Sometimes parents of students with disabilities will complain that teachers don’t know how to teach special education. This generalization is difficult to pin down. What specifically makes parents believe this? What is it about their student’s teacher that makes them so critical?
With more student placement in inclusion classes, it also isn’t always clear if they are complaining about a general or special education teacher.
If their child’s teacher didn’t do a good job, why not? What college did that teacher attend, and why didn’t they learn what they needed to effectively teach students with disabilities?
I recently wrote a post critical of Teach for America Corps Members who obtain little preparation to teach students with disabilities, but what about teachers who have college degrees and adequate credentials? Why do parents criticize them?
Was the child in an inclusion class where the teacher could not specialize their education well? Resource and self-contained classes are often shunned because students are segregated, but it is in those classes that some children have the best chance of individualized assistance.
Students with a variety of exceptionalities are now found in general education inclusion classrooms. While an inclusion setting is usually always the goal, unless class sizes are small, or there’s a special education co-teacher, general education teachers won’t always be able to provide the best tailored help.
Teachers might take a course or two about special education, but it is impossible to expect one general education teacher to have special expertise in all exceptional areas. It’s unrealistic and unfair to promise parents the best of both worlds.
Many universities have been caught up in corporate reform and policy changes for years. With the re-authorizations of PL 94-142 to IDEA, universities changed how they prepared teachers too. The focus became more about inclusion.
Here is the list from the Council of Exceptional Students of all the exceptionality categories:
- Autism
- Deaf-Blindness
- Deafness
- Emotional Disturbance
- Intellectual Disability
- Hearing Impairment
- Multiple Disabilities
- Orthopedic Impairment
- Other Health Impairment
- Specific Learning Disability
- Speech of Language Impairment
- Traumatic Brain Injury
- Visual Impairments Including Blindness
- Developmental Delay
- Infant of Toddler with a Disability
- At-Risk Infant of Toddler
- Gifted and Talented
- Twice Exceptional
Those of us who received university degrees in special education in the ’70s and ’80s, before changes to PL-94-142, remember more specialization. If you wanted to teach special education, you chose one or several of the categories above to study intensely. It was mandatory to do this if you wanted to teach in that particular area.
For example:
- Those who wished to teach students with emotional or behavioral difficulties (EH) were required to study psychology, child development, behavior, assessment, teaching methods and other applicable coursework.
- Teachers interested in students with learning disabilities (LD) had to get coursework involving central processing dysfunctions, visual and auditory disabilities, language and other neurological areas which could have fallen under the “brain science” so many talk about today. EH and LD overlap, so getting licensure coverage for both these areas was encouraged in many universities.
- Dyslexia, which is a controversial subject among parents, fell under the category of learning disabilities. It’s not a new topic. Students with dyslexia or reading disabilities usually attended a resource class for reading assistance one or two periods a day. It was there that they received special reading instruction that often included instruction on decoding. This still occurs.
- Likewise, if you taught students with deafness or vision difficulties, there were special classes and licensure for teaching in these areas.
- Gifted and Talented was another area that required special coursework and many credit hours for certification.
School districts strictly enforced rules to place special education teachers with credentials in the areas they were to teach.
Categories might overlap. But specializing and obtaining in-depth knowledge about how to teach children in any category is important.
It seems like fewer college courses with specialization exist today in the area of learning disabilities especially, probably due to the general education push for inclusion. Yet that’s the exact area where teachers used to learn about dyslexia and other disabilities that are still prevalent.
But not specializing as a teacher in special education means that a huge part of understanding how students with disabilities learn is lost. It only adds to the “one-size-fits-all” mentality and students get shortchanged.
Teacher preparation should be both broad and specific to ensure that students have access to the assistance they need according to the disability they bring to school.
This is exactly the problem with the push for inclusion for all students with disabilities. It is one of the many reasons I pulled my son to homeschool. Our district started pushing for full inclusion. My son had tried inclusion three previous times. It didn’t work. Taking a full self-contained class and combining it with a general ed. class of 22 in a room where students had to sit on the floor and the gen. ed. teacher had no experience with the special ed. population was a disaster!
That sounds terrible! Self-contained and resource serve a valuable purpose. Schools should have a continuum of services. Thanks for sharing, Monica. Hope you have a good New Year!
Inclusion works when there is full support from specialized staff and professional service providers involved with the IEP team. When pushed into this situation without thoughtful plans and trained personnel to implement IEP requirements, then, yes, it will be difficult for a general education teacher. I fully realize a regular teacher does not have full training or credentials in special education, but I do expect this teacher to seek out professionals and refer to the IEP team when facing issues. The parent is usually the last to know of problems in the classroom and even when writing into IEPs the need for meaningful communication to and from school, it rarely occurs.
The problem is more an administrative one. If administration is not invested in properly implementing an IEP for full inclusion with needed supports, it’s not gonna happen. I’ve seen it for 20 years now as an advocate. The written IEP document is only as effective as those tasked to implement it.
You say, “I do expect this teacher to seek out professionals and refer to the IEP team when facing issues.”
This is one reason why teachers are fighting for smaller class sizes.
Thanks, Sonja!
I do not believe full inclusion is good for the child with a disability nor is it good for the children that do not have a disability. There are some children that thrive in an inclusion environment and those children should be in an inclusion environment but a child that cannot adapt needs specialized classes with a teacher trained in their needs in order for them to flourish to their full potential. The is a reason why full inclusion is being pushed but that is for another time……but believe me it is not to benefit the students.
I agree. Thank you, Karen.
Things have definitely changed from your perception. The special ed teachers in our district (most of whom have graduated from a university with a highly rated school of education) have basically a general ed degree with a few more seminars thrown in and many do not even know what conditions are listed as SLDs. Inclusion or resource? Doesn’t really matter anymore,Students will get the same education.
It does matter to the student! They aren’t getting the education they deserve. But I get your point. Thank you, Cynthia!
I believe many teachers have good intentions but are hampered in many school districts by administrators who don’t understand or appreciate special education and see special education as merely costly. So teachers don’t speak out at IEP meetings or fear retaliation from the higher ups or haven’t received sufficient professional development and support once they have graduated or don’t have support in the classroom because their school has not permitted a student with an IEP a needed para or provided proper support or a combination of all of the above. I recognize providing supports is part of the IEP team’s authority; however, that is not the reality in many school districts as school districts don’t always follow the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Parents may not see what is going on behind the scenes.
As a culture, we need to value the education of all students, not just those who are easy and inexpensive to teach.
Many of these issues are so dependent on the state and district. For instance, all inclusion classes in my district have two fully certified teachers and that’s the case across most of the state. My best friend teaches in a district where a dual certified teacher will have to manage a class on their own. It becomes an impossible situation to effectively meet the needs of students and follow an IEP when you are by yourself. Class size is also key.
Speaking to the issue of teacher preparation, Nancy is on the money. Today’s special education teaches are expected to be a “Jack of all trades.” You are expected to be an expert in content and pedagogy like a general education, and you need to understand how to meet the needs of EVERY type of student with disabilities.
I often wish I could turn back time and complete my special education programming when I did my standard certificate. I can honestly say that one teacher education program was far superior to the other. My special education program, 30 credits worth of classes, did little to prepare me for actively teaching in an inclusive setting. It was trial by fire to learn everything I needed for the large range of students I would encounter.
I found a niche for myself in specialized reading instruction. I haven’t earned my specialist certificate yet, but I’m a resource teacher who mainly uses an Orton-Gillingham based program for intervention and instruction. I’ve chosen to make myself an expert in this area. However, I still have a student who is multiply disabled, students who have autism, and students with emotional and behavioral concerns. The push is for ALL students to spend 100% of their time in the general education classroom with support, which we all know isn’t always the right setting. I constantly have to fight for my job in resource because you just can’t do OG in the back of a classroom.
I’m also a parent of a perpetually impaired child with signs of dyslexia. I saw signs because dyslexic isn’t a diagnosis. Therefore, I’ve been on both sides of the table for IEP meetings. To my fellow parents, don’t be afraid to fight for what you know your child needs. There are many advocacy groups who will help you fight and many work pro bono.
Full inclusion without support doesn’t work for anyone, but many districts aren’t hiring assistants or special education teachers to cover the growing population. Add to the mix ELL students with learning difficulties unrelated to the language barrier. Students will continue to lose as funding continues to decrease.
I watched over time as the state decided i was qualified to teach a much wider range of students than my original degree intended. No more training was provided; we were just magically qualified. Of course, I, and others, sought out additional training depending on what students were assigned to us. My last district had fortunately not started pushing inclusion to a ridiculous level, probably because the teachers’ contract included restrictions. I at least taught in self contained classrooms even though the students exhibited a wide range of needs. The biggest problem I saw with inclusion was the belief that the general ed classroom was by its nature the LRE. The idea that the environment should be chosen according to the child’s needs seemed to get lost.
You nailed the problem with the current state of special education services. I graduated in 1997, and specialized in Intellectual Disabilities. I also took all required courses, except the student teaching part for Learning Disabilities. I am now a parent to a child with Autism, and am a department head. They sure do not train special education teachers like they used to. The teachers that do best with special education services are the ones who graduated before or about the time that I did. If he has a newer special education teacher, he tends to fair better with his gen ed teachers. I do my best to help his teachers, but it gets exhausting! Luckily, he has properly trained teachers at his current school, and is finally succeeding.