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i am considering a career in special education and am interested in hearing from people who've been involved in it. teachers, family members of students, and especially past students who've been through the system. some things i'm curious about : first and foremost, did it help you? success stories would be nice to hear - people who've graduated from special education and gone on to live fulfilling lives. but horror stories are just as informative. for those who didn't have an overwhelmingly negative experience... what was good about it? did you have good teachers, was the curriculum delivered in such a way to maximize learning, was the school environment set up for success, were there opportunities for social development? if you could change one (or more) things about your experience to make it better, what would you change? i'm also interested in anyone who went from special education to mainstream, either as a part-time thing or fully graduated from one system into the other. what was that like? was the transition well-managed? from what i can see, bullying is a huge barrier to mainstreaming kids with special needs. did anyone have a teaching team who handled it well? apart from that, i'm interested in hearing any personal accounts, whatever you want to share. it would also be cool to hear from different places around the world, how things are done there.
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Jun 6, 2023 11:16
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 19:19 |
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to start things off, all i got from my own schooling days were examples of what not to do. (for context, i went to a rural public school in australia in the 90s.) in primary (elementary), the special ed kids usually had their own room where all the grades and abilities seemed to be grouped in together and had almost no opportunity to interact with anyone outside their class. every day would have a few periods where they were dragged out and sat in a classroom with everyone else, but with their own material, their own teacher, and no chance to work with or talk to any of the mainstream students. the only time any of us noticed they were there was when one of them started acting up, which only created resentment and imo did more harm than good. what seemed particularly cruel to me was that for some reason, the teachers forced all the special education students (past a certain level of functioning) to do pe and sport with the rest of us. so almost their only real interaction with mainstream students was going through the harrowing ritual of team choosing, where of course all of them were left until the very end, and then having to hear everyone complaining about having to have them on their team and blaming them if they lost. that was awful enough to go through as a regular nerd, but on top of the social stigma they already experienced it must have been excruciating. once we got to high school, there was zero attempt at integration. the special education students had their own building and most of them chose to even spend lunchtimes there because they got bullied so much in the playground. they became invisible. i never heard any success stories from that town.
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Jun 6, 2023 11:59
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I was a full-time special ed TA (teacher assistant) in a sub-/exurban American public middle (grades 6-8, 11 to 13-year-olds) school for a year, then subbed multiple days/week in special ed programs in the same district for a couple years after that. So no formal training, I was not special ed myself (insert joke here), but here's my observations and answers to your questions and experiences: First, is there a particular category of special needs you're looking to teach? My TA position was in a severe and profound autism class, which was very different from the mild/moderate downs and not-autism rooms I'd sub in. Besides the type of program, I saw wildly different approaches to special ed. Some teachers were very, very focused on teaching the students, both academics and also job skills stuff like folding towels, sorting, etc. Other teachers barely even hid the fact their room was essentially daycare with no real instruction or learning going on. Just keep the students happy and don't let them break anything. Your experience as a mainstream student in rural Australia mirrors what I saw as a TA and sub in some ways and not in others. Our students were largely silo'd into their own programs, but depending on how high-functioning they were some were able to attend elective classes with a TA with mainstream students, like PE, choir, and computers. Anyone who was too "low" or had behavior issues attended our own PE class which our special ed teachers led, not the actual PE teacher. Otherwise, yeah, the special ed students were largely invisible to the rest of the school. That was my experience as a student, too--my elementary didn't have a separated special ed program, and in the 7 years I was in middle and high school the number of times I ever saw students from the special ed program, let alone interact with them, was very, very small. I didn't observe bullying going on when students went to the integrated electives, but also there was an adult (me) sitting with the student the whole time so if a kid said something mean I'd be sure to tell 'em to zip it. To be honest my observations were that most kids were kind to the special needs students, trying to be accommodating and welcoming of them. But there's no doubt some amount of bullying does/would go on, that's unfortunately just how kids are to a certain degree. I will say my time working in special ed was utterly invaluable to me, both when I went to become a teacher myself but just in general. Jesus Christ did I learn a lot of patience those three years.
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Jun 6, 2023 14:39
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I've been doing it for years. My experience is a bit different because I just sort of fell into this and all of my training was on a stipend, so I didn't have to spend my own money. I always taught in what they call "fully self contained" classrooms, but like you said the students will go out for PE and specials. If I could change anything it would be the pay. Wins are hard to come by, but I had one student on my caseload who, by the end of his middle school career, was no longer on an IEP and was fully mainstreamed. That was cool. He was making friends and had a girlfriend and everything. Again, my experience is probably not the norm but as long as all my parents were happy (like, not taking the school to court) my administrators never really bothered me and we got to do whatever we wanted. I am at the county level right now so I travel to different schools to help, but I miss the classroom a lot. When I was at the middle school level it was so much fun that I never thought of it as "work." I'm in the US. I'm not sure how it works in other countries. I hope this helps!
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Jun 6, 2023 23:23
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quote:to start things off, all i got from my own schooling days were examples of what not to do. (for context, i went to a rural public school in australia in the 90s.) I wasn't in special ed but always noticed this kinda thing too nobody made an attempt to include any of the disabled kids in stuff, but would still have one kid in a wheelchair be there just kinda back of the room in nearly every class i don't mean the kids who genuinely couldn't follow along in even simple things, but the kids who had speech disorders or mild palsy/downs/etc that kept them from fully participating in classes without needing assistance but were still capable people who could've been able to join in a conversation or whatever it seemed mean, none of us would ever interact with them positively, or negatively. they'd always have an adult with them and they never encouraged anyone to interact with them, or said it was (or wasn't) okay -or- let us know why they were there, since they'd just be alone and often seemed to be on totally separate educational plans from the rest of the classes it kinda felt like it trained all of the students to just ignore people with disabilities, maybe that was the intent to cut down on bullying ? but it seemed to have more of a desensitizing effect where anyone in a wheelchair blended into the background as a static object. people wouldn't even know their names. it seemed to reinforce the sentiment that bullying wasn't really seen as bullying by the students, or staff, unless it was someone being directly hostile to someone in a wheelchair or w/ an immediately visible physical disability. like, the fact students wouldn't be harassing the kids in wheelchairs would be enough to show that bullying wasn't an issue, and that what they'd be doing to other kids wasn't bullying, because those kids (incl special ed kids) getting dirt slipped into their packed lunches and whatever weren't in wheelchairs, so 'it's just horseplay' anyways i don't have any advice but wanted to mention how messed up that poo poo was
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Jun 7, 2023 19:11
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I'm not directly involved in Special Ed (I'm a SPED teacher spouse), but siloing of students was/is still a huge thing. There is an initiative in some areas called MTSS (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support) which takes what was once siloed categorization of kids, and turns it into more of a spectrum based on individual needs. This takes all kids, and provides supports for those who need them as appropriate, mingling kids from different settings based on specific identified needs and interventions. The idea is somewhat based upon the concept of "least restrictive environment" which is part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in the US.
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Jun 12, 2023 03:30
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I'm also not directly involved in Special Ed and this may be beyond the scope of what you're asking but my father was a long-time coach for Special Olympic soccer teams in Missouri. I was also playing soccer at the time but more refereeing for money so I saw my dad coach a lot and got to see how meaningful the interactions between the players and the fans and coaches were. Even just being tangentially related to it just getting to know the kids that played on my dad's team had a big positive impact on my life and understanding about a community I'm not a part of. I am a librarian so I do often work with people of all ages with special needs and I really admire those more directly involved because they're building a more equitable society for these citizens. If you have a passion for this I think you'll find it to be extremely rewarding work.
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Jun 12, 2023 17:45
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hi all, thanks so much for the responses! you've all given me a lot to work with and think about. apologies for not replying to anyone yet - i will do that in the next few days when i have time to respond to each post. thanks again!
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Jun 15, 2023 09:23
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i was kept chained in the basement
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Jun 24, 2023 18:24
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I've been a special education teacher for 8 years and the department chair for 4. One positive is that, barring some horrible fuckup, you can pretty much always get a job due to the terrible shortage of special education teachers. It's also a diverse field in terms of the students you serve, so I think most people can find a niche they're happy in.
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Oct 8, 2023 14:14
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hello, i can actually speak on this subject; my dad was a special ed teaching assistant for about a decade, and i was helped out by special ed teachers as a high-functioning kid with some neurological issues in school. there are a few things that immediately jump out to me as things that most people looking at careers in special education don't consider, and these are: - depending on the type of special educational needs a student has, they may be physically aggressive. my dad worked with severely disabled individuals, many of whom were fully grown adults who were bigger than him, but with the mental capacity of toddlers. when they would get stressed out or agitated, some of them would attack members of staff, in some cases breaking bones and even on one occasion knocking a teacher out and leaving her with a concussion. my dad struggled a lot with understanding that his students weren't lashing out like this because they were deliberately violent; it was hard for him to look at another adult and comprehend the disconnect between that physical appearance and the inner, neurologically impaired individual who needs help with finding emotional coping mechanisms that don't involve hurting those around them. he found it difficult to not resent certain students for being particularly violent, in the same way you might resent a neurotypical person for explaining similar emotional management issues. are you able to understand and manage such emotional outbursts? and do you think you can physically handle students who may be bigger and stronger than you, should they have such an outburst? - the parents of a lot of special needs children are shitbags. my dad is congenitally deaf, and is fluent in multiple forms of sign language; there are multiple special educational needs that make a student more likely to be deaf, with about ~40-50% of deaf children having some other disability, and some intellectual disabilities also cause some children to go nonverbal. the amount of children who my dad worked with whose parents just did not teach them to speak, or whose parents did not bother to learn to speak to them, makes my blood boil. my dad learned to sign pretty late in life, so he always seemed to look at language deprivation as just another fact of life for people unlucky enough to be born deaf, but he'd teach some children who'd basically only be able to talk and be spoken to for maybe an hour or two a day. i know for a fact that i don't have it in me to emotionally handle that sort of thing - do you? do you think you could keep yourself together in the face of abuse and neglect to advocate for your students, even if it alienates others who are (in theory) working alongside you to care for them? - if you work in a regular school in the special ed department, there needs to be a LOT of communication with the mainstream teachers and staff. i wore a badge in school stating that eye contact made me nervous, because i have some gnarly intellectual impairments, and i remember once a teacher read it and laughed, saying that she needed to get one of those badges, so nobody would bother her. nobody had communicated to her that i needed the badge so i wouldn't end up having a panic attack in class. how are you with admin work?
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Oct 22, 2023 15:53
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Hello! Sorry to revive a deadish thread, but I'm about to start substituting as a TA for special Ed next week (here they just started calling it a Paraeducator - Independence Facilitator). Is there any general advice for the role, or something like "I wish my TAs did/n't do XYZ" someone could pay one? My wife is a Mod/Severe SPED teacher, and I was in SPED in middle school for a specific learning disability, so I have some basic experience but anything anyone else has to pay at me would be appreciated
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Dec 6, 2023 00:18
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