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Who is really teaching your special education child?
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<blockquote data-quote="muttmeister" data-source="post: 454463" data-attributes="member: 135"><p>I don't know about this specific teacher and situation but I as somebody who taught in a regular classroom I can comment on a couple of things.</p><p></p><p>First of all, a lot of Special Education kids do have what amounts to their "own" aide. With that many kids who have severe disabilities, one teacher could not possibly teach them all. The idea is for the teacher to plan the instruction and oversee the aides and check to make sure they are doing what they need to do for each kid. Whether that actually works varies wildly from school to school but the idea is probably sound. Because the teacher is the one ultimately responsible, she is the one who meets with parents, etc. although many schools do include that kids aide in conferences, etc.</p><p></p><p>As far as inclusion, or mainstreaming, I am not a big fan in many cases but usually teachers don't have a lot of leeway. The powers that be in the halls of government (most of whom haven't seen a kid or been in a classroom for half a century) have decided, in their great wisdom, that this is the way to go. We are seeing more, not less, of this. I am all for mainstreaming kids into anything they can profit from and into classes that give them some real social interaction but, too often, they are put into classes that they have no interest in, no background for, and no chance of ever understanding. We have them sitting in algebra classes when they could more profitably benefit from leaning how to use a calculator to balance a check book. They go to physics class when they should be learning how to use a microwave. We send them to English literature when they should be learning to read instructions and fill out employment forms. I don't want to go back to the old days like when I was a kid and they stayed home or to later times when they stuck them all together in a room in the back of the school and forgot about them, but this isn't the answer either. </p><p></p><p>When I taught I always felt like I was being asked to pound square pegs into round holes and nowhere is that more true than in a lot of Special Education classes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="muttmeister, post: 454463, member: 135"] I don't know about this specific teacher and situation but I as somebody who taught in a regular classroom I can comment on a couple of things. First of all, a lot of Special Education kids do have what amounts to their "own" aide. With that many kids who have severe disabilities, one teacher could not possibly teach them all. The idea is for the teacher to plan the instruction and oversee the aides and check to make sure they are doing what they need to do for each kid. Whether that actually works varies wildly from school to school but the idea is probably sound. Because the teacher is the one ultimately responsible, she is the one who meets with parents, etc. although many schools do include that kids aide in conferences, etc. As far as inclusion, or mainstreaming, I am not a big fan in many cases but usually teachers don't have a lot of leeway. The powers that be in the halls of government (most of whom haven't seen a kid or been in a classroom for half a century) have decided, in their great wisdom, that this is the way to go. We are seeing more, not less, of this. I am all for mainstreaming kids into anything they can profit from and into classes that give them some real social interaction but, too often, they are put into classes that they have no interest in, no background for, and no chance of ever understanding. We have them sitting in algebra classes when they could more profitably benefit from leaning how to use a calculator to balance a check book. They go to physics class when they should be learning how to use a microwave. We send them to English literature when they should be learning to read instructions and fill out employment forms. I don't want to go back to the old days like when I was a kid and they stayed home or to later times when they stuck them all together in a room in the back of the school and forgot about them, but this isn't the answer either. When I taught I always felt like I was being asked to pound square pegs into round holes and nowhere is that more true than in a lot of Special Education classes. [/QUOTE]
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