How Not To Treat Special Educators

As an educator, I generally speak in positives. This how-to post is purposefully written in the negative. This guide is for all educators: teachers, administration, support staff, instructional coaches, all in the school building.

How not to treat special educators. Special educators include special education teachers, paraprofessionals, and related service providers.

1. Do not treat special educators as though they are special.  We are special, we all are in what ever way you take that word as, but not in that condescending way.  Yes, some of our students require below grade-level work. A special educator is able to take the skill and scaffold up for the advanced students, as well as scaffold down for the struggling learners.  This is an example of differentiation, creating multiple entry points in a lesson. Too many educators often forget that special education includes gifted education.

2. Do not treat special educators as though we do not know content, ie. English Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies and Science. We are licensed teachers, all with a specific content speciality, who also have the ability to work with struggling learners, or those labeled learning disabled, and students with emotional challenges, also labeled as emotionally disturbed. When we encounter the child with ADHD (Attention Deficet Hyper Active Disorder) we are able to focus his energy to this best of our ability; when we encounter an emerging reader in the sixth grade, we are able to assess his instructional capability further than his lack of reading skils so that we can teach him grade appropaite skills in creative ways; or when we encounter angry children prone to all types of tantrums, we know how to exercise preferientaio seating and diffuse highly-charged sotuations while demonstrating...

3. Lastly, do not treat special educators as though they are invisible.  The special education teacher in an ICT setting is also a licensed teacher whose name goes alongside the cotnent teacher when scores are releaded at the end of the year.

4.  

5. I am not the paraprofessional, I am the co-teacher. You may not remember my name but I do teach the class, not just the small group in the hi-low class. Even if I were the paraprofessional, I am still a professional in the education field.  

At the end:

Just as there are bad teachers, they are inadequate special educators who do relegate themselves to position of paraprofessional and assist one child, or paraprofessional who makes himself a part of the class body.

True role of a special educator:

As far as special education in ICT setting, in an ideal model students are not aware of who is th genera education teacher and who is the special education teacher. In my six grade classes this is the case.

True role of a paraprofessional: focus on student and small group, but work with all. Integrated into class, respected with same respect as genera education and specia. Education