Special Education...what is it to you??

Since I attended elementary school in the 1980’s, the Education of all Handicapped Children (EAHCA) was already in existence. Then, toward the end of elementary school, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was created in 1990, which impacted the area of accessibility for individuals with disabilities. I remember my elementary school building a ramp even though we didn't have any students or faculty who made use of wheelchairs.  As I learned in the readings, ADA was instrumental in the implementation of 504 plans around this time. Later, EAHCA was amended and was instead called Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This name change reflects the shift in person first language.

I was in high school when IDEA was reauthorized in 1997. This reauthorization mandated that students with disabilities be included in state and local assessments. I don’t really recall this affecting me when I was in high school. I remember that there was a “special” class, as we called it, that came to my high school my junior and senior years of high school. Prior to those years, the students with special needs were educated at Mar Lin Intermediate Unit # 29. This was a separate school about a half hour from my school for the students with more severe disabilities. 

Looking back, I wonder if the classroom was created at my school because of IDEA being reauthorized in 1997 since it was around that time that we all of a sudden had the special class. I remember being confused, as a high school student, that we now had students in wheelchairs, students with behavior problems, and nonverbal students in our school. However, the only time I remember seeing these students during my last two years of high school, were at assemblies in the auditorium, pep rallies in the gym, and at graduation. This experience is such a contrast from what I saw happening as a Deaf/Hard of Hearing Support Itinerant teacher in many different schools from 2003 to 2010, where the students with disabilities were included and mainstreamed into all classes. While I still taught in some schools that were for students with severe disabilities, I also taught in public schools that had life skills classes, multi disabilities classes, emotional support classes, and the majority of my students with hearing loss were mainstreamed into general education or learning support classes. It makes me wonder if my hometown district has changed and is more like what I saw in York or if it’s still the same as it was 13 years ago…?  I would hope it isn't!!

Another change that came about when IDEA was reauthorized in 1997 was that teachers’ input had to be included through participation in the IEP process. Next, in 2004, when I was in my third year of teaching, accountability laws were passed. I remember hearing the word, “Accountability”, everywhere and the flurry of meetings and trainings that were held discussing how we teachers were going to be considered highly qualified and be held accountable. This was similar to what happened when No Child Left Behind was passed at the end of my undergraduate college career but I do not recall too much about that since I was at the tail end of student teaching and about to graduate at that time.

In thinking about the special education practices of when I was in school, I went to a lot of different schools in different places due to moving around so much. I attended small private schools that had small class sizes and a lot of one on one attention for the majority of my elementary years. I remember that we had a speech therapist, a math specialist, and a reading specialist who came to our schools and worked with the students in a van outside of our school. I assumed at the time that the services happened in the van due to these teachers being from the public school and not being able to work in the private school.  However, I know that, I, as a special education teacher, was able to work in private schools. So maybe the van was used because there was limited space in the school building? I’m not sure though. In 7^th grade, I left the small private elementary school and chose to enroll in the large public school for 7th through 12th grades. It was here that I saw learning support classes, regular education classes, gifted classes, and Advanced Placement classes happening in one school. I also interacted with students who were in my school for the morning, then left for the vocational school in the afternoon.  Being in some of the gifted classes, I was in a cohort with most of the same people the majority of my junior and high school years so could not tell you what the other classes were like.  I wonder now if this is similar to what tracking students is…?

On a personal note in thinking about my own experience with special education, I will give you an abbreviated version of my story. I was diagnosed with hearing loss at the age of two and fitted with hearing aids around the age of three. I was living in Delaware at the time and was tested by DuPont Children’s Hospital. From that experience, my parents have a letter that says their daughter was retarded (term that was used at that time) in addition to having hearing loss. My mother was a special education teacher and disagreed saying that just because I had hearing loss and was not talking as much, did not mean that I had mental retardation (fighting the “deaf and dumb” stereotype). My mom took it upon herself to work with me as we played “school” during the day to try to make up for the lost early years of access to language. My dad would review what we learned that night after work. I think these experiences with my parents had a huge impact on why I wanted to enter the field of special education. I, too, wanted to work one on one and in small groups with other children with hearing loss and help them to realize and reach their full potential.

We moved to Ohio when it was time to start preschool. I attended a school for children with disabilities when I was three going on four. I remember being confused as to why students used their hands to communicate and why they didn’t sound like me when they tried to talk. I also remember some other students being in wheelchairs and using other ambulatory devices. I remember not feeling like I fit in with my peers. After a few months, the teachers at that school told my parents that I was regressing and beginning to lose speech. They recommended that I enroll in a regular school. I finished out preschool with my twin brother and remained with him in various schools (we moved around a lot as I mentioned earlier) until 7^th grade. It was then that I made the decision to leave the small school I attended since 2^nd grade and go to the larger public school. All through my elementary and high school years, I did not receive any sort of special education services at my choosing. There were a few times that the guidance counselors or the school nurse would mention that I could receive services but I did not see a need for them since I was in the advanced classes and made straight A’s. 

Ok, so that story turned out longer than I intended but I can’t help but wonder that had I been born twenty years later, how different my story might be. My schooling/life would be so different from what I have experienced. I probably would have had a hearing itinerant support teacher (my occupation before coming to NC). I probably would have made use of a sound field amplification system or some other form of technology in my classes. Perhaps these options would have been available to me in the 1990’s but I think nowadays parents are so much more aware of options. As I read in one of the readings this weekend, states are now mandated to identify and meet the needs of students with disabilities rather than wait for the students and parents to approach them for accommodations. My story could be radically different had I been born twenty years earlier as well. I would probably have gone to a school for the Deaf and grown up using sign language as my mode of communication. Who knows if I would even have hearing aids that work the way today’s technology works..? It’s amazing to think of how different our students’ lives are due to the laws and policies and I can’t help but wonder what the students of 2030 will be experiencing compared to today's youth!

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!!

Last week, in class, Dr. Lashley mentioned the differences in children working after school jobs twenty, thirty, forty years ago compared to children in today’s society.  He specifically brought up the example of a child being a newspaper carrier in his or her neighborhood in the past.  

I immediately thought back to my childhood and the ten years that I delivered the Pottsville Republican Newspaper...now known as the Republican & Herald after the Evening Herald and Pottsville Republican newspapers merged.

     

The newspaper route was so large that two of my brothers and I had to split the route up in three ways.  We had a system in place where we alternated the three routes every week.  Route #1 consisted of just our street, which was the easiest and quickest route.  Route # 2 consisted of the streets a few blocks away from our house while Route # 3 took the longest as the houses were the farthest from our house and were spread out on those streets. 

Even though the route was shared by my brothers and me, it was in my older brother’s name.  This fact made my older brother the official “boss” of the newspaper route.  He created rules and stuck to them.  He expected nothing less from my twin and me.  For example, he wanted every newspaper customer to have their newspapers delivered either in their mailbox, inside their door, or on their porch by 4pm sharp.  It didn’t matter that I didn’t get home from school until between 3:35 and 3:45pm and had a late start on rolling and bagging the newspapers.  It didn’t matter that I would stop and visit with the elderly customers and enjoy a lemonade and snack with some of them on their porches.  It didn’t matter if I had Route # 3 and it’d be 4pm by the time I was starting the route.  On the days I was not home by 4pm, I was docked pay for that day. 

Of course, at the time, from 2^nd grade through 10^th grade, I would grow angry with my brother and wonder why it mattered so much to him that the customers have their papers by 4pm.  I would complain about how unfair it was for me to be expected to adhere to that rule when my school dismissed students later than his school.  I would beg my Mom to drive me in an effort to help me get home on time, especially when I had Route # 3. 

I was able to relax a little bit in 11^th and 12^th grades when my older brother was no long in charge of the route since he had graduated high school and moved away to attend college in Pittsburgh.  In his absence, my twin, little brother, and I continued delivering the newspaper to our customers.  However, we grew lax in the delivery of newspapers by 4pm and gradually made sure to have the newspapers delivered by 5pm, the newspaper’s guidelines.  Our loyal customers had grown used to our punctuality and did not do well with this change.

Admittedly, by the time we gave up the newspaper route, we were not running a tight ship as we had when my older brother was in charge.  Another huge change was the fact that Saturday’s afternoon paper was changed to being delivered by 7am in the mornings.  This was not a change I took kindly to as a junior and senior in high school who loved to sleep in on the weekends.    Additionally, as the three of us took on other part time jobs (retail, restaurant, babysitting, and country club work), we did not feel that we needed to continue with the newspaper route since we made more money in the other part time jobs.  By the time my twin and I graduated high school, my little brother had to deliver the entire route by himself.  The other newspaper carriers did not have routes as extensive as ours since by then the newspaper company had smaller paper routes for their carriers that did not cover as large of a territory.  I now wonder if that was in part due to more people getting their news online instead of in print.

Looking back I’m glad that I had the experience of delivering the newspaper for ten years, no matter how much I complained about it.  Having this job instilled in us:  responsibility through having to find a substitute carrier when we went on trips, a hard work ethic in needing to get the newspapers rolled, bagged, and delivered on time, money management skills, and a sense of giving back to the community.  It saddens me to think that children and teenagers in this day and age may not have the chance to benefit from hard work and gain the skills that we did through not having the opportunity to work in after school jobs due to increases and advances in technology that are able to do the jobs instead of people.

I also think about how child labor laws have changed over the years (for the good) and wonder what life will be like forty years from now in terms of after school jobs for children/teenagers.  Will we live in such a digital and technological world that we will not have any kind of human interaction in the drive-thrus, coffeehouses, or when shopping?   Will everything be through machines and “robots”?  What will that mean for the future generations in terms of responsibility, work ethics, money management skills, etc.?