in discussing, casually, my big d and one of my new students (with the social worker, mostly), the librarian tells me that dyslexia is a special education gray area and that it can be quote-unquote corrected. To which I replied, no, dyslexia is a learning disability, under the law it falls under the ld category, and while you can work around it, it cannot be “corrected”. Instead of standing up to her onslaught of ignorance, i got up and went to lunch duty. but this is what i should have said: ” dear ms. sheard, i have auditory dyslexia. i have always had auditory dyslexia, i will always have auditory dyslexia. i am also getting a masters degree in special education, so in due respect to your years of teaching experience, please believe me when i say that dyslexia is a learning disability, and 80 percent of students classified as ld have some form of dyslexia. it is life-long and it cannot be “fixed.” learning disabilities of any form are not gray areas as far as IDEA is concerned. and many people who have dyslexia are quite smart and go on to do thing such as become brain surgeons, with the proper accommodations and modifications.”
she went off about how my second grader who repeated a year should be moved to third grade now that he’s in sped. and i said, that’s not fair, he hasn’t been exposed to that curriculum yet, you can have him lose a year of school because he’s in special education! “well he’s getting special ed services now.” to which i replied, “he is getting special ed support for the second grade, the grade that he is in and has been in all year. it would be inappropriate to put him in third grade since he has not been exposed to that curriculum yet. why would you set him up to fail even more?”
her ignorance made me mad, but what made me more angry was my own inability to stand up to her and say, “you are mistaken, and if you’d, like i’ll school you, i mean give you a tutorial, on what learning disabilities are, what special education is, and should be, and what IDEA says.” on the whole, lunch duty, the bane of my existence seemed like a better, less aggravating option given current mental state of being sick again (i was well for exactly a week!)
if i am the primary ld teacher next year, maybe i should have a little sped workshop for the gen ed teachers, because this is hardly the first bit of ignorance i’ve witnessed among the staff. i hope to god i’m not the ld teacher… because given the lack of support and training, i just can’t do it again. i was walking up the stairs from lunch thinking, well, i could differentiate math for three grades if i had any idea what math curriculum looks like for those three grades, and oh, what are good teaching strategies for kids with various processing problems/memory problems/ld. but no, no support. our curriculum course was a $1,200 joke. today, i want to quit and go apply to do a real teaching program. i think this program will not make me the best teacher i could be. i think it’s made me a bad teacher, because i’m on my own, no support, no training, no observation of a master teacher at work.
and now i am off to pull my 1st grader and my k student because i cant handle having 4 grades and no lesson plans, which is my fault (i gave up in the face of futility a month ago). but two, i can wing. maybe i need to reach out to my colleagues more, i know some are succeeding and finding resources. jess has this great book of worksheets…and if i give the office a few days, they will photocopy stuff. at this point, to say i have checked out would be an understatement. i keep trying to check back in, but being sick isn’t helping. our compressed grad school schedule isn’t helping (let’s have four written assignments in three weeks! one of which has to be an observation, one of which has to be a lesson plan designed around a book based on that observation. great.).
ps- my gw prof who i respect said he thought me having a pre-k or k self-contained class would be a good move, though he said he thought i was capable of doing this pull-out song and dance and/or doing the same job but in an inclusive model, which the district is moving towards (which would necessitate receiving lesson plans in advance so i could make modified materials for students to use in their classrooms and provide some in class support… that first part would never happen at most schools in the district!). i’ve considered quitting before… and if i wouldn’t have to repay the district for my discounted courses, i might say that i would quit this program if i don’t get that self-contained class. my passion for making sure kids with ld get an appropriate education isn’t enough to carry me through this colossal failure.
2 responses so far ↓
Mom of Dyslexic // May 21, 2008 at 3:24 am
Just wanted to post a note of encouragement to keep on keeping on. Ignorance about dyslexia is widespread and profound. I live in Massachusetts and the people we are dealing with here are at once brilliant and woefully misinformed, even Sped teachers sadly.
I’m not sure what disabilities your second grader has that he is on an IEP and had already stayed back. If it is dyslexia, I would caution you. Grade retention is not indicated in the case of dyslexia, which seems counterintuitive. If a child does not make effective progress with supports, then the child needs different supports, not the same supports for another year. Again, if it is dyslexia and you haven’t already, I encourage you to read Sally Shaywitz’s book Overcoming Dyslexia. It is a horrible title, but don’t let that throw you. Good Luck.
jmannii // June 2, 2008 at 5:36 pm
I have seen children in Special Education receive services and, after a few years, exit from special education. This can be because some children receive the help they need and learn coping skills to keep up for the rest of their school careers. In other cases, I think some children are misdiagnosed from the beginning and may never have had a disability.
Either way, the fact that children can be “special ed” one year and “not special ed” the next year may lead some people, like the librarian to believe that disabilities can be “cured.”