Like many of you, the CEC Blog is taking a break for the summer. But stay tuned for its return in August! Some of CEC's most distinguished educators will be back to share their thoughts on the successes and challenges faced in special education. The posts are geared toward those new to the classroom, but will appeal to experienced teachers as well. So check back next month for new posts and more lively discussions! CEC wishes you a safe and relaxing summer.
On the tightrope of life, only one thing allows us to move forward, and that one thing is balance. Without balance we fall into chaos, we fall behind, we miss out on what true choices we have in life.
---Laura Kangas
Allow me to introduce myself for the last time in this blog cycle. My name is Douglas Jackson. In the interest of making this page a little more visual, I have included a crude self-portrait. I live in Las Cruces, New Mexico and work with deaf elementary students in El Paso, Texas. When I was asked to write these May entries, the goal was to impart to beginning teachers the hard-earned knowledge that I as a grizzled veteran had allegedly gleaned from the school of hard knocks. I am attempting here to do exactly that, but until recently, you would have had to file the advice that follows under the heading “Do as I say, not as I do.”
And the advice that follows is: “Find balance in your life, especially between your work life and your private life.”
Next to love, balance is the most important thing. John Wooden
In many ways, teaching was the intersection between who I was, what I was interested in, and what I enjoyed doing. I liked writing, drawing, creating, imaging, storytelling, discussing, researching and presenting. I enjoyed teaching through plays, group PowerPoints, simulations, and community-based projects. I felt an adrenalin rush when the wheels of my mind were turning, and even more of a rush when the wheels of my students’ minds were turning. And I could be, I’ll admit, a bit on the driven and compulsive side while pursing these goals.
At the same time I was blessed with two wonderful children living under my roof. I delighted in the wide variety of interests and activities that attracted them---Cub Scouts, piano lessons, gymnastics, roller hockey, mock trial teams, French and German clubs, the guitar, marching band, all of it.
My entire life was basically my work and my family. And then WHAM! and WHAM! WHAM!
Man always travels along precipices. His truest obligation is to keep his balance.
---Pope John Paul II
WHAM! My son and daughter went off to college and their new, rewarding lives far, far away. I went from full house to empty nest.
WHAM! WHAM! At the same time, the whole educational field (especially Special Needs and my little Deaf Ed. corner of it) was undergoing a massive, monumental and mind-boggling overhaul. Instead of feeling (or at least having the illusion) that I was the master of my domain, I was no longer sure which way was up (and I wasn’t taking any bets on left, right or sideways, either).
That is not to say that this huge paradigm shift was not warranted, or that it has been without benefit to the students we are committed to serving. That would not be true. It is also not to say that I was unable to find any of the purpose and fulfillment I had always enjoyed in the classroom. That would also not be true. It is to say that I felt like I was working in a wind tunnel, perpetually besieged and bewildered, constantly contemplating the true meaning of that ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”
The key to keeping your balance is knowing when you've lost it.
---Anonymous
I eventually realized that I could not blame all of this on the inevitable changes in my field. The truth was that part of the reason my head felt like it was always spinning was because there was no balance in my life. I had become reasonably proficient at knocking down barriers and building connections in my educational life. I was woefully deficient at doing the same thing in my personal life. In fact, I had practically cocooned myself. Something had to change.
That something came from out of the blue. Literally. I was walking my dogs in an arroyo near my home one Saturday morning when a group of hot air balloons passed over my head. Figuring that while this might not keep me out of trouble, it would at least get me out of the house, I resolved to attend the second day of the balloon rally. I was subsequently introduced to a pilot named Marta Rose, and began to crew for her balloon, the Ramblin’ Rose. It was in the basket of the Ramblin’ Rose that I first floated freely in the heavens, contemplated the whole of creation from a distance, and spat in the face of gravity. The comradery of the crew, the thrill of adventure, and the excitement of each departure and return to Mother Earth were an enormous pleasure, and I can’t deny that the lack of eighty-page IEPs, three hour meetings, and endless government mandates was also a selling point. My many flights with Marta, as well as subsequent ones with Jim Johnson, Dan Erhard, Sue Terebenetz and Barney Watson have helped me maintain my balance, both above ground and on terra firma.
“Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.”
---Robert Fulghum
I have also joined Storytellers of Las Cruces, a group that has been honoring the art and tradition of telling stories at special events and festivals, and in classrooms, bookstores, libraries and other public places, since the state of New Mexico was in its infancy. The other storytellers were both a joy to watch in action, and encouraging to me as a novice member. I volunteer with the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Park and the local soup ktchen. I take classes on stuff not directly related to the classroom. I hike several times a year. I am still a work in progress; it is not unusual for me to take work home. But I do have a life offstage. There is more balance in my life.
Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself.
---Jessye Norman
There has never been a time when teachers have felt so overwhelmed, particularly special ed. teachers. Sometimes we feel like a small jar of peanut butter that has to be spread on twenty loaves of bread. Those are simply the times in which we live. But we are not without the tools that can help us survive, and perhaps even thrive. Teachers everywhere are discovering that the teachers next door and across the hall make wonderful educational partners, partners who can both expand each other’s horizons and lighten each others loads. There are resources in your community and on the Internet. And there are opportunities for you as a person to find the balance in your life that will not only keep you sane and make you emotionally richer, but make you a more well-rounded and capable teacher.
We can be sure that the greatest hope for maintaining equilibrium in the face of any situation rests within ourselves.
---Francis J. Braceland
Thank you, Lynda Van Kuren and the CEC, for giving me the opportunity to ruminate in this space. Thank you to the people who have given me feedback, both here and elsewhere. Congratulations to all the new teachers and veterans who have made it through yet another year. Best wishes to the teachers who are retiring, or pressing the ‘pause’ button for now, including my colleagues Angie Nava and Melissa Ortiz. Have a great summer.
By Douglas Jackson
“Life,” John Lennon once wrote, “is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.” It is at this time of year, when my mind races hither and yon, both voluntarily and involuntarily reflecting upon the events of the past school year, that I realize he was exactly right.
As teachers we make plans constantly---in groups, in meetings, in tiny boxes in plan books or in digital boxes on laptops. Plans are made for us at the federal, state and district level. Our lives as educators are a looming, towering, ever-expanding edifice of plans.
And yet, “life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.”
I don’t mean to demean, dismiss or diminish the importance of those plans. We need goals. We need road maps. We need consistency and accountability. And as a teacher of deaf students at an elementary school in El Paso, Texas, I am no different. I have made my weight in plans this year, and that does not even include the unspoken, unwritten ones that are always dancing about in the back of my head. Like any other teacher, I celebrate when I have satisfied some of these plans, and reproach myself when I doubt that I have done enough to realize others.
And yet, “life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.” Every year I am overjoyed, overwhelmed and sustained by the amazing things that have happened to me unexpectedly, completely out of the blue.
Every year we have people in the community who help us with various events and projects. Groups like the local Lions Club help us with poster contests and spelling bees. Judges and attorneys assist with our annual mock trials. The members of the Military Order of the World Wars have helped me to create a Veterans Day program that we have expanded to over a dozen other schools. Local businesses and agencies have helped us create Career Week activities and simulations. They do a wonderful job. I anticipated that part. They also give of their time, their hearts and their souls, and then thank us for the opportunity. I have received awards from individuals and groups to whom in a just world I should have been giving awards. The tremendous sense of gratitude, connection and admiration I feel towards these wonderful people is something I did not and could not have anticipated.
“Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.”
Every year, in an effort to teach our students the joys of giving back to a community that has been very generous to them, we do community projects, many of them largely masterminded by my colleague JoAnn Hansen. We have a Halloween Carnival for all of the K-3 students, both hearing and deaf. We sign and sing songs at nursing homes during the holidays. Our students do a great job and I expected that. The K-3 students and the residents of the nursing home thoroughly enjoyed themselves. But the pride and joy our students experience in making other people happy never ceases to enrich me. And what better feeling on this planet could there be then having a small child whose name you don’t even know walk up and hug you in May for something you did in October?
“Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.”
Recently my colleague Lorie Lail, who works as a speech therapist with deaf students at both our elementary and high school sites, held an oratorical contest for our high school students, most of whom had been students of mine when they were at the elementary level. She asked me to look at some of their speeches and make suggestions, which I did gladly. The theme of the contest was “Why Me? Why Not?” The former had to do with obstacles the students had faced---family illnesses, family crises, communication barriers, and so on. The latter had to do with ways in which the students had overcome those problems, and ways in which they would continue to do so in the future. I expected the students to do well, and they did. What I did not expect, and what pleased me to the very fiber of my being, was what truly mature, creative, charming, engaging, capable and dedicated people they had become. I don’t know that I can take too much credit for this. I can tell you I loved basking in its glow.
“Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.”
Our careers as educators are just necklaces. The beads on these necklaces are moments such as these. No one knows this better than my friend and fellow 2000 Disney American Teacher Award honoree Peter Riffle. His conversations, not to mention his autobiography, The Cloud Chaser, are necklaces full of such beads, the accomplishments of a lifetime in the classroom. Peter is learning disabled himself, and though he has discovered strategies to overcome these problems, he still struggles with them to this day. During the course of our Disney activities, Peter had to pick a topic out of a hat and give an impromptu speech about it. Peter told us as he picked the topic out of the hat that he was petrified that he would not be able to read it. He did read it. He did discuss the topic brilliantly. More importantly, he taught the generations of learning disabled students who were fortunate enough to call him ‘teacher’ to do exactly the same thing. Peter is retiring this year. Thanks, Peter, for what you have given all those students. Thanks for what you have given me. I am glad that I met you (and all of the people I mentioned above, or should have mentioned above) when I was busy making other plans.
My name is Douglas Jackson. I work with deaf elementary students in El Paso, Texas. I have done this for most of my twenty-odd year career, except for a three year stint as the coordinator of a law-related education program and some glorious summers as a teacher of gifted and talented students. I was a 2000 Disney American Teacher Award Honoree. That is how I met the wonderful and kind Lynda Van Kuren of the CEC, who has asked me to share some thoughts with you during what educators ought to call May Madness.
I have been reading most of the blog entries for the past school year, all the while wondering what exactly I could contribute that be worthy of such company, let alone serve as the culmination of this year’s opus. And I should tell you that despite my deep regard for data-driven, issue-oriented, research-based discussions of the classroom, my own inclination is toward stories, analogies and parables. I will attempt to share some of these as the year winds down.
Let me tell you about a project that I am currently finishing with my students. Every year I do a Powerpoint presentation with my fifth grade Regional Day School Program for the Deaf home room. These Powerpoints are designed for my students to present to adult audiences out in the community, generally about a subject that concerns them. They also practice by presenting to other classes.
The first one back in 2004 dealt with the rights and responsibilities of deaf people in our system of justice, particularly the importance of interpreters at all stages of the process. It was the product of the annual mock trials we have been doing in the 243rd District courtroom of Judge David Guaderrama for the past thirteen years. My students presented it to a meeting of the El Paso Bar Association. To see the presentation, click on this link, http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_heward_exceptional_8/0,10904,2414970-,00.html, then click on 'Featured Teacher' on the left navigation bar.
The students did so well that the following school year we did a Powerpoint for a group of medical students on the rights and responsibilities of deaf people in medical situations, again stressing the importance of qualified, certified interpreters in what can be life and death situations. We have done these presentations ever since. Our current presentation is on Deaf Artists, and we will be presenting this to a Lions Club meeting later this month.
These presentations have become a tradition, something students look forward to at the end of the school year. In addition to developing their communication and presentation skills, the students are becoming more adept at and more comfortable with the kind of technology that will be critical for their futures. But after months of telling my students that people like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Cesar Chavez can say things that change the way that people think, it is very gratifying to observe when they stand up in front of a room full of adults and realize that they themselves can follow in those footsteps.
Everybody needs something bright and shiny to look forward to at the end of the non-stop series of daily marathons that is a year in the life of a special needs educator. This is my ‘bright and shiny’. I would love to hear about yours.
Successful teachers never stop learning. Educators who improve every year are those who are open to new ideas and who can critically reflect and view their own teaching. (Slavin, 2006) This allows them the flexibility to vary academic and behavioral interventions as the individual needs of their students change. A successful educator must:
References
Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L., Mathes, P. G., & Simmons, D. (1997). Peer-assisted learning strategies:
Making classrooms more responsive to diversity. American Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 174-206.
Glasgow, N. & Hicks, C. (2003). What successful teachers do. California: Corwin Press.
Hattie, J. & Marsh, H. (1996). The relationship between research and teaching: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 66(4), 507-542.
Marzano, R., Pickering, D., & Pollack J. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria: Association for Supervision & Curriculum DevelopmentBe aw.
Slavin, R. (2006). Educational psychology: Theory and practice. Boston: Pearson, Allyn, & Bacon:
Witt, J. C., VanDerHeyden, A. M., & Gilbertson, D. (2004). Instruction and classroom management: Prevention and intervention research. In R.B. Rutherford, Jr., M.M. Quinn, & S.R. Mathur (Eds.), Handbook of Research in Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. (1st ed., pp. 426-445). New York: Guilford Press.
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