We now know more about what happened in the classroom of Alex, the Kindergarten student who was voted out of class (see my post below). Having a better understanding of the thought process the teacher went through, I still support her removal from the classroom, and I think her return should be contingent upon receiving some training in dealing with children with special needs, but I no longer feel as outraged as I did. The incident that happened in Florida is indicative of a much bigger problem within our school system.
Anyone who knows me can tell you there isn't a bigger or louder cheerleader for public schools. I am the public schools. I am a first grade teacher at heart. It is my passion. It was my career before children and I had never intended to take a break from doing what I loved, but I was forced to put my career on hold by the demands of having a child with Down syndrome. This year I returned to teaching part time by working as a sub. As much as I would love to work full time, it's just not an option yet, so working as a substitute is the compromise. When I pull together my experiences as a substitute teacher and combine them with my experiences as a special needs mother, I can see a clear picture of one of the biggest challenges facing our teachers, and one of the principle failings of our system. Five year old Alex wasn't a victim of a mean-hearted teacher. He was a victim of a system that has failed to prepare that teacher to meet his needs.
Let me say, the vast majority of teachers I have had the pleasure of working with, are incredibly talented, hard-working, passionate people. Teachers do the hardest work, and bear the brunt of criticism for failures that are not theirs. This is not a criticism of the teachers in our system. It is a criticism of a system that fails to give them the tools and training they need to meet the needs of children who are not neurotypical. One might counter that with "That's why we have Special Education teachers" and that, to an extent, is true. But the shortage of skilled SpEd teachers practically guarantees that no teacher with a SpEd credential will teach in a mainstream classroom. Teachers who have gone though the extra training to earn Master's degrees in SpEd will almost always end up teaching Special Day Class, rather than a mainstream class with special needs kids fully included. For the children, like my son Gabriel, who are placed in a SDC with a trained teacher, this is exactly what they need. I have no concerns at all about my son's education because he has a highly trained and very experienced teacher. He understands my son's unique learning needs, his unique behavior patterns, his triggers and his motivators, he knows how to individualize my son's education, and how to manage the individualized plans of all his very diverse group of students. My son is in extremely good hands.
So where does that leave the students who have special needs but are not in a classroom with a SpEd teacher? That depends. There are mainstream teachers who have the right personality and teaching style to adapt to a wider array of learning needs, and there are mainstream teachers who, of their own accord, have sought out learning opportunities to better understand children with special needs. But training in addressing special needs, and managing IEPs (Individualized Education Plans - all SpEd students have one) is not mandatory beyond the cursory one semester course of the credentials process. So chances are, if you have a child with Asperger's like Alex or Nick, or a child with ADHD, or any one of a number of special needs, at one point or another you will be faced with a teacher who, though skilled and successful at teaching neurotypical kids, is not a good fit for your child. An unfortunate consequence to that is that the rest of the students also suffer when a mainstream educator is asked to make special accommodations they are not trained to make.
So what can be done? It isn't reasonable to expect that all teachers should go out and get degrees in SpEd, but they should have access to some training. What I would like to see is the creation of a special education liaison/advocate to work with and train teachers as they need it. It would be the job of the liaison to manage the IEPs of kids in mainstream classrooms, and provide training and support for the teachers. Students are typically assigned their classrooms at the end of the previous year. The advocate, at the start of the new year, would meet with the teachers who will be receiving students with IEPs, and provide some "basic" training; what behaviors they are likely to see, what kind of classroom set up will best support that students' needs, what kind of discipline works and what doesn't, what kind of coping mechanisms will help the student stay on task, what kind of teaching style does the student best respond to, and what does not. For Nicholas, his teachers need to know he is easily overstimulated by sights and sounds, so the classroom should be neat and not over-decorated. He should be seated near the front and desks should be facing forward. Nick requires routine and structure, so he needs to be warned in advance of any change in schedule, and subs should be given information to help him adjust to a change in teacher. For children with ADHD, or Sensory Integration Disorder, the needs are different. A liaison would be able to support the teachers and give them the information and tools they need to meet all the different needs. Once the school year is under way, the liaison would be responsible for monitoring the progress, by observing the classrooms, and meeting regularly with the teachers to find out what they need, and meeting with the students and parents to find out what they need, and working with the teacher and the family to make sure the learning environment supports them all.
Perhaps, the next generation of educational reforms will pull back the focus on testing and start putting the focus where it needs to be: supporting the interaction between students and teacher, and providing the tools necessary to make that interaction the best it can be every single day. One can hope.
Tangential to the topic, I hope more parents will start to see the Special Education classes for what they are - a service provided by highly qualified, specially trained professionals who are passionate and hard-working and have our children's best interests at heart. I have always had a difficult time hearing from parents within the Down syndrome community who fight for full mainstreaming of their very special needs child and then scream and shout because of all the difficulties with the teacher - the teacher who does not have the training or background to meet those special needs. The problem isn't with the teachers. It is with the misplaced expectation and the misunderstanding of what SpEd is for.
I've got my flamesuit on and I fully expect to catch hell for that view, but there it is.
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