The bright and talented educator came in to gather the students. I moaned as I thought, You can't take them now as we just started the lesson and they are just beginning to practice. With pressure and desire to move every child ahead in math, I knew that taking the students at that moment would mean they would not have the time to learn the skill, and I also knew that there's little to no other times to catch those students up.
Gruffly, I asked, "Do you have to take them now?"
In hindsight, I can clearly see the dilemma, one educator with a solid set of goals and another educator with a similar solid set of goals. Each with a desire to move a child forward in a particular area, each energized and ready to serve yet conflicting schedules. What's an educator to do?
First of all, it's essential to anticipate as many conflicts and challenges ahead of the student-school year as much as possible. In the best of circumstances, most scheduling is complete by the first day of school and services are seamlessly integrated into the students' day. All educators know that this is mostly a goal and not a reality in many schools given the constraints of time and personnel that exist. With that said, however, I don't think we should give up on this goal as I think it's a goal that we can meet with good use of planning, time, and resources. It's essential to build a good pattern of service delivery/teaching prior to the students' school year.
Next, we can't do it all. There are some tough questions that we need to answer as we look at the service delivery maps for every student, and in particular, students who receive multiple services. The time during the day doesn't afford students the time for the regular program plus multiple extra services. Therefore something has to give. School personnel need to work with each other, family members, and students to determine what will be prioritized and how those priorities will be addressed in a students' daily/weekly schedule.
Further, we need to be realistic and reasonable. As it stands now, what's written on paper is not doable in realtime, and when unrealistic and unreasonable expectations are set, stress results, and this kind of stress is not helpful with regard to the work we do to teach and learn well. It's also important to understand the reality of service delivery. For example one special educator no matter how gifted he or she is can't service four or five diverse special education students together in one thirty-minute period, it simply doesn't work as no one gets the time and attention they are supposed to get. This is a challenge schools all over the state are facing since the special education expectations and the reality of money and staffing makes it nearly impossible to meet the requirements set. I'm sure that's one reason why Massachusetts is requiring all regular educators to take special ed courses. Plus as we learn more about students and learning, it becomes clear that almost all students have special education needs in one way or another, and with growing understanding of the brain, technology, and teaching/learning strategy, there are countless creative ways to meet those needs.
I believe it's a new age of inclusion and a new age of special education-regular education intersection to teach all children well. I believe there's terrific potential for growth and development here, and I'm excited about exploring this more to better teach all children. I'm open to your thoughts and ideas related to this as I continue to think and learn.
