It is a rare breed that goes into special education teaching. Most teachers, in fact, do not go anywhere near it. You see, special education programs are difficult to teach and administer, mired in excessive red tape and regulations, and fraught with confrontations with angry parents. There are enough comparatively easy jobs in teaching that it doesn't seem worth the bother to most education professionals. Unless something very personal has happened in your life to move you to be a special educator, you will probably stay clear of it. In my case, it was growing up with a learning disability. Although I was extremely intelligent, few people understood this. You see, I was in special education classes myself.
Special education programs have changed a great deal since I was a kid, but that doesn't mean they don't have long to go. Back when I was taking those courses, they were nothing more than babysitting. Problem children, children with developmental disabilities, and kids with learning disabilities (which were not well understood at the time) were all lumped together and put in the same room in the same program. The teachers did not want to be there, and often they were harsh and cruel to the special ed kids. But that doesn't even compare to how the other children were.
Before the term developmental disability was in vogue, we were all simply called “retards”. That is what people called us, and that is how we felt about ourselves. Even nowadays, kids in school still use those terms. They called special education kids “short bus kids,” and would make fun of them whenever they had the chance. All of these kids had very low self-esteem, and many of them never made anything of themselves.
One of the tragedies about the way special education was done – and still is done to some degree – is that it often lumps in many intelligent kids with learning disabilities along with autistic children and developmentally disabled students. This is bad for everybody, but particularly for the bright kids. They are bored to tears by the special education classes, and often act out. They are usually every bit as smart as their brothers and sisters, and yet they are talked down to by their parents. This is why it is so important that we get better people to teach these kids. We are wasting their lives and their talents.
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