Reality 101: CEC's blog for new teachers

Jennifer: Troubleshooting the Inclusion Dilemma

I have always been a huge advocate of inclusion. I think it does so much for our students when they  leave their self-contained classroom to go out and engage in a different-paced activity with a larger group of students than they are used to. It encourages communication and helps them increase interpersonal skills. And most importantly, it builds friendships that they may not have otherwise had.

My school is specific to students with physical and health impairments; however, we are connected to a general education school. When I first came here, I thought that this was the absolute perfect set-up for inclusion. I had all these huge plans for pen-pal programs to motivate my students to write, science projects that they could do in teams, maybe even a play or music performance that would bring our classes together (for some reason, every time I thought about how great it would be, my ideas played out in my head like a montage to the theme song for “The Wonder Years”).

Anyone? Anyone?

What to do when you're faced with a classroom of blank-faced students? This recent article from Teacher Magazine -- written by CEC member and former Reality 101 blogger Elizabeth Stein -- answers that very question.

It all boils down to what Stein calls "the student-perspective factor." Liven up your lessons and engage your students with her tried-and-true tips.

Kathy: Staying Safe

Is it 6 a.m. already? Interesting night! I had dreams that my daughter with special needs was pregnant; that I was considering moving to Texas; that the plane ticket to go to Texas and check it out was too expensive; that I had a job at a coffee shop and one of my students was my co-worker. I guess interesting days bring interesting nights!

The other day, one of my students was threatened at a city bus stop located in a mall parking lot. Another student verified his story. The two male students were not able to get on the bus because it was full and had to wait 30 minutes for the next one. Meanwhile, my student fed and chased birds in the parking lot.

Ellen: Hands to Self!

I have a student who is aggressive toward me on a daily basis. When denied access to sensory  self-stimulating behavior that involves touching (but not intentionally hurting) other students, he hits, bites, scratches, and pinches me. I am able to keep the other students safe—they are not in danger—but managing his aggression toward me requires constant vigilance.

We’ve started the formal Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) process, which should yield us a formal Behavior Intervention Plan in a few weeks. I’ve been keeping anecdotal data since April, but outside support and consultation for this student’s behavior have been slow and limited. I think the FBA process will get some other very valuable sets of eyes on the problem and I am very hopeful that we can try some interventions that will prevent him from having to go into a more restrictive setting.

Jennifer: Rethinking the IEP Process

Every career has its own form of “rush week,” the period of time where everyone is scrambling around,  feeling overwhelmed, and wondering if they have any stress leave left. For us, I think IEPs could easily be just that... the period when there isn't enough time to even glance at the clock to realize how little time you have left to get everything done. I try to take a hint from the seasoned veterans who make the whole IEP process look like just another daily routine. I try to remain professional, calm, and collected, but honestly I've been a complete and utter wreck these past two weeks.

It's not that the IEP process is necessarily that hard. It's really as hard as you decide it's going to be. Before now I had them strewn throughout the year whenever they were due for each child, but at my new school they designate two weeks at the beginning of the year for you get your annual IEPs finished.

Kathy: “Key” Issues

It’s official: I am now a vocational instructor/job coach.

I am teaching custodial skills to 18- to 26-year-old special education students. The kicker is that the job site is our own school! We are the only custodians. I knew little about custodial skills, so I am learning while I am teaching them. If someone had told me a year ago I would be drooling over janitorial supply catalogs, I would never have believed them.

My job is unique in so many ways. Maybe all special education jobs are? Other job coaches go off school grounds to businesses and “coach” the kids in whatever the business wants them to do. I am the business owner and the job coach. I have to order supplies, be their coach, and get my crew to clean the school.

Ellen: Learned Helplessness

Whenever we have a substitute for one of my paraprofessionals, one of the hardest things is trying to  give him or her a sense of the balance between helping students practice a skill and simply doing something for them. It doesn’t help that my students, no matter how severe their disabilities, are absolutely masterful at snowing new people. From gluing to speaking to walking in a gait trainer, I’ve seen my kids stare at new people like they were purple aliens when requested to do a simple task that they are completely capable of doing.

There are many things that my students cannot do, many things they need help to do, and some things they will always need help to do. Most of them notice this in some way, at some point. Language is a serious struggle for all of my students, so asking for help is something we work on a lot—most of them won’t do it spontaneously. So when a caring, helpful adult sees that an adorable six-year-old with a disability is struggling to put his jacket on, she does it for him. Multiply that experience by 50 other daily events and you send the message to that kid: you can’t do it, I’ll do it for you.

Katie: Plan. Plan. Plan.

Becoming the full-time lead teacher is a big change from being a part-time co-teacher. I have to plan the daily schedule and activities, plan what the children need to be learning, plan how they should be learning it, plan team meetings, plan student meetings, plan for Individualized Education Plans (IEP), plan interventions to help children meet their IEP goals—oh, and plan a time to eat lunch… This is typically the one forgotten most often.

I think the planning that I am struggling with most is the IEP/data collection. Last year, the lead teacher that I was with was responsible for making data sheets, combining all the data from each week, and developing a progress report and/or evaluation of children’s strengths and needs. All I had to do was show up, know the kids well (which really just required playing with them), and make a tally mark every once and while.

Jennifer: The Field of Change

When I was growing up, my parents used to tell me that I never fully appreciated what was happening at the present moment because I was always too busy making future plans. The Aesop fable about the prepared ant and the lazy grasshopper had probably traumatized me to some extreme, and I strongly believed that the more I planned, the less uncertainty would come my way (talk about an unlikely candidate for a career in special education!).

The second I entered this field, all my preconceptions about the wisdom behind solid scheduling and relying on daily plans leapt right out the window. My days were filled with multiple unscheduled visitors, single-student behaviors that served as intermissions for the whole class, and lesson plans that worked SO MUCH BETTER in my head than in practice. I realized that if I didn’t learn how to be flexible and accept constant change, I was going to end up another statistic in the “education career overturn” bracket.

Kathy: Getting the Job

I wish I could tell you that I searched for my job in an organized fashion and followed all the “rules” on  how to land that perfect position. That is not my story, however. I had done little more than think about going back to work. I went through a divorce (his midlife crisis turned into mine) and became a single parent of a 22-year-old daughter with special needs and a 12-year-old son.

Every morning my to-do list read something like this: lose weight, make colonoscopy appointment, fix up my new house, forgive the ex, and get a job using my degree (which, by the way, I earned about 25 years ago). I wonder why it took me almost two years to get around to getting a job? I did get that colonoscopy, though!

Ellen: Year Three -- Expectations Realized, Revisited, and Revised

One of the simultaneously great and challenging things about teaching students in the type of self-contained program that I do is that I have some of the same students for more than one year. This is my third year in the field and it’s my third year teaching two of my students, my second year teaching two others, and my first year teaching my two kindergarten students.

There are eight elementary schools in my county that provide self-contained classroom services for students with moderate to severe mental retardation (called “MOD/SD” programs here), one for each “cluster” of geographically close high school/middle school/elementary school pyramids. At each elementary school with this program, there are typically two classes and the students are divided by age, ability, or a combination of both. At our school, we divide students into the two classes based primarily on age, with my class comprising mostly grades K-3 and the other class containing students in grades 3-6.

Katie: New School Year, New Responsibilities

Welcome back, students and teachers! This year started off with a bang, and I’m nervous yet excited to be the new lead teacher in the second-year classroom at FCLC. After one year as the co-teacher in the first-year room, I thought I was well prepared. However, as September drew closer and closer, I realized there was much more I still would need to learn this year — and in the years to come.

Luckily, I know most of my students well because I was with them in the first-year classroom last year. The children, their families, and I have built trusting and comfortable relationships and we are all eager to grow and learn during the 2009-2010 school year.

Coming Soon from Reality 101 . . .

Over the summer, we decided to make some changes to our flagship blog, Reality 101 for New Teachers. Instead of having veteran special educators blog for new teachers, why not hear from the new teachers themselves?

So, we set out to recruit CEC members to write for the blog for the entire 2009-10 school year, and we were overwhelmed by the response. Out of dozens of excellent blogging applicants, we chose four newly minted special educators -- all in their first, second, or third year in the field -- to share their teaching experiences with the CEC community.

Next week our blog team will make their debut! We encourage readers, both peer and veteran educators, to get to know these bloggers, offer them advice, and share their own stories through the blog. There will be successes and challenges, ups and downs . . . but no matter what, their stories will showcase just how rewarding a career in special education can be.