In 2010, I met Vern Edin, principal of Coppell Middle School West. I was still a very early in my career and I had recently finished my master’s in education administration. I wanted to be an administrator so he made me an offer. It was not a job as an administrator. He wanted me to come to West as a special education co-teacher for social studies. Funny thing, I wasn’t special education certified. It had never crossed my mind. Mr. Edin told me, if you want to be a great administrator this experience will be invaluable to you. To this day, it’s still some of the best advice I have ever received. I’m thankful for getting that certification and that experience.
When we talk about innovating school and education it almost sounds utopian at first. Let’s build the city on the hill for the world to see, almost as if it’s a dream that we aren’t really prepared to make reality because frankly, we’re just not sure how or what we would do to begin. If you find yourself in that mold, inspired to innovate and not sure where to begin, I would offer you this suggestion: check out the work of special education. From lower ratios to individualized education program (IEP’s) that fit the specific needs of students, special education programs everywhere have numerous components that we could use to revolutionize our industry. Talk to a diagnostician, therapist or special education contact teacher about a specific child and prepare to be amazed at how much they really know about that student. They’re in frequent contact with the parents, they check their grades, update and measure IEP’s and have an annual meeting at minimum with the parents. The ratios in some of the more intensive classes are often less than 10:1. Think of the possibilities if each child had their own IEP and a learning environment of 12-15 students working with them. Each working toward a mastery of the learning, each taking a very different path to get there. I am aware that special education is designed as an intervention, to fill the gaps that exist for specific students. I’m not proposing we copy everything from special education framework and implement it as is, I’m suggesting that we use the overarching philosophy as a guidance to rethink the way we approach certain things. Perhaps the easiest thing would be to simply start by asking yourself, if each child in my classroom could have an IEP, what would it look like? Do I know them well enough to create it? If not, what more do I need to know about this student? If you don’t know much about special education, I challenge you to learn more. Buddy up with a teacher at your campus and pick their brains about how some of these plans come to fruition. If you leave with one great idea on how to improve your classroom that’s great. Just don’t keep it to yourself. Share it. Blog about it. Great ideas are worth sharing. If we all share one great idea we won’t have to wait on the world to change. It will already be happening.
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AuthorJeff Lahey Archives
January 2020
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