Was the pot calling kettle black?

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Home : 2002 : October : 27

Was the pot calling kettle black?
By another reg ed teacher

My daddy always said that the bit dog barks loudest. Sounds to me like a couple of sped teachers identified a bit TOO much with the non-helpful too-many-breaks sped teacher! Dear, offended sped teachers--you need to listen
to the wisdom teachingranny offered. REALLY good teachers don't focus on the specificity of vocabulary choices when someone asks for help--they focus on taking action to lend support and direction....and your focus was on.....? If I had advice for her, I'd make a list. Unfortunately, I wouldn't know what to do if in her shoes, either. There are a WHOLE BUNCH of us regular ed teachers

who feel like we're general practitioners being asked to perform brain surgery when faced with severe situations involving sped kids. We love those kids, too, but we don't know how to help and we don't want to do harm in our blundering efforts to help. Not everyone is blessed with supportive staff, co-workers, and districts to turn to, well-written IEP's (I have one that says to "make the child comfortable in her environment, to not yell at her, and to get her attention with a gentle pat on the shoulder"--but tells me nothing about how to approach teaching her anything academic) That's when a help-board like this one can be a life-saver--for the teacher as well as the student she cares about. So, please, don't throw rocks to us sinking reg ed teachers when we use the wrong words to ask for help with a sped kid!