Back in my day, my first year of teaching, we didn’t have all the fancy technology that schools have now. The Boombox was the new thing all the kids wanted.
In our recent live training, we talked about 3 big mistakes that I made during my first year of teaching. The lessons I learned showed me I needed to learn more about being a teacher and supporting students.
We also looked at 5 Advocacy Action Steps you can take to support teachers' professional development and be supported as a parent.
Our friends watching the live show shared some important thoughts, I'm sure you can relate to.
Listen and watch the replay to catch all the goodness. Click here.
My first big mistake I made as a teacher was...
I remember the first week of being an elementary special education teacher. I was very nervous and wanted to do everything right.
I had a student that was being very loud one day. He was stomping his feet and yelling at others. Not knowing exactly what to do, I relied on the 'ole, "Kevin, please go out into the hall and take some time to calm down."
Guess what happened next? Click here to hear the rest of the story. You can fast forward to the 3:37 time stamp.
Luckily, I did not get fired, and I learned instead of sending students away and segregating them was not the answer. I needed to get to know Kevin, find out what his strengths were and ask how I could best support him.
My second mistake and lesson learned...
2. Only Seeing the Tip of the Iceberg
As a new teacher, I wanted to make sure that my students were kind to each other.
I had a student, Joey, who would also sit behind other students when we gathered on the floor for a story. I can still picture him – he’d be sitting on the floor, sucking his thumb and he would reach out with his right leg and kick the back of the person sitting in front of him.
I would remind Joey to be nice and not kick his friends. He would just look at me and smile.
My reminders were not working and finally I realized there was a pattern with Joey’s behavior that I had not noticed because I was so worried about him kicking.
What I missed seeing was after Joey would kick the student in front of him, the student would turn around and look at him, he’d smile and give a friendly wave.
If I had taken the time to see that kicking for Joey wasn’t about trying to be mean or hurt someone, it was his way of saying, Hi, let’s be friends.
I learned to stop making judgments without exploring the underlying needs students are trying to tell us that they need met. For Joey, it was about wanting friends.
My third mistake and lesson I learned was...
3. Believing What I Read
As a new teacher, I was trying to prepare for my first class, so I carefully read each student’s file so I could learn more about them.
The report about one of my students, David was filled with descriptions of a young 6-year-old who wasn’t talking, needed help in the bathroom, did not have any basic academic skills, would cry when walking into a noisy lunchroom, and had the label of PDD (Pervasive Developmental Disorder).
The first day of school, he was fascinated with a magnetic board and magnetic letters I had in our reading center. He spent a lot of time moving the letters around and smiling.
I was relieved there was an activity in the classroom he liked and he could work on “pre-reading skills”.
Imagine my surprise when we came back from lunch recess and David, made a bee-line to the magnetic letters and immediately went about spelling, CBS Evening News With Dan Rather (can you tell how long ago it was when I was teaching, LOL).
Yes, David did not use verbal communication, he needed help in the bathroom, the loud lunchroom bothered him, AND he had academic skills that I nor anyone else was recognizing!
Thank you, David for helping me learn to not believe what I read in a student's file. Kids are so much more than what their file reveals.
The mistakes I made that first week of being a special education teacher are common mistakes for many teachers to make. As more and more students are being included in general education classrooms, more teachers need support so they can be effective teachers. This is where your Advocacy Action step comes in.
Next Steps:
1. Talk to principal and/or the special education director to request that professional development days be spent helping teachers understand how to implement Universal Design for Learning and Co-teaching, along with understanding that behavior is
communication.
2. Encourage teachers who have had positive experiences with inclusive education to be a mentor for other staff in the building. Teachers are much more apt to take advice from colleagues. Think of the gold-mine of skills so many educators have that are not being tapped into. Formalizing a peer-coaching professional development group would be build capacity at each school.
3. Share Dr. Julie Causton’s Your School’s Inclusion Quotient Inventory. It's a terrific tool to help your school build on their strengths and identify next steps they can take. Click
here.
4. Request staff training be written in your child’s IEP. Many teachers and parents don't realize that IDEA allows for staff training for
those that work with your child. This can be included in the Supplementary Aids and Services part of the IEP.
5. Consider requesting for Parent Counseling or Training be written in your child's IEP. Again, few know this Related Service can be added to the IEP. Now YOU know, IDEA says Parent Counseling or Training can be provided to:
*assist parents in understanding the special needs of their child;
*give parents information about child development;
*Help parents to acquire the necessary skills that will allow them to support the implementation of their child’s IEP or IFSP.
Catch the replay and hear our conversations around these questions:
• Teachers' fears of the unknown
* What parent training can look like
* Change-maker Michael Remus (if you have contact info for him, I'd love to invite him to be a guest on my show).
* School and district decisions about masks, vaccinations
* My un-retirement announcement
Here are Resources we mentioned in the live show.
•Dr. Julie Causton’s Your School’s Inclusion Quotient Inventory. It's a terrific tool to help your school build on their strengths and identify next steps they can take. Click here.
Julie also filmed a video explaining the Your School's Inclusion Quotient (IQ). Click here.
•Training for staff can be written in the IEP.
Statute/Regs Main » Regulations » Part B » Subpart D » Section 300.320 » a » 4
(4) A statement of the special education and related services and supplementary aids and services, based on peer-reviewed research to the extent practicable, to be provided to the child, or on behalf of the child, and a statement of the program modifications or supports for school personnel that will be provided to enable the child—
(i) To advance appropriately toward attaining the annual goals;
(ii) To be involved in and make progress in the general education curriculum in accordance with paragraph (a)(1) of this section, and to participate in extracurricular and other nonacademic activities; and
(iii) To be educated and participate with other children with disabilities and non-disabled children in the activities described in this section;
Last modified on July 12, 2017
Parent Counseling and Training can be written in the IEP.
300.34 Related services
Subsection (c)(8) defines parent counseling and training as:
“(i)… assisting parents in understanding the special needs of their child;
(ii) Providing parents with information about child development; and
(iii) Helping parents to acquire the necessary skills that will allow them to support the implementation of their child’s IEP or IFSP.”
Thursday, September 2nd: 5 Ways to Advocate for Inclusion, Even When You're Discouraged.
It's frustrating and heartbreaking when your son or daughter is told "no" to inclusion.
There’s a way we can change this by thinking of the problem as if it were a marketing campaign for inclusive education.
We'll be live on my Visions and Voices Together Facebook page and Magaly Diaz, Education Director of the Down Syndrome Association of South Texas,
will be our host.
If you were with us a few weeks ago when we tried doing the show, only to be thwarted by my loss of internet – this will be a tech-free show (cross your fingers just to be safe).
Keep on keepin' on! You ARE making a difference for your child and for other students to come!
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