They have outdone themselves

I know people say that you shouldn't try to reveal much about yourself on the Internet. On my wife's blog she will only refer to people by the first letter of their first name.

Well I decided that it was about time I share a little more about myself. I am sharing this with you not because I think people should know about me, I am sharing this because of the wonderful school that I teach at and the strides that I believe we are making in special education.

Through out my past 10 years of teaching I have seen many changes in special education. I know there have been many other teachers that have been around longer than I have and have seen education come full cycle.

When I first started teaching it was common practice to have those kids who are in special education locked away in a room that was formerly a closet or in a room next to the boiler. I was fortunate to teach at a school that had an excellent moderate special education program. They taught kids about life skills, community functioning, and job related skills. This school was said to be leading the state of Iowa as a model for a moderate special education classroom.

Since leaving my home town I have ventured into some pretty horrible classrooms. I will not name schools but they have literally dumped all of the special ed kids into a small room that use to be a storage room. This room was to be a common room to two other rooms. Five teachers were to share these three rooms and teach math, science, social studies, and English. There were approximately 75 kids served in these three rooms. All disabilities levels were thrown together. Needless to say that this was the worst year I ever had teaching. There are many horror stories I could tell but that would take up too much time. The past is in the past.

I am presently teaching at a high school in central Iowa. Now this is a truly remarkable school. For the past thirteen years they have served the needs of special education students in the regular education classroom. We have become the model school for others to follow in the state of Iowa. We have been visited by five other schools since the beginning of this school year.

You may wonder how we meet the needs of our students. A special education teacher is in all core education classrooms at the high school. I am the social studies collaboration teacher. It has become the expectation that I will be in the classroom co-teaching subjects right along with the regular ed teacher. Visitors have even remarked that they cannot tell who is the regular ed teacher and who is the special ed teacher. I will make sure that all accommodations are made for our students and I am also their to make sure that general education students receive help as well.

I also teach a skill building class called NASA. The NASA classes are divided into English and math NASA's. Students receive an elective credit for taking NASA. I teach 9th grade English NASA. In this class I work with the students to build skills to be successful in the general ed setting. I will work on reading comprehension, fluency, writing, paraphrasing, sentence writing, and studying for test. We will also do several fun activities such as using PowerPoint, movie maker, and pod casting.

A new idea that I have brought fourth is having tests read on Ipods. Teachers or student helpers will read a test and it will be recoded and made into a podcast. This podcast will then be put onto an Ipod nano and given to a student who is to have tests read as an accommodation. The student is able to stay in the general ed classroom and take the test or quiz. When they are done they turn in the Ipod with their quiz/test. This helps student from feeling embarrassed from having to leave the classroom when tests are being given. It helps them avoid the special ed stigma that they hate to have.

This is just one of the many great Ideas that has been coming out of our High school. We have a great staff and a very supportive administration. I consider myself lucky to be part of such a great staff.