Furniture in classrooms has stayed relatively the same for years; there is a desk, with a sturdy, upright chair, and maybe a table with chairs- if a teacher happens to be so lucky. However, this standard desk and chair arrangement are not conducive to a productive work environment. Not many careers mandate workers to sit […]
special education
Conquering Teacher Biases Against Disabilities: Important Strategies
Last week, I wrote about teacher bias against special education students: a topic that struck a chord for many teachers for a variety of reasons. How can we achieve equity in education with biases in place? The answer? We can’t. But there are ways to help deal with biases, whether our own or someone else’s. […]
It’s Time to Address Teacher Bias Against Special Education Students
As a special educator for eight years, I can honestly say that most teachers have good intentions when it comes to reaching all children. That said, not all teachers are comfortable with, or even express happiness with, having special education students in their classrooms. Not surprisingly, a study conducted by MacFarlane and Woolfson (2013) found […]
[Podcast S2E12] How to Engage With Students Who Are Behaviorally Challenged
Have you ever received a child in your class who as soon as you see them you know they will be a behavior challenge? Call it teacher intuition, but you can feel it- and most times you’re right. You stay up late racking your brain for strategies for these students, but many times you don’t […]
Dear Parents of Children with Learning Disabilities
Dear Parents of Children with Learning Disabilities, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve sat in an IEP and watched your faces as the team discusses the strengths and weaknesses of your child from an academic viewpoint. I can see the fear, confusion, worry, and sometimes, anger on your face. I can feel your […]
Are SPED Teachers Being Wells Fargoed? How Special Education Resembles the Wells Fargo Scandal
Cross-Posted at maribeeappletree Those that handle our funds have a fiduciary duty to properly handle our hard-earned money, right? Recently our faith was shaken. In order to keep their $12 per hour jobs, low level Wells Fargo employees opened fraudulent bank and credit card accounts in their customers’ names. Top executives pushed managers to […]
My Math Learning Disability: A Student Perspective
As a student with a math learning disability, there are a lot of difficulties I experience in the classroom that get in the way of my learning, including “memory, language, attention, temporal-sequential ordering, higher order cognition, and spatial ordering” (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2002). Many times, as I sit in the classroom, I feel like I […]
How Far is Too Far to Save a Life?
The phone rings at midnight. That’s never a good sign, right? We imagine our relatives in a terrible accident, something gone wrong for our parents, or our children in trouble. But when you are a school administrator, you have to figure there is a chance the school caught fire, got burgled, or generally something went […]