One of the classes I thoroughly enjoyed taking for my master's degree was on special education and special education law. The class was taught by a man with ADHD who had developed very strong coping mechanisms to deal with his ADHD without medication. He also wrote the book, From Disability to Possibility which is honestly worth the twenty dollars as it provides an excellent framework for how to educate and interact with people who have varying disabilities.
Perhaps due to the special education audit during my first year of teaching, or the fact that my mom, aunt, and best friend are all special education teachers, I care deeply about making sure that all students in my class get what they need, including those with special needs. (For the record, gifted and talented does fall under special needs, and I also feel strongly that we miss our gifted students in an effort to meet the needs of our struggling students.)
I am generally the hemorrhoid on the ass of the non-compliant team member at an IEP meeting for any of my students with special needs. These meeting consist of a lot of people with a lot of specialized degrees determining the disability and subsequent educational plan and placement for a student. As a result of the Corey H legislation, in which Chicago Public Schools was sued for violating the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, all students are required to be educated in the least restrictive environment. In layman's terms, that means that it is illegal to have students with special needs holed up in a basement or a trailer somewhere, left with an incompetent glorified babysitter to rot and die. Student must be with their grade level peers as much as possible in accordance with their disability. In practice, schools strapped for cash in the budget very often fall out of compliance with this legislation as it takes a team of highly motivated (and usually intelligent) people to creatively work out scheduling for all the students with special needs. I believe that this is possible, but it is astounding the number of people that believe that all students should be placed in a self contained classroom, over-exaggerating the disability of a student in order to do so.
I have been called to the office on more than one occasion (at a school whose name will be withheld) and told that under no circumstances am I to tell parents' their rights as an advocate for their child with disabilities because then we might be faced with a lawsuit. "And, I'm tired. I can't sit in front of another lawyer."
In the day to day, practicing the least restricted environment plays out much differently. Students need to know how to interact with all shapes, sizes, and colors of people, and having a student with unique needs (which is in honestly ALL students) makes it possible for us to have conversations about how to make sure that we are respectful and kind to everyone, even those different from ourselves. The phrase used repeatedly is: "Fair means everyone gets what they need."
For the most part, I have been touched by the many ways that young children internalize that and work to be friends with each other. One sixth grade student I taught made sure to sit next to his classmate each day at lunch. His classmate is autistic, and would often not each lunch. Realizing this before any of the adults, my student created a competition with the autistic student to see who could finish their lunch first. When asked about it later, he said quite simply that he knew the student with autism needed to eat, so he had to come up with a way to make sure he did.
One of my third grade students has a cognitive delay. He functions lower in cognitive and motor abilities. On the playground there are many opportunities for this to be a challenge, especially during group games. However, the other students have recognized his desire to play and make sure to tag him "it" at least once per game. After letting him run after them for a short time, several students stand close enough so he can catch them. They do this all without any coaching or prompting.
There are many, many ways in which my students have warmed my heart by reaching out to the other students around them, even those who are different. But it can also be a challenge. Sitting in the computer lab after school, Michael asked why he wasn't able to go on Cartoon Network like his peer, Martin. I explained to him that everyone gets what they need, and what he needed was to go on the testing prep game site, while the other student had earned those minutes on Cartoon Network. Michael didn't seem totally convinced, but he went back to playing his ISAT prep games.
A few minutes later, Michael realized that Toby was also on a different website. I explained again that Toby got to go on one site because that's what he needed. I felt pretty good about the conversation, because I also threw in that neither Toby or Martin get to go on Word to write articles for the newspaper like Michael did, because that's something only he needed. I was pretty sure the message had gotten through until I heard Michael mutter, just loud enough for me to hear, "Everyone else has better needs than me..."
Alas, there is always more teaching to do.
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