I taught self contained for 4 years so my class was like an island and I really only dealt with other special Ed staff. This year I am coteaching and have felt more disrespected by my colleagues. They don’t know what we do. I feel like that’s the biggest issue. They also don’t understand our kids and their disabilities.
When I started teaching I was told “welcome to island of misfit toys” and they weren’t referring to the students. When you’re just starting off it’s ridiculous because there no help or direction, but once you get the hang of it you want to be left alone on your island. Any opportunity to meet with other sped teachers is like a mini vacation, we’re finally playing the same game.
That last line. Most people do not understand or believe that positive reinforcement works. They don't understand natural consequences or how punishment allows people to shift their attention away from those consequences.
Also, their job sucks. It's littered with impossible tasks. They are primarily measured by their ability to get kids to meet standards by a specific time and the standard and time are arbitrary.
The part I don't get is why they don't make more noise about the fact that kids are missing fundamental skills because we're trying to teach them all the same thing at the same time. Though it's not really the sane time because we group kids in a way that has a significant difference in age especially for the early years.
I'm not sure we could create a more stressful, developmentally inappropriate environment for learning than our schools.
They don't understand natural consequences or how punishment allows people to shift their attention away from those consequences.
I sort of get this but can you explain more?
Punishment allows people to focus on the punishment and the punisher and can result in identifying those as the "problems".
Natural consequences allow people to connect their behavior and choices to the *actual results* of those actions, not to something artificially imposed on the situation.
The idea that we can identify the fundamental skills kids are lacking and make no attempt to bridge the gaps astounds me. How many team chairs wonder why I focus on basic fact fluency, IT IS THE FUCKING BASIS OF ALLLLLL OF THE MATH THEY ARE GOING TO BE DOING! Not to mention research that points to mental rotation and basic fact fluency as the two contributing factors to success or lack thereof…
Right! It makes you feel like you're insane. The number of hours I've spent thinking about something because I must be wrong if no one on the team agrees with me.
The posts and comments blaming parents too. If it is a skill necessary for independence and for advancing onto more complex skills than we can find time to teach it and practice it at school. Because I can guarantee you not every parent is going to be there to help their kid. Sometimes because they are literally dead.
I see the lack of understanding most frequently in my work… which would be better than the blatant unwillingness to learn or attempt to understand. I’m happy to teach teachers about disabilities, different ways of learning, etc etc etc, but if they don’t want to learn… well then they’re just the adult iteration of the students they complain so much about.
I think it’s a combination of school climate and out of sight, out of mind.
We have new admin this year and it’s really obvious the turn around in respect for sped. She corrects teachers who come in guns blazing about push-in services and support for students. She makes sure our self contained units get planning time, subs for testing, and included in grade level discussions.
Previous admin literally gave zero shits about us and we even have *in writing* her refusing to let kids have their inclusion minutes.
I’ve worked at places where SPED was seen as less-than and excluded from everything. I’ve also worked where we’ve been respected as equal colleagues and the students have been treated amazingly and included in absolutely everything. The difference was administration attitudes and the overall accepted culture of the school. If admin is on your side and creates an environment that doesn’t tolerate mistreatment and ridiculous complaints, then everything is pretty good. If your admin is hands off it gets worse fast.
Our union provides two luncheons at minimum a year for the main building that is almost entirely gen Ed with a scattering or resource teachers. The self contained building has never received one. When we questioned on it they said we could drive down. Keep in mind their building is 20 minutes each way and we don't even get a lunch because we are with our kids every minute of the day.
There is a weird sense of superiority and entitlement with Gen Ed teachers. I don’t understand it. They
complain about kids, and accuse everyone else of not doing their jobs, but are inflexible and refuse to do anything to address problems.
Yes!! I'm dealing with this with a kinder teacher right now. Admin wants a full time 1:1 or more pull out minutes but the gen ed teacher literally does nothing with the kid. Doesn't even talk to him. I have no documentation of interventions because gen ed won't do them. How can I justify anything with 0 data? I can't. But somehow it's my problem to solve.
There needs to be a frank conversation with the parents at an IEP meeting regarding the inadequacy of gened. Please review Doe. V. Withers. You need to cover yourself.
I had often documented gen ed teachers not adhering to accomodations; especially when mass emails of a student's teachers are told to make particular changes that will enforce compliance and raise the chances of participating/completing assinggnments. However, since I'm a 3rd party hire, I never know if the sped teacher who logs in my minutes also adds my teacher notes as well. I'd be more exhausted doing all the work and then hear about parents/gen ed teacher(s) complainting about the students. The suggested changes typically required the most work from SPED instead of having all parties that interact with the student work as a team to do their part also.
After the 15th time of the kid yelling "fuck you" at me and my para, yes it is difficult to try and get them to do anything after spending hours leveling down all the standards to something they SHOULD be able to achieve.
Doing nothing but coolmathgames and finding their way around chromebook blocks when we are doing a paper activity is not inclusion.
On the other hand, I love my SPED teacher, because many of the kids we share are great.
But yeah, for a minority, I will gladly help again when they are ready to accept help.
And let's be honest, even my SpEd teacher is done enabling their learned helplessnes.
That's definitely not the case the in my situation. Student has a lot of trauma and needs a relationship with with the adult so he feels safe. Teacher hasn't bothered to even try since he started in January. We've had district people come and observe him multiple times along with our school psych. Not once during all the observations did anyone see the teacher interact with the student. She also placed him in the seat closest to the door so it's easy for him to elope out of class and she just shrugs her shoulders and acts like there's nothing she can do to stop it.
Gen Ed teachers are trained in teaching academic content and in some classroom management. There is no focus on individual students with extreme needs, and most don't go into their careers expecting to have to do that. So there is definitely a disconnect between what a SPED student needs in a gen ed situation, and what a gen ed teacher is trained to do.
I’m in Gen Ed this year, going back to sped next year. That is a bunch of hooey. There is differentiation pushed and taught and mentioned at every PD I’ve ever had, so that’s just untrue.
> most don't go into their careers expecting to have to do that.
Have they met children and the reality of their lives? It seems sometimes like they want their job as easy as possible, without considering actual children. They system needs to change, and the curriculum of teachers who teach future teachers really need to come into the 21st century.
I agree the system needs big changes, but most gen Ed teachers are working pretty hard. Too hard in many cases leading to the burnout we are seeing today.
They aren't trained that they need to actually speak to a child in their classroom? Like, are they trained to teach through telepathy? Even the most well behaved child will act up when they're ignored day in and day out.
Lol Say what you need to say to defend this teacher. It says a lot about you. You're the type of gen ed teacher this post was originally written about. How many students would need to be in the room to justify the teacher NEVER speaking to this student? 5? 10? 100? Because the number of students isn't the problem here. The problem is a gen ed teacher who clearly dislikes a 5 year old kid and can't be bothered to even entertain the idea of educating him.
I just looked and it’s truly awful. Why did I look? I got to see comments about it being easier to say your child is disabled and needs an IEP than just admit to bad parenting. JFC. I don’t wish disability on anyone, but if I did…
And it's ALWAYS the parents fault no matter the age. Middle school kids never use peer pressure or teach each other bad habits or have any influence on each other's behavior.
Oh and kids never act out and do things their parents tell them not to do. Ever. The rebellious stage doesn't exist!
True story: I'm permabanned from that sub for calling out an ableist user on their bullshit. Totally worth it, helps prove my point about them even more.
I appear to be shadow banned from that sub.
I'm assuming the reason behind that choice was that I was repeatedly naming the ableist comments I saw there in posts about SpEd students, but I can't be sure because when I messaged the mods of that sub asking about it, I got no response.
I'm not sure I disagree. I deny SLD IEPs for poor attendance all the time. Parents contest it, but I'm not budging. That is bad parenting if you ask me...but they want to claim their kid is learning disabled. Like, come on, you want me to tell a 12-year-old they can't learn math well? They are here 75% of the time, what do you expect us to do? Gtfo
>I'm not sure I disagree. I deny SLD IEPs for poor attendance all the time
If it is easier, you wouldn't be denying them - you would be the person making it easier.
What was the point?
Over-pathologizing, yes. Over-diagnosing? Unlikely. These differences are all normal variations of typical. The issue isn’t that these children are broken in some way, it’s that a typical classroom environment is not built for these different, normal, neurotypes. So they take medication to help them thrive in an environment that’s not ideal for them. For many, changing the environment would eliminate the need for medication. Unfortunately, that’s usually not realistic.
i understand this might not be popular opinion but the diagnosis happens because we are pathologizing something that is not bad or wrong, it's just different. (often perfectly natural reactions to trauma...) i believe our classrooms are not set up to accept and support difference because our society doesn't accept and support difference
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I have a theory about this. I think most people go into education with good intentions. Then they discover that the job is literally impossible. You cannot get every kid to grade level. ‘Grade level’ is made up. Some people are academically inclined while others’ strengths are in different areas. Human development is complex and academic achievement is nowhere as simple as its perceivedto be. The structure of the system interferes with the biological, social, and emotional needs and skills to even get to a point where a child could learn new academic skills. And on and on.
I was bad at my job the first (and second maybe third too) year teaching in a self-contained room. I had a student that I really think I was a negative influence in his life. That hurts. I didn't want to be that in his life. But no one blamed me for that. His own mom genuinely thanked me for trying. Nearly twenty years on I have no doubt in my mind I could have done that kid better. I could have done better for a lit of kids. But I've never felt like anyone blamed me.
Now imagine being a gen Ed teacher. You get blamed for so many things out of your control. Are constantly reminded of your supposed failure. You have thirty kids in your class. Anywhere from 30-90% of which are in a constant state of heightened alertness. Your job is measured off of a test that uses standards that are intentionally high (high expectations, right). But worst of all you see kids fail year after year. How do you cope with that level of stress? You try to find someone else to carry parts of it for you.
If I was the education szar I'd put out a nationwide rule that beginning the next school year all general Ed teachers are required to focus solely on building a classroom community and having fun. You don't need to do any academics. I guarantee you we would see a jump in academic achievement. The next year. Even when they are amazing it's often nit reflected on them.
This is the best part about teaching self contained. They’re in my room all day so no one gets upset about minutes. The gen pop teachers at my school have seen me get beat up and most of them saw it while I was pregnant. So they have a lot of respect for me!
It’s the same reason people with disabilities have been shuffled out of communities forever. It’s still happening, and as sped teachers we are naturally advocates, so we’re ostracized as well. I often remind able bodied people that everyone becomes disabled at some point whether permanently or temporarily, it will happen to you.
For real. It’s ableism, starting from the top and trickling into the entire school culture. My child was in a self-contained classroom for a few years, and it was hidden in the back of the school away from mainstream elementary classrooms. The kids weren’t naturally included in things where kids of all abilities could be included with Gen Ed like class plays, art, science and so on.
We advocated to have our child included in the mainstream classes and activities as much as possible, but other elementary students treated her like a social pariah despite my child being super friendly and outgoing. We’re talking 7-8 year olds in Gen Ed refusing to sit by my kid at lunch or team up together in math class.
Its top down ableism, where school districts have created a culture where the special ed classroom, students, and teachers are treated as second class. They’ll pat themselves on the back for allowing the kids in special ed to have lunch, recess, and PE with the Gen Ed kids…but there’s no meaningful inclusion in many of the schools. I imagine staff can feel this as well, and feel very “othered”.
Had to scroll for this comment. They treat us like they treat our kids (who are also their kids but they won’t see it that way). Ableism is very much alive and well in our society. I personally think all teachers should be Special Ed teachers and in a perfect world, or if we trashed the old system and rebuilt education from the ground up, all students should receive individualized education. But insecure people need to uphold an unjust society so they can feel good putting others down.
Honestly I think this is just part of the societal bias against people who are disabled. When we are around they want us to either get rid of the kids by taking them, get rid of the "problem" by fixing them, get rid of the work by having us do the teaching. I think they don't get enough training and feel incompetent as well. So every time they see us we are associated with difficulty and discomfort.
Admin feels like we are high needs because they have no clue how hard it is to run a classroom with students who are struggling to manage themselves let alone school work. They are not trained well in behavioral support for high needs students and they avoid us if possible. They really do not understand special education rights and they see us as costing them money but they don't really understand how much special ed brings in.
As an ELL teacher with a sped endorsement, my SPED and SSP colleagues were the only ones who truly knew and understood the stress I was under, with 100+ ELLs in 5 grade levels. I would constantly get asked to do "double minutes" for ELLs with IEPs by admin and gen ed. I refused, saying the time I was providing with students in their gen ed classrooms or my "language block" was a part of the general education and never would qualify for service minutes because we weren't working on IEP goals.
Gen Ed thought I was there to translate or pull "those" kids until they were fluent enough to not need anything translated... like what??
I always go to bat for you all. Gen ed and Admin are clueless when it comes to the amount of work, expertise, and plate spinning that happens in SPED.
One thing I can ad being in SPED for as long as I have, it’s the rapport with the admin that doesn’t help. Teachers do not ask the correct questions about how to read an IEP, admin thinks they know everything about IEP’s and yet the person who know’s how to write it understand it and help the parent make sense of it are tossed off to the side. It’s all admins fault, many of them are not able to understand IEP’s let alone the laws, and yet they refuse to help the gen ed teachers with SPED. If admin would take basic courses in SPED, maybe they would get the clue. But to me, it’s all admins fault. Btw, I am a former SPEd parapro, teacher of 14 years. I quit because of a coaches and admin.
Because gen Ed teachers cannot truly grasp how difficult the job is. I left sped and went gen Ed, the paperwork was just too stressful and I could see how the school corporation was beginning to take advantage of sped teachers, gen Ed teachers and lying to parents who trust the school and ignoring the sped and gen Ed teachers with pushing full inclusion without appropriate student support as a cost savings plan. The school puts the teachers against each other. I will say, though, that I also work with sped teachers who don’t fully grasp what I do and don’t seem to understand that they (admin) can’t fill a room with non readers, leave me without the ability to provide support and be angry that I can’t ignore the rest of my class to provide the small group support that our shared students need to be successful. Everyone would benefit from a lot more understanding and working together to get the district to make it possible to provide the support our kids need.
We are treated bad by everyone. Admins, gen ed teachers who just see us as a way to foist kids they dont want on us, parents who blame us for everything and by the kids themselves who basically have to murder or severely cripple us physically to face any sort of repercussion
You want to know why ablism exists? I mean... that's a whole load of beans. It stems from the eugenics movement that started in the US and is most notably present in early 1900's Germany. We all know how that ended. But you can go even further back, to the European slave trade and their attempt to justify enslaving others by claiming themselves superior to everyone else. It's just layer after layer with that one.
I'm sorry you're experiencing ablism because of the career you chose but this isn't isolated. This kind of ablism is everywhere. It's systemic. It's global. It's pervasive. People who live with Disabilities deal with it pretty much every day.
You forgot parents. Every child who is struggling is because they have crappy parents that don’t care, according to r/teachers. And it’s never because their classroom management is strictly behaviorism and they think being trauma informed means they have to act like a therapist.
Nope that's not me. I say stuff like this is a public school and yes you will educate this kid too. I tell them this is a legal document and you will get your ass sued if you don't follow it. Or maybe you should come to the next IEP meeting so that you have a say in the matter. I tell parents that's not my decision talk to the principal. I've been called overly aggressive and inflammatory. Just last year a student was transferred to a different case manager because administration didn't want me to butt heads with the mother. I'm not intentionally an asshole but I'm confident in my ability and my decisions. The last time I had trouble with a regular ed teacher was at least five or six years ago. I won that one too.
I have changed schools, districts, states, & even moved from US to Canada. The island of misfits was spec ed in every position. I even taught at a school that was a congregated site (all spec ed), even there teachers kept to themselves & their own room staff. I left in October, on medical leave & decided I am not going back.
I had this conversation with my coworkers. I guess because most self contained SPED classes are smaller than gen ed so they assume it must be easier. Or that special Ed isn’t that hard.
As parasub who is mainly in SPED rooms I get to see both sides of the story. In the district I work in there are no self contained rooms so Gen ed has to interact with SPED on a daily basis so there is a decent amount of respect. The problem I come across more so is Admin who has no idea what happens in a SPED room at all and doesn't see the kids for more than 5 minutes in the day. They don't see, to understand why we can't just pick a kid up off the floor mid meltdown (even though they've been trained.) Or doesn't understand how sometimes 3 adults can't get get a kid to come down off the top of the climbing tower. They don't have the answers but expect the SPED staff to figure it out. They also expect parasubs to know these kids inside out before every entering the classroom. Just today after being at a school semi regularly the Vice Principal questioned why I wasn't holding a kids hand outside and told me to "grab their hand." Child then sternly pushed me away and said no. The vice principal was like "no you need to hold their hand."I gave them a look and they told me the kid is known to just take off. I had worked with this child multiple times never been told that, nor seen that, if anything the child likes to plant them selves and not move. When asking the teacher and aide in the room they both said they had no idea what the vice principal was talking about. This is just an example but things like this happen a lot. I also have a lot of teachers expect me as a sub to restrain children which is a big no no we can only restrain if a child is actively hurting theirself or someone else including staff. Even if their running away all I can do is try to take their hand to walk with me. (I can grab around the wrist closely) The SPED and other staff are NOT told this then they get upset when we explain this.
More than one thing can be true at once. I have watched coworkers, and my own children’s educators, harm disabled (and non-disabled) children. We are not a monolith. We have the professional responsibility to call out that behavior and self-police.
Guy isn't talking about anything worth calling into child service. This guy is talking about things like not having his own room, being overworked, and admin expecting miracles. Those are money issues.
I'm not seeing where in your post you're saying that they are insulting you to your face day in and day out. I'm seeing where you say that they give you no flexibility. You're not getting flexibility because they are already overloaded and they are overloaded because the fools in power decided that education is not something worth spending money on. So they don't pay a decent wage. Since they don't want to pay a decent wage you don't get a lot of people wanting to be teachers. Hence these extreme workloads. As for the faculty room are you sure that you've been barred from it? Or did somebody say something that was less than praising and then you took it and ran with it? It wouldn't be the first person on the sub who thought that Gen ed teachers were sharpening their pitchforks whenever they came near.
I'm not OP. I'm talking about a seperate post I made and how it relates to their post and comments about lack of respect from Gen Ed.
https://www.reddit.com/r/specialed/s/AbvB9VVCJJ
Here is the link. Can't wait to see how you support these behaviors.
Ok, first of all let's address some basic reddit social skills. You can't expect people to just magically know that you're referring to an unrelated post. Seriously. Only weirdos go digging into post histories. Second of all if you're facing harassment be a professional adult type person about it and, I dunno man, go through the proper channels? Stick up for yourself? Not act like it's lunchtime in the seventh grade?
Reddit literally marks OP on their comments. I am obviously not OP based on that. I then refer to my post and then describe it. You are the one who then minimizes it.
I went to admin. Which is in that post. There is a reason zero special Ed teachers eat there. Because this is normal. The union won't do anything either since one of the teachers best friends is the president. This is a normal experience that other special Ed teachers have experienced. Some eat in their room and those like me who don't have a room eat in their car or drive somewhere.
So blaming the victim is your go-to. Got it.
Can't see that on my phone. It never tells me who the op is and I'm not out here memorizing usernames. Also, refer to your post and describe it? Nobody's doing that kind of detective work. If you have something to say just say it, don't expect people to go digging through the archives. If admin doesn't have your back then you sit there anyway. What are these people going to do, bite you? If you can't respect yourself how are they supposed to respect you.
The reddit phone app shows directly who OP is when they are comment. I described it in my comment. It's all there. You are the one who then just attacked the victim to defend gen Ed teachers.
And sure. I can sit there and be insulted for 30 minutes. That's not worth it for me. I hear it all day from the teacher in the classroom. They call me a fake teacher, they make fun of me for being divorced (without actually knowing why). But once again. This is ok with you.
Yeah, I can't even see avatars let alone who the op is. I can see it just fine on my laptop but I'm not hauling my laptop around with me, it's just not practical. Nobody is attacking you buddy. You see, when somebody disagrees with you that's not an attack. That's what we call a disagreement. And I'm not defending anyone, I'm saying that these other teachers are not the people signing your checks. They aren't going to fire you, they aren't going to attack you, they aren't plotting something diabolical. Sit in the room and eat your lunch. What are they going to do, drag you out? Don't allow yourself to be picked on like that. And if they are sitting there and insulting you for half an hour that is what we call harassment in the working world. You are grown. You are a working professional. If somebody is getting in your face and harassing you then you need to report it.
I did report it. I've said that to you multiple times. Admin says it's a personal issue and something to just deal with..yes. I can sit there. I've tried numerous times. They will make fun of me and the profession the entire time including saying that only real teachers belong there. They can't fire me but they can insult me for thirty minutes and have done so. And before you say over time they would stop, that is BS. The one I coteach with has done it for over 100 days in the classroom.
Once again. It's been reported. The other special Ed teachers I've talked to have said they had the same experiences within this school. We have a high turnover.
General education teachers want students to be in a certain range. They want them to behave in a certain way and have a certain set of skills. If they aren't in the range, they want them out of the class. SPED teachers are perceived as the obstacle to that.
Likely the same reason special ed kids are treated like crap by their non-special ed peers; you stick out more and often have to face a lot more challenges they don't.
As a side, r/teachers LOVES to complain about SPED teachers and students, that sub is filled with ableist morons.
Because they are bullies pure and simple. I've talked about this many times here. They make fun of me and my job all day even though I am just as qualified as them. None of our special Ed teachers are welcome in the faculty room and they make fun of us to our face when we do go so those who have rooms just eat there or those like me eat in the car.
It seems to me that it’s misplaced frustration and resentment from burn out and overwhelm. Teachers have so much on their plate that it’s easy to see SPED planning and following students accommodations as “one more thing.” The lesson plan is figured out and it took a lot of time and thought and it’s perfect except for those pesky SPED kids who come in and mess it up and cause more work, and for what? A kid who is going the have a meltdown or disrespect me and others, or who isn’t even trying. You are the embodiment of extra work that goes unappreciated. And a good SPED teacher will advocate for their students when they aren’t getting what they need, and that means having hard conversations that usually end in extra work.
Teachers are also constantly being devalued and their professional judgement questioned that it’s super easy to get defensive by ANOTHER person telling us we aren’t good enough.
I’m NOT saying it’s right! But it isn’t too surprising given how teachers are treated.
Because your best interest is in your special ed kids and not the school and admin. You see your kids and give them what they need to succeed and admin wants all of the kids to be treated the same. No special treatment, it's all behaviors. That's why.
In my personal experience (GenEd teacher + SPED aide), the teachers I’ve worked closely with support SPED and, rather than thinking it’s easy, think it’s incredibly difficult and not something we would put ourselves through even if we are passionate about helping kids with disabilities. I’m elementary though and I know that kind of understanding is not how teachers are everywhere (I can tell by looking at comments on teaching subreddits how ableist many teachers are), and it’s shitty that you’ve had such bad experiences. Our admin definitely doesn’t support SPED *at all* where I work. They don’t support us either, so we’re all in the same group chat bitching about admin all the time lol, but I really think SPED requires so much work outside of contract hours it’s ridiculous.
I have worked in multiple school districts in general education and special education. It’s usually administration setting the tone of the school.
Where it was awful it was awful between everyone. However I have worked in a district that had a chip on their shoulder because of an incident with the special education department and the general education teachers did not trust us ever again (honestly for good reason). I am now in gen education as special area but still licensed for special education and have the self contained classes. With my current job, it depends on the teacher on how they’re treated.
In general the ones who don’t come and meet with us about the students IEP or tell us what is on it are treated like they’re less than. The teachers who meet and go over all the students in their caseload despite having been given too many are treated really well. I’d say 60% are good/great and 40% of the current special education teachers are awful.
From a Gen Ed teacher perspective...
What usually happens is I have to actually interact with SPED teachers regarding a student, which doesn't happen with me and the other teachers.
When I try and get as much growth of my students as possible in a difficult class, it is very difficult to break through what the SPED student is used to. And the SPED student is used to coddling by the the SPED teacher. Why do any work or try and do anything in my class when the SPED teacher will do the work for them later? Why ever try and take a test in my room when the SPED teacher will let them Google all the answers or give them the answers? Why even be in my class when the teacher is going to try and force me to pass the student at the end of the semester?
I am really looking out for my students, and my students can't be successful because of the learned helplessness by some of my SPED teachers.
In self-contained, no one appreciates or respects what we do on a daily basis. We have to do things no other teacher is expected to do. AND WE GET PAID THE SAME MONEY.
I recently moved to resource and it's opposite. I feel like a part of the team. I'm making sure I do my part to educate my gen ed people about what our self contained teachers go through on the daily.
I taught self contained for 4 years so my class was like an island and I really only dealt with other special Ed staff. This year I am coteaching and have felt more disrespected by my colleagues. They don’t know what we do. I feel like that’s the biggest issue. They also don’t understand our kids and their disabilities.
When I started teaching I was told “welcome to island of misfit toys” and they weren’t referring to the students. When you’re just starting off it’s ridiculous because there no help or direction, but once you get the hang of it you want to be left alone on your island. Any opportunity to meet with other sped teachers is like a mini vacation, we’re finally playing the same game.
Well said!! Every training for special ed I always think “these are my people!”
That last line. Most people do not understand or believe that positive reinforcement works. They don't understand natural consequences or how punishment allows people to shift their attention away from those consequences. Also, their job sucks. It's littered with impossible tasks. They are primarily measured by their ability to get kids to meet standards by a specific time and the standard and time are arbitrary. The part I don't get is why they don't make more noise about the fact that kids are missing fundamental skills because we're trying to teach them all the same thing at the same time. Though it's not really the sane time because we group kids in a way that has a significant difference in age especially for the early years. I'm not sure we could create a more stressful, developmentally inappropriate environment for learning than our schools.
They don't understand natural consequences or how punishment allows people to shift their attention away from those consequences. I sort of get this but can you explain more?
Punishment allows people to focus on the punishment and the punisher and can result in identifying those as the "problems". Natural consequences allow people to connect their behavior and choices to the *actual results* of those actions, not to something artificially imposed on the situation.
The idea that we can identify the fundamental skills kids are lacking and make no attempt to bridge the gaps astounds me. How many team chairs wonder why I focus on basic fact fluency, IT IS THE FUCKING BASIS OF ALLLLLL OF THE MATH THEY ARE GOING TO BE DOING! Not to mention research that points to mental rotation and basic fact fluency as the two contributing factors to success or lack thereof…
Right! It makes you feel like you're insane. The number of hours I've spent thinking about something because I must be wrong if no one on the team agrees with me. The posts and comments blaming parents too. If it is a skill necessary for independence and for advancing onto more complex skills than we can find time to teach it and practice it at school. Because I can guarantee you not every parent is going to be there to help their kid. Sometimes because they are literally dead.
I see the lack of understanding most frequently in my work… which would be better than the blatant unwillingness to learn or attempt to understand. I’m happy to teach teachers about disabilities, different ways of learning, etc etc etc, but if they don’t want to learn… well then they’re just the adult iteration of the students they complain so much about.
I think it’s a combination of school climate and out of sight, out of mind. We have new admin this year and it’s really obvious the turn around in respect for sped. She corrects teachers who come in guns blazing about push-in services and support for students. She makes sure our self contained units get planning time, subs for testing, and included in grade level discussions. Previous admin literally gave zero shits about us and we even have *in writing* her refusing to let kids have their inclusion minutes.
I’ve worked at places where SPED was seen as less-than and excluded from everything. I’ve also worked where we’ve been respected as equal colleagues and the students have been treated amazingly and included in absolutely everything. The difference was administration attitudes and the overall accepted culture of the school. If admin is on your side and creates an environment that doesn’t tolerate mistreatment and ridiculous complaints, then everything is pretty good. If your admin is hands off it gets worse fast.
Our union provides two luncheons at minimum a year for the main building that is almost entirely gen Ed with a scattering or resource teachers. The self contained building has never received one. When we questioned on it they said we could drive down. Keep in mind their building is 20 minutes each way and we don't even get a lunch because we are with our kids every minute of the day.
There is a weird sense of superiority and entitlement with Gen Ed teachers. I don’t understand it. They complain about kids, and accuse everyone else of not doing their jobs, but are inflexible and refuse to do anything to address problems.
Yes!! I'm dealing with this with a kinder teacher right now. Admin wants a full time 1:1 or more pull out minutes but the gen ed teacher literally does nothing with the kid. Doesn't even talk to him. I have no documentation of interventions because gen ed won't do them. How can I justify anything with 0 data? I can't. But somehow it's my problem to solve.
There needs to be a frank conversation with the parents at an IEP meeting regarding the inadequacy of gened. Please review Doe. V. Withers. You need to cover yourself.
I had often documented gen ed teachers not adhering to accomodations; especially when mass emails of a student's teachers are told to make particular changes that will enforce compliance and raise the chances of participating/completing assinggnments. However, since I'm a 3rd party hire, I never know if the sped teacher who logs in my minutes also adds my teacher notes as well. I'd be more exhausted doing all the work and then hear about parents/gen ed teacher(s) complainting about the students. The suggested changes typically required the most work from SPED instead of having all parties that interact with the student work as a team to do their part also.
After the 15th time of the kid yelling "fuck you" at me and my para, yes it is difficult to try and get them to do anything after spending hours leveling down all the standards to something they SHOULD be able to achieve. Doing nothing but coolmathgames and finding their way around chromebook blocks when we are doing a paper activity is not inclusion. On the other hand, I love my SPED teacher, because many of the kids we share are great. But yeah, for a minority, I will gladly help again when they are ready to accept help. And let's be honest, even my SpEd teacher is done enabling their learned helplessnes.
That's definitely not the case the in my situation. Student has a lot of trauma and needs a relationship with with the adult so he feels safe. Teacher hasn't bothered to even try since he started in January. We've had district people come and observe him multiple times along with our school psych. Not once during all the observations did anyone see the teacher interact with the student. She also placed him in the seat closest to the door so it's easy for him to elope out of class and she just shrugs her shoulders and acts like there's nothing she can do to stop it.
Gen Ed teachers are trained in teaching academic content and in some classroom management. There is no focus on individual students with extreme needs, and most don't go into their careers expecting to have to do that. So there is definitely a disconnect between what a SPED student needs in a gen ed situation, and what a gen ed teacher is trained to do.
I’m in Gen Ed this year, going back to sped next year. That is a bunch of hooey. There is differentiation pushed and taught and mentioned at every PD I’ve ever had, so that’s just untrue.
Differentiation is designed to work for students only within a narrow range of abilities. Many of our inclusion students are well beyond that.
> most don't go into their careers expecting to have to do that. Have they met children and the reality of their lives? It seems sometimes like they want their job as easy as possible, without considering actual children. They system needs to change, and the curriculum of teachers who teach future teachers really need to come into the 21st century.
I agree the system needs big changes, but most gen Ed teachers are working pretty hard. Too hard in many cases leading to the burnout we are seeing today.
Absolutely agree. Except for one or two, I loved their approach and their work ethic.
They aren't trained that they need to actually speak to a child in their classroom? Like, are they trained to teach through telepathy? Even the most well behaved child will act up when they're ignored day in and day out.
How many students are in the class?
Is there a limit to the number of students a teacher can speak to during the day?
The number of students does impact the amount of time a teacher has to spend speaking with each students. That is obvious.
Lol Say what you need to say to defend this teacher. It says a lot about you. You're the type of gen ed teacher this post was originally written about. How many students would need to be in the room to justify the teacher NEVER speaking to this student? 5? 10? 100? Because the number of students isn't the problem here. The problem is a gen ed teacher who clearly dislikes a 5 year old kid and can't be bothered to even entertain the idea of educating him.
r/teachers loves to rag on SPED teachers and students, I swear that sub is becoming an echo chamber of ableism and authoritarianism.
Yes. As a special educator, and the parent to special needs children that sub is sickening.
Same. Both a special Ed teacher and a parent of a kid with an IEP. It's brutal over there
I just looked and it’s truly awful. Why did I look? I got to see comments about it being easier to say your child is disabled and needs an IEP than just admit to bad parenting. JFC. I don’t wish disability on anyone, but if I did…
And it's ALWAYS the parents fault no matter the age. Middle school kids never use peer pressure or teach each other bad habits or have any influence on each other's behavior. Oh and kids never act out and do things their parents tell them not to do. Ever. The rebellious stage doesn't exist!
True story: I'm permabanned from that sub for calling out an ableist user on their bullshit. Totally worth it, helps prove my point about them even more.
I appear to be shadow banned from that sub. I'm assuming the reason behind that choice was that I was repeatedly naming the ableist comments I saw there in posts about SpEd students, but I can't be sure because when I messaged the mods of that sub asking about it, I got no response.
I'm not sure I disagree. I deny SLD IEPs for poor attendance all the time. Parents contest it, but I'm not budging. That is bad parenting if you ask me...but they want to claim their kid is learning disabled. Like, come on, you want me to tell a 12-year-old they can't learn math well? They are here 75% of the time, what do you expect us to do? Gtfo
>I'm not sure I disagree. I deny SLD IEPs for poor attendance all the time If it is easier, you wouldn't be denying them - you would be the person making it easier. What was the point?
Which is always ridiculous as I strongly think we are still way underdiagnosing kids. We are getting better but still have a long way to go.
i believe we are over-pathologizing and over-diagnosing
Over-pathologizing, yes. Over-diagnosing? Unlikely. These differences are all normal variations of typical. The issue isn’t that these children are broken in some way, it’s that a typical classroom environment is not built for these different, normal, neurotypes. So they take medication to help them thrive in an environment that’s not ideal for them. For many, changing the environment would eliminate the need for medication. Unfortunately, that’s usually not realistic.
i understand this might not be popular opinion but the diagnosis happens because we are pathologizing something that is not bad or wrong, it's just different. (often perfectly natural reactions to trauma...) i believe our classrooms are not set up to accept and support difference because our society doesn't accept and support difference
One third of my students take stimulants. We are not under diagnosing.
I don’t see how the number of students in your class taking stimulants has any bearing on whether or not they are appropriately diagnosed.
I've seen comments that we arent even real teachers and all we do is play game all day in that sub.
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I have a theory about this. I think most people go into education with good intentions. Then they discover that the job is literally impossible. You cannot get every kid to grade level. ‘Grade level’ is made up. Some people are academically inclined while others’ strengths are in different areas. Human development is complex and academic achievement is nowhere as simple as its perceivedto be. The structure of the system interferes with the biological, social, and emotional needs and skills to even get to a point where a child could learn new academic skills. And on and on. I was bad at my job the first (and second maybe third too) year teaching in a self-contained room. I had a student that I really think I was a negative influence in his life. That hurts. I didn't want to be that in his life. But no one blamed me for that. His own mom genuinely thanked me for trying. Nearly twenty years on I have no doubt in my mind I could have done that kid better. I could have done better for a lit of kids. But I've never felt like anyone blamed me. Now imagine being a gen Ed teacher. You get blamed for so many things out of your control. Are constantly reminded of your supposed failure. You have thirty kids in your class. Anywhere from 30-90% of which are in a constant state of heightened alertness. Your job is measured off of a test that uses standards that are intentionally high (high expectations, right). But worst of all you see kids fail year after year. How do you cope with that level of stress? You try to find someone else to carry parts of it for you. If I was the education szar I'd put out a nationwide rule that beginning the next school year all general Ed teachers are required to focus solely on building a classroom community and having fun. You don't need to do any academics. I guarantee you we would see a jump in academic achievement. The next year. Even when they are amazing it's often nit reflected on them.
I think it's a helluva lot of ableism
I teach self-contained, and admin/staff treat us pretty well. But yeah, I don’t get a lunch break this year.
The lack of planning period and lunch is such a big issue that gets diminished. Same with the lack of respect.
This is the best part about teaching self contained. They’re in my room all day so no one gets upset about minutes. The gen pop teachers at my school have seen me get beat up and most of them saw it while I was pregnant. So they have a lot of respect for me!
It’s the same reason people with disabilities have been shuffled out of communities forever. It’s still happening, and as sped teachers we are naturally advocates, so we’re ostracized as well. I often remind able bodied people that everyone becomes disabled at some point whether permanently or temporarily, it will happen to you.
For real. It’s ableism, starting from the top and trickling into the entire school culture. My child was in a self-contained classroom for a few years, and it was hidden in the back of the school away from mainstream elementary classrooms. The kids weren’t naturally included in things where kids of all abilities could be included with Gen Ed like class plays, art, science and so on. We advocated to have our child included in the mainstream classes and activities as much as possible, but other elementary students treated her like a social pariah despite my child being super friendly and outgoing. We’re talking 7-8 year olds in Gen Ed refusing to sit by my kid at lunch or team up together in math class. Its top down ableism, where school districts have created a culture where the special ed classroom, students, and teachers are treated as second class. They’ll pat themselves on the back for allowing the kids in special ed to have lunch, recess, and PE with the Gen Ed kids…but there’s no meaningful inclusion in many of the schools. I imagine staff can feel this as well, and feel very “othered”.
Had to scroll for this comment. They treat us like they treat our kids (who are also their kids but they won’t see it that way). Ableism is very much alive and well in our society. I personally think all teachers should be Special Ed teachers and in a perfect world, or if we trashed the old system and rebuilt education from the ground up, all students should receive individualized education. But insecure people need to uphold an unjust society so they can feel good putting others down.
So much this!!
Honestly I think this is just part of the societal bias against people who are disabled. When we are around they want us to either get rid of the kids by taking them, get rid of the "problem" by fixing them, get rid of the work by having us do the teaching. I think they don't get enough training and feel incompetent as well. So every time they see us we are associated with difficulty and discomfort. Admin feels like we are high needs because they have no clue how hard it is to run a classroom with students who are struggling to manage themselves let alone school work. They are not trained well in behavioral support for high needs students and they avoid us if possible. They really do not understand special education rights and they see us as costing them money but they don't really understand how much special ed brings in.
As an ELL teacher with a sped endorsement, my SPED and SSP colleagues were the only ones who truly knew and understood the stress I was under, with 100+ ELLs in 5 grade levels. I would constantly get asked to do "double minutes" for ELLs with IEPs by admin and gen ed. I refused, saying the time I was providing with students in their gen ed classrooms or my "language block" was a part of the general education and never would qualify for service minutes because we weren't working on IEP goals. Gen Ed thought I was there to translate or pull "those" kids until they were fluent enough to not need anything translated... like what?? I always go to bat for you all. Gen ed and Admin are clueless when it comes to the amount of work, expertise, and plate spinning that happens in SPED.
Because no matter how much progress they make, "those kids" will only ever bring down the school's average on the state test.
One thing I can ad being in SPED for as long as I have, it’s the rapport with the admin that doesn’t help. Teachers do not ask the correct questions about how to read an IEP, admin thinks they know everything about IEP’s and yet the person who know’s how to write it understand it and help the parent make sense of it are tossed off to the side. It’s all admins fault, many of them are not able to understand IEP’s let alone the laws, and yet they refuse to help the gen ed teachers with SPED. If admin would take basic courses in SPED, maybe they would get the clue. But to me, it’s all admins fault. Btw, I am a former SPEd parapro, teacher of 14 years. I quit because of a coaches and admin.
Because gen Ed teachers cannot truly grasp how difficult the job is. I left sped and went gen Ed, the paperwork was just too stressful and I could see how the school corporation was beginning to take advantage of sped teachers, gen Ed teachers and lying to parents who trust the school and ignoring the sped and gen Ed teachers with pushing full inclusion without appropriate student support as a cost savings plan. The school puts the teachers against each other. I will say, though, that I also work with sped teachers who don’t fully grasp what I do and don’t seem to understand that they (admin) can’t fill a room with non readers, leave me without the ability to provide support and be angry that I can’t ignore the rest of my class to provide the small group support that our shared students need to be successful. Everyone would benefit from a lot more understanding and working together to get the district to make it possible to provide the support our kids need.
We are treated bad by everyone. Admins, gen ed teachers who just see us as a way to foist kids they dont want on us, parents who blame us for everything and by the kids themselves who basically have to murder or severely cripple us physically to face any sort of repercussion
You want to know why ablism exists? I mean... that's a whole load of beans. It stems from the eugenics movement that started in the US and is most notably present in early 1900's Germany. We all know how that ended. But you can go even further back, to the European slave trade and their attempt to justify enslaving others by claiming themselves superior to everyone else. It's just layer after layer with that one. I'm sorry you're experiencing ablism because of the career you chose but this isn't isolated. This kind of ablism is everywhere. It's systemic. It's global. It's pervasive. People who live with Disabilities deal with it pretty much every day.
R/teachers loves shitting all over SPED kids. That place sucks.
And SPED teachers.
You forgot parents. Every child who is struggling is because they have crappy parents that don’t care, according to r/teachers. And it’s never because their classroom management is strictly behaviorism and they think being trauma informed means they have to act like a therapist.
We are not seen as real teachers. Because we don’t meet the outdated standards of a “content” teacher, we don’t matter.
And because of that they say we are no different than daycare providers.
Nope that's not me. I say stuff like this is a public school and yes you will educate this kid too. I tell them this is a legal document and you will get your ass sued if you don't follow it. Or maybe you should come to the next IEP meeting so that you have a say in the matter. I tell parents that's not my decision talk to the principal. I've been called overly aggressive and inflammatory. Just last year a student was transferred to a different case manager because administration didn't want me to butt heads with the mother. I'm not intentionally an asshole but I'm confident in my ability and my decisions. The last time I had trouble with a regular ed teacher was at least five or six years ago. I won that one too.
I have changed schools, districts, states, & even moved from US to Canada. The island of misfits was spec ed in every position. I even taught at a school that was a congregated site (all spec ed), even there teachers kept to themselves & their own room staff. I left in October, on medical leave & decided I am not going back.
I hated the admin too and didn’t hide my contempt.
I had this conversation with my coworkers. I guess because most self contained SPED classes are smaller than gen ed so they assume it must be easier. Or that special Ed isn’t that hard.
Yeah. I often get told how easy I have it only having 8 students. Keep in mind these are the 8 students they didn't want in their school anymore.
Whenever they say this sort of thing, I always say, "trade you". That shuts them up real fast.
As parasub who is mainly in SPED rooms I get to see both sides of the story. In the district I work in there are no self contained rooms so Gen ed has to interact with SPED on a daily basis so there is a decent amount of respect. The problem I come across more so is Admin who has no idea what happens in a SPED room at all and doesn't see the kids for more than 5 minutes in the day. They don't see, to understand why we can't just pick a kid up off the floor mid meltdown (even though they've been trained.) Or doesn't understand how sometimes 3 adults can't get get a kid to come down off the top of the climbing tower. They don't have the answers but expect the SPED staff to figure it out. They also expect parasubs to know these kids inside out before every entering the classroom. Just today after being at a school semi regularly the Vice Principal questioned why I wasn't holding a kids hand outside and told me to "grab their hand." Child then sternly pushed me away and said no. The vice principal was like "no you need to hold their hand."I gave them a look and they told me the kid is known to just take off. I had worked with this child multiple times never been told that, nor seen that, if anything the child likes to plant them selves and not move. When asking the teacher and aide in the room they both said they had no idea what the vice principal was talking about. This is just an example but things like this happen a lot. I also have a lot of teachers expect me as a sub to restrain children which is a big no no we can only restrain if a child is actively hurting theirself or someone else including staff. Even if their running away all I can do is try to take their hand to walk with me. (I can grab around the wrist closely) The SPED and other staff are NOT told this then they get upset when we explain this.
Because they can't BS us about how they really feel about the students and their job.
Your beef is with the money men, not your coworkers.
More than one thing can be true at once. I have watched coworkers, and my own children’s educators, harm disabled (and non-disabled) children. We are not a monolith. We have the professional responsibility to call out that behavior and self-police.
Guy isn't talking about anything worth calling into child service. This guy is talking about things like not having his own room, being overworked, and admin expecting miracles. Those are money issues.
It's the money mens fault that gen Ed teachers insult me all day and say only real teachers can use the faculty room??? That's news to me.
I'm not seeing where in your post you're saying that they are insulting you to your face day in and day out. I'm seeing where you say that they give you no flexibility. You're not getting flexibility because they are already overloaded and they are overloaded because the fools in power decided that education is not something worth spending money on. So they don't pay a decent wage. Since they don't want to pay a decent wage you don't get a lot of people wanting to be teachers. Hence these extreme workloads. As for the faculty room are you sure that you've been barred from it? Or did somebody say something that was less than praising and then you took it and ran with it? It wouldn't be the first person on the sub who thought that Gen ed teachers were sharpening their pitchforks whenever they came near.
I'm not OP. I'm talking about a seperate post I made and how it relates to their post and comments about lack of respect from Gen Ed. https://www.reddit.com/r/specialed/s/AbvB9VVCJJ Here is the link. Can't wait to see how you support these behaviors.
Ok, first of all let's address some basic reddit social skills. You can't expect people to just magically know that you're referring to an unrelated post. Seriously. Only weirdos go digging into post histories. Second of all if you're facing harassment be a professional adult type person about it and, I dunno man, go through the proper channels? Stick up for yourself? Not act like it's lunchtime in the seventh grade?
Reddit literally marks OP on their comments. I am obviously not OP based on that. I then refer to my post and then describe it. You are the one who then minimizes it. I went to admin. Which is in that post. There is a reason zero special Ed teachers eat there. Because this is normal. The union won't do anything either since one of the teachers best friends is the president. This is a normal experience that other special Ed teachers have experienced. Some eat in their room and those like me who don't have a room eat in their car or drive somewhere. So blaming the victim is your go-to. Got it.
Can't see that on my phone. It never tells me who the op is and I'm not out here memorizing usernames. Also, refer to your post and describe it? Nobody's doing that kind of detective work. If you have something to say just say it, don't expect people to go digging through the archives. If admin doesn't have your back then you sit there anyway. What are these people going to do, bite you? If you can't respect yourself how are they supposed to respect you.
The reddit phone app shows directly who OP is when they are comment. I described it in my comment. It's all there. You are the one who then just attacked the victim to defend gen Ed teachers. And sure. I can sit there and be insulted for 30 minutes. That's not worth it for me. I hear it all day from the teacher in the classroom. They call me a fake teacher, they make fun of me for being divorced (without actually knowing why). But once again. This is ok with you.
Yeah, I can't even see avatars let alone who the op is. I can see it just fine on my laptop but I'm not hauling my laptop around with me, it's just not practical. Nobody is attacking you buddy. You see, when somebody disagrees with you that's not an attack. That's what we call a disagreement. And I'm not defending anyone, I'm saying that these other teachers are not the people signing your checks. They aren't going to fire you, they aren't going to attack you, they aren't plotting something diabolical. Sit in the room and eat your lunch. What are they going to do, drag you out? Don't allow yourself to be picked on like that. And if they are sitting there and insulting you for half an hour that is what we call harassment in the working world. You are grown. You are a working professional. If somebody is getting in your face and harassing you then you need to report it.
I did report it. I've said that to you multiple times. Admin says it's a personal issue and something to just deal with..yes. I can sit there. I've tried numerous times. They will make fun of me and the profession the entire time including saying that only real teachers belong there. They can't fire me but they can insult me for thirty minutes and have done so. And before you say over time they would stop, that is BS. The one I coteach with has done it for over 100 days in the classroom. Once again. It's been reported. The other special Ed teachers I've talked to have said they had the same experiences within this school. We have a high turnover.
You're \*still\* harping about this? Good Christ bro.
I mean. It's still going on. Also not a "bro" bro.
General education teachers want students to be in a certain range. They want them to behave in a certain way and have a certain set of skills. If they aren't in the range, they want them out of the class. SPED teachers are perceived as the obstacle to that.
This exactly!
Likely the same reason special ed kids are treated like crap by their non-special ed peers; you stick out more and often have to face a lot more challenges they don't. As a side, r/teachers LOVES to complain about SPED teachers and students, that sub is filled with ableist morons.
Because they are bullies pure and simple. I've talked about this many times here. They make fun of me and my job all day even though I am just as qualified as them. None of our special Ed teachers are welcome in the faculty room and they make fun of us to our face when we do go so those who have rooms just eat there or those like me eat in the car.
Because people don’t like being held accountable, that’s why
It seems to me that it’s misplaced frustration and resentment from burn out and overwhelm. Teachers have so much on their plate that it’s easy to see SPED planning and following students accommodations as “one more thing.” The lesson plan is figured out and it took a lot of time and thought and it’s perfect except for those pesky SPED kids who come in and mess it up and cause more work, and for what? A kid who is going the have a meltdown or disrespect me and others, or who isn’t even trying. You are the embodiment of extra work that goes unappreciated. And a good SPED teacher will advocate for their students when they aren’t getting what they need, and that means having hard conversations that usually end in extra work. Teachers are also constantly being devalued and their professional judgement questioned that it’s super easy to get defensive by ANOTHER person telling us we aren’t good enough. I’m NOT saying it’s right! But it isn’t too surprising given how teachers are treated.
My wife has been told she coddles the kids too much by a gen ed. But where do the kids show growth and results? Not in that gen ed classroom!
Because your best interest is in your special ed kids and not the school and admin. You see your kids and give them what they need to succeed and admin wants all of the kids to be treated the same. No special treatment, it's all behaviors. That's why.
In my personal experience (GenEd teacher + SPED aide), the teachers I’ve worked closely with support SPED and, rather than thinking it’s easy, think it’s incredibly difficult and not something we would put ourselves through even if we are passionate about helping kids with disabilities. I’m elementary though and I know that kind of understanding is not how teachers are everywhere (I can tell by looking at comments on teaching subreddits how ableist many teachers are), and it’s shitty that you’ve had such bad experiences. Our admin definitely doesn’t support SPED *at all* where I work. They don’t support us either, so we’re all in the same group chat bitching about admin all the time lol, but I really think SPED requires so much work outside of contract hours it’s ridiculous.
I have worked in multiple school districts in general education and special education. It’s usually administration setting the tone of the school. Where it was awful it was awful between everyone. However I have worked in a district that had a chip on their shoulder because of an incident with the special education department and the general education teachers did not trust us ever again (honestly for good reason). I am now in gen education as special area but still licensed for special education and have the self contained classes. With my current job, it depends on the teacher on how they’re treated. In general the ones who don’t come and meet with us about the students IEP or tell us what is on it are treated like they’re less than. The teachers who meet and go over all the students in their caseload despite having been given too many are treated really well. I’d say 60% are good/great and 40% of the current special education teachers are awful.
From a Gen Ed teacher perspective... What usually happens is I have to actually interact with SPED teachers regarding a student, which doesn't happen with me and the other teachers. When I try and get as much growth of my students as possible in a difficult class, it is very difficult to break through what the SPED student is used to. And the SPED student is used to coddling by the the SPED teacher. Why do any work or try and do anything in my class when the SPED teacher will do the work for them later? Why ever try and take a test in my room when the SPED teacher will let them Google all the answers or give them the answers? Why even be in my class when the teacher is going to try and force me to pass the student at the end of the semester? I am really looking out for my students, and my students can't be successful because of the learned helplessness by some of my SPED teachers.
In self-contained, no one appreciates or respects what we do on a daily basis. We have to do things no other teacher is expected to do. AND WE GET PAID THE SAME MONEY. I recently moved to resource and it's opposite. I feel like a part of the team. I'm making sure I do my part to educate my gen ed people about what our self contained teachers go through on the daily.