of the recurring themes in educational reform has been to allow anyone who has a degree and the desire come in and teach.  Let mid career professionals come in and teach, without wasting time with bothersome educational courses and meeting licensing requirements.  Why not let engineers teach math, and chemical engineers teach chemistry?  Why not let some former NASA engineers teach physics?  As if there was a long line of these folks storming county personnel offices.

Maybe teaching isn’t worthy of being a profession.  Maybe it’s true: those who can’t do, teach.  Does training really matter in the education profession?  Shouldn’t anyone with a certain level of content knowledge be able to do the job?

These are ideas are being put to the test every day, and no where are they being tested more than in the area of special education.  There is such a severe shortage of special educators nation wide, that systems are desperately pulling in people off the street with almost any sort of degree to teach exceptional students.  And this has certainly been the case with students with severe disabilities.  I mean, how much content knowledge is necessary to deal with people with an I.Q. of less than 40? 

Before going any further, go ahead and read Janet’s entry in The Art of Getting By.  This was submitted for the Carnival of Education at The Magic School Bus.

Janet parked her bus in special education for a year, while working on her Master’s of Education in another field.  Janet is one of droves and hoards of people who have been doing the same thing.  They are looking for a job to tide them over until they can either find something in their field or get their advanced degree.  They may want to teach, but not with these kids!  The main part of Janet’s entry deals with electric shock as a treatment for individuals with severe behavior problems.  I agree that this is considered inhumane and unethical in today’s modern world.

But then she3 goes on to describe her experience in special education, where she administered various other types of intervention.  Some were better than others, but towards the end of the article Janet confesses:

So what is the solution? Damned if I know. But the fact of the matter is we might never know for sure what some mentally and developmentally disabled people comprehend and what they do not.

HELLO?!?

This is the problem with bringing in busloads of people who are looking to park for awhile without having made any substantial investment in the field.  First off, they are not sure what a good intervention and a bad intervention look like.  And then, even if they see one that looks promising (like the use of edible reinforcers) they have little idea of how to properly implement it, monitor the progress or to adjust it.  Janet was doing what she was told, which is what you do when you don’t really know what to do.  You rely on others who apparently do know what they are doing to tell you.  And then you keep on doing it until someone tells you to stop doing it, change it or do something else.  At least Janet kept doing the edible thing.  Most would have quit and gone back to not doing anything.  Finally, they never really get to know their kids and what they can do or not do because they leave and pursue their “real” interests after 1-2 years, leaving the kids to the next noob who comes in and needs a place to park their bus until something better comes along. 

So we have a couple of choices.  One, is my co-teacher, Mr. Pyle, who can’t really do anything else and is just trying to make it to retirement or we have these other folks who come through on their way somewhere else.  And this is exactly the sort of place education, as a whole, is headed if we continue towards so-called reform which is really a sort of de-professionalization of the field.  Part of the idea of any preparation program is to weed out the nonhackers and the unmotivated.  Do you really want a doctor operating on you who hasn’t been through some degree of rigor, or is just there until something more lucrative comes along?  No, you want a professional who is dedicated to that profession.  You need a divorce lawyer who is dedicated to winning divorce suits, or an accountant who is dedicated to properly filling out tax forms.  You want someone there who has dedicated themselves to what it is they are doing.  The greater their investment in the form of blood, sweat and tears, the more likely they are to stick to a job, even if it is difficult.  If I am sending a behaviorally challenged child of mine to school, I want teachers who are willing to stick with him.  I want experience and dedication.  I want someone who can inspire confidence.

And that is not someone who is just hanging out until they either find something better or until retirement.  As a parent I’m somewhat passionate about this, and as a teacher I’m even more about it.  Maybe I’m getting grouchy in my old age, but while I like helping new, young teachers, I get a bit weary of spending time on someone who bails out after just a year or two. 

Maybe if they spent some time actually preparing to teach, they would have some idea of whether or not this is something they want to do before actually taking over a classroom.

dick

Occasionally you run across a blog or a post that makes you think and want to respond.  Here’s one about a single mother (Cinnamon) whose child has several diagnoses that you can read about on this post.  Unfortunately, she doesn’t have an email contact, and since she doesn’t allow anonymous comments, Blogger doesn’t let anyone comment who isn’t actually on Blogger.

Her young daughter (I gather she’s under 5) will be undergoing some sort of heart surgery in a few days, so she is reaching out across the internet for prayers, support and good thoughts.  This is clearly one example of a family under stress.

In Georgia, there is, in fact, an organization for such families called FOCUS, which stands for “Families Of Children Under Stress.”  They offer support groups for parents and respite once per month in locations around the metro area in addition to other services supporting parents of children with various disabilities.  I learned about it through a parent of one of the children I was teaching at the time, and Jane has since been an active member of the local group, attending the monthly support meetings. 

The post linked above also illustrates what happens when local officials try to play around too much with a parent and fail to handle things in a timely and straight forward manner.  Unfortunately, large, governmental agencies seem to be all too prone at this, so adversarial relationships become just part of the bargain.  In this case, Cinnamon managed to find a capable advocate to help her and her daughter obtain the necessary services.  The state and local agencies will probably end up paying a whole lot more than they would have, otherwise, if they had just spent a bit more time addressing the concerns of this mother directly instead of just putting her off.  

So I’ll just send out a prayer for her daughter and her and her entire family.  Indeed, it is good to remember that each and everyday, there are families of children with disabilities who are struggling just to cope with seemingly never-ending needs.  My heart goes out to all such families, and especially at this time for Cinnamon and her family.  She is one of us who have many choices to make in life, but there is also the life that chooses US, for good or ill.

dick