I’m frustrated with the finger pointing that sometimes occurs between general education teachers and special education teachers. In the seven years I’ve been an administrator, in three different districts, I’ve seen this occur too often. At times, when a student accomplishes something through the services of a special ed teacher, gen ed teachers have the audacity to say the special education teacher did the work for the student. This is insulting to the student and to the special education teacher.
If we think about the different roles of the general education and special education teacher, we see a different focus. Generally speaking, the special education teacher focuses on each student’s strengths and weaknesses and works to capitalize on one and improve the other. General education teachers focus on delivering the content, while differentiating instruction, for all students in the class.
As I see it, everything the special education teacher does is to help the student succeed for you, the general education teacher. Why then, do general education teachers sometimes criticize the special education teachers when the child meets with that success? This seems absurd to me, because that’s exactly what the special ed teacher is hired to accomplish. Strengthening our students, helping them to succeed– this is the basic purpose of our school system.
General education teachers, special education teachers, teaching assistants, guidance counselors, specialists, administrators, and students have one goal: student success at every level. It’s nobody’s business to point the finger at any other person in the system. It’s everyone’s business to work together as a team in the best interest of the child.
Teachers who determine that students could never do the work without the special education teacher doing it for them should let go of their trusty bell curves. It’s time.
Wow! What an awesome post! I bet you are also awesome to work for! As a special ed teacher, thanks for the support!
Yes, we know that there are the good, the bad and the ugly in every job. What we should keep in mind is that we are all supposed to be professionals. If there is ever a question about whether a fellow professional is doing their job correctly, we owe them the benefit of the doubt and should confront them with the problem? Often there is more to the story, as long as we are willing and brave enough to treat eachother respectively and communicate with one another, we might learn a little from eachother. For that matter, we should give the student the benefit of the doubt as well.
Your brush is broad but your general theory is accurate. The unfortunate reality is that there are good teachers and there are poor teachers – in both general and special education. As a special education teacher I advocate for the child, work with them, and try to work with all of the gen. ed. teachers. Unfortunately the finger is occasionally pointed my way, or more accurately, at my department because students are given accommodations to help them achieve academic success.
Some gen. ed teachers lack the basic understanding of special education and unfortunately so do some of the special ed teachers. Some teachers take the easy route, they feed answers to students because the learning process is…. too time consuming. It takes work, dedication, and patience to be a good educator. The idea should be to give the kid a chance, a fair chance at success. With proper and appropriate administrative support this can be accomplished.
I was very lucky in my first years of teaching to work with a wonderful special education teacher who taught me to differentiate and to really teach reading and writing to all students. I may have had the content knowledge but she knew how to deliver it to kids with varying abilities. I would not have survived without her.
Eventually – our entire middle school team embraced these concepts and we began the year teaching skills that we needed our students to have before the content. Others thought we were crazy and that we would never “cover” our content – but we were successful beyond measure. Not only did we “cover” our content, but I am convinced our kids learned and retained more than their peers on other teams. All along – we were guided by our special education teacher’s knowledge and our teamwork.
I agree – the bottom line is to help our kids become successful and work together to do so. After all – it takes a village!!