So I'm sharing a room with the band teacher this year. School starts on Monday. I have to say - more than anything else - I'm most nervous about those band students walking through my classroom and making hurtful comments about my students. It may not even happen - maybe I'm not giving them enough credit. But honestly, I'm not too sure what to do about it if it does happen. I'll have five students, pretty high-functioning for a life skills class. I'd say most of them are going to be 2nd-3rd grade level. I know one of them and most things bounce off of her. Two of them I've never met before. But the other two are very proud. One of them is transfering from the school I taught at last year. He was in the higher level "transition" classroom. His teacher (near retirement) told me at the beginning of the year that her kids "didn't want to be special ed kids" so the she would keep the door closed so the typical kids couldn't see in their room and would tell her students that they weren't the "special ones" - that MY classroom had the "special kids" in it. So now one of her students will be in my class and I have a feeling he may be upset about this initially. What are some strategies that I can use when my kids get picked on/angry about being in the "special room?"
I've never really had that problem because when I taught at public school, the other kids were very accepting of the special education students. Unfortunately, the administration and most of the other teachers weren't. The sad thing about this is that the general ed. students aren't likely to do any name calling when you are within ear shot. That was really unethical what the other special ed. teacher did. I really have no idea how to handle that situation.
I don't have enough experience to help you but I also wanted to chime in and say that what that teacher did bothered me.
Never experienced that when I was in HS, every student was very nice to the handicapped kids (and even beat up a few people who taunted the sped kids). Even the administration liked the sped kids (The principal would help them out with all of their special olympics activities, go to their events, etc.) The only people who didn't like the sped kids? The Special Education department (not the teachers, the sped head + case managers)
I've never had issues with students picking on each other. I have had major issues with general ed. teachers making comments and refusing to modify instruction. Sadly, the adults are worse.
Like others have mentioned, I have very rarely run into this problem. There was one time at my public elementary school in TX when a little girl said, "What's wrong with her?" (to my student with autism, hand guards to prevent self-injurious biting, and a helmet to prevent headbanging) --- she asked her this when she was in the lunch line getting her tray and I was following behind. I said, "There's nothing wrong with her. Everyone is different." And the little girl said, "Oh, okay." haha. It was as simple as that. (In my head I wanted to say, NOTHING BUT WHATS WRONG WITH YOU? But I stood strong as the adult figure... ha) TEACHERS (reg ed) are the mean ones. And sometimes even administrators who don't understand. I had an administrator who would say, "Why do you even bother" when she came in during my standards-based lessons. My kids all had to take the state test, so YES we did prepare for it. And they didn't pass, but they did well for the cognitive abilities! She'd say this in front of the kids. Or she'd say things like, "She'll never pass" or "What a waste, put her back on the trampoline" and other similar things. She was a real nasty woman. My kids have feelings too! Autism does not mean deaf! I also would have teachers fight each other to NOT get the kids put in their classrooms for homeroom (you take him, NO I had one last year, YOU DO IT, I already have one, etc.) My suggestions to you would be to instill confidence in the kids. Tell them that there is nothing wrong with them and that everyone learns differently. Put up motivational posters on the wall (You can do it, Way to go, etc.!) Try to give your class a name that they can be proud of! I recently had the suggestion to make my class be called ACHIEVING SUCCESS DAILY instead of ASD classroom (everything says ASD class and stands for autism spectrum disorder class.... so now we will give people a new acronym that stands for something other than autism!) Stand up for your kids. Support the teachers who have to serve them (even reg ed, specials, etc. ) Give out a survey once per week or once per month saying, "What can I do for you?" "What is working well, not well, etc.?" This way, no teacher can EVER say you didn't do your best to support your students in reg ed. Invite students to work in your classroom. See if you can have "buddies" from another class during a certain period (a cooking class, etc. where they could cook with your kids once a week) -- This gives the kids buddies that will stand up for them and they are very likely to stand up for them outside of your room if someone is making fun of them. Try to have your kids do everything the other kids do - look into boy scouts, school plays, school sports, after school activities, even if it means you must spend a little extra time preparing them for it. Or you have to go to an after school rehearsal. When other kids see how capable the kids are, I think that gives them less of a reason to make fun. But, like others mentioned, it seems to be the adults more than the kids.
As above posters mentioned, I have definitely had more trouble with teachers than with students. If I hear a witness one student bully another, I don't care if one or both or none of the parties involved are in SPED classes - that bully just earned them selves a shiny, brand-new referral.
All you can do is re-educate both parties - the students and the gen ed teacher! It amazes me that in this day and age, there is still this feeling out there! And don't be afraid to put the gen ed teacher in her place, but in a nice way - LOL!
I had this type of behavior last week in my class. One student said something about another student. It seemed innocuous to the student saying it until the student whose feelings were severely hurt flung books across the room. I came down hard on everyone that even peeped a bit of laughter and some that tried to offer defense. I had another teacher escort the student with hurt feelings away to the office and I made the primary offender plus three other students write letters of apology. Then I wrote referrals on everyone that was involved in a negative way. I haven't seen those students yet this week but I don't think I'll have that problem again in that class.
Last year, I had an autistic student in class and most of his classmates never gave him a chance. They'd been together for four years and some of the kids just didn't have patience or tolerance for his idiosyncrasies any more. I pulled a few of them out into the hall to talk with them. I wanted to help them understand things from his perspective and I just broke down in tears and said that I didn't know how he tolerated the way they ignored him. They looked completely shocked at my tears and I think I got through to a couple of them.
I concur with one of the above posters. Gen ed teachers are the meanest towards sped kids. I was fully mainstreamed in HS, one of my teachers yelled at me in front of the class that my acommodations were a privilege, not a right. My case manager refused to do anything
I've found kids to be much less accepting of other kids who have more mild disabilities. Most of the students at the high school where I taught life skills wouldn't have dared say anything rude or hurtful to my kids, but they wouldn't think twice about picking on the kids in their classes who had Aspergers or a learning disability or something. Burns me up.
Weird. I have dysgraphia, hypotonia, low vision in one eye, motor dysfunction, underdeveloped muscles, and a few other things, and other students in my HS treated me nicely.
I'm sorry I haven't responded before this. School starts Monday and I feel like my head is going to explode. Haven't been on the forums for a couple of days. Thank you everyone for your support, stories, and ideas. A lot of you have mentioned the gen ed teachers and this made me think about our inservice today where we went over AYP and it was said repeatedly how we weren't meeting AYP because of special ed. Out loud one teacher said, "Well what can you do?" And another said, "Yeah it's not like you can pick and choose who comes here." And of course since I have a son with a disibility it took all I had to sit there and not freak out. You know, I'm really sorry to say this, but sometimes I just wish one of those snots could have a baby with a disability and see how the other shoe fits. I could go to their 1st BDay party and say, "Well, it's not like you can pick and choose. hee" Even before I had my son I would have never said anything like that. It's just such an a$$hole thing to say! Seriously!
MS students, on the whole, I have found are less accepting of their peers, SPED or not. The MS school years are tough for most kids - filled with lots of growth and maturation, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I think a lot of kids express the self-consciousness and low self-esteem they feel during this time by picking on each other. Once students get to high school, most students have formed their teenage identities, and cliques pretty much leave each other alone.
I am a regular ed. teacher, however, I have had quite a bit of experience working with kids with special education accommodations. I have worked in charter schools until this year, my first year we did not have a special ed. teacher at all, my 2nd and 3rd year (two different schools) we had part-time special education teachers. What has worked best in my classrooms is first building community among the students, making it okay to be an individual...to have individual strengths and areas of growth. As someone else suggested, I buddied up my students. My struggling students (whether on an IEP or not) had partners in the class they can work with. I was also very honest with my kids...I talked with my struggling students, let them explain some of their concerns and brainstorm solutions (which most of the time was to have a class buddy) which made them a whole lot more comfortable in class. In fact, I was able to do read-aloud testing with my kids with that accommodation in class while the rest of the kids were testing. It was never an issue, and I never heard about problems with students getting teased. I think the most important thing we can do with our students is to speak honestly to them. The kids know their weaknesses and if you let them know that you are willing to listen they will tell you! It makes for a safe learning space for all types of students! Also, I modified like a mad person! I spent probably 3 hours a week modifying my weekly handouts, notes, and assessments for kids needing a little extra help. Just a little perspective from a gen. ed. teacher!
Middle schoolers are asses. It's only two years, so it's only two years of kids being asses, then they seem to calm down magically over the summer before 9th grade And it is around the time when people with disabilities REALLY start to notice how different they are from their peers.
Rachel, you are a rare find - I hope your kindness and dedication rubs off on other teachers. Like another poster said, kids with disabilities are not deaf - and although their bodies may be broken (CP, MS) their brains are often in perfect working order! That's what we have to make others understand. Don't judge by appearance and give everyone a chance to shine! I have a son with a tic disorder and found, as a parent, that kids tease kids about things that 1)scare them and 2) they don't understand. Every year we would go in and we would talk to the new class/teacher about the disorder, why it happens, that it is NOT contagious. We allowed the kids and teachers to ask questions. By being proactive, we were able to eliminate many of the problems that could have occurred. There will always be mean people out there, young and old. Students with disabilities have to learn to have thick skin when it comes to them, but didn't we all have to deal with mean kids at one time or another? Teased for glasses, braces, slowness, heaviness, acne??
Yes, this is so true, though many of the gen ed teachers are great--a few bad apples. . . On the first day of school this year, I was wheeling a boy in a wheelchair into his 9th gr. science class, and the teacher said loudly, "Oh great, they didn't tell me about this one!" The boy, who was talkative before, just totally clammed up after that, and I wasn't sure how to handle it, so I talked to his case manager. It truly is amazing to me how insensitive some people can be.
:unsure: I don't know what it is that drives some people to talk about students as if they were a piece of furniture. And I know my own sarcastic mouth would have gotten me into trouble in that situation. You did good. I'm fairly lucky in that I get to pick and choose which classes my kiddos end up in. (Not everyone wants the ED kids. Their loss.)
Gen ed teachers can be asses, especially the older ones who don't really understand disabilities. One of my gen ed teachers yelled at me because I couldn't hold a pen for a digital tablet correctly due to my dysgraphia. She also loved to mention my disabilities very loudly so everyone in the class could hear me
Well crap. Okay so week one is gone and here's what's going on. I've got one kiddo who does NOT want to be in our room. It doesn't help that we're in the band room and gen edders walk through and the first day one kid got confused and said "Special Ed - - wait, I'm not special ed" and continued to walk to the band side. My student asked to go to the bathroom (so the gen edders wouldn't see him sitting on my side.) At lunch he told our aide "I don't wanna be in the retard room." I sat down and talked to him about it, but he's still hating it. I don't know what to do about him. He's such a debbie downer, seriously. Does he need to be in my room? I'm not sure. I teach a "life skills" classroom and while I do teach a little math and lang arts, we concentrate more on social skills, cooking, housekeeping, etc. I tried to tell him that we'd be having a lot of fun and when the other kiddos are working on book reports, we'd be going to the pet store and picking out a class pet. He said he'd rather write a report. (But he'd be totally lost in a gen ed classroom.) On another note, another one of my students - a really sweet female, is getting harassed and bullied by a really mean 8th grade girl in P.E. I talked to her about it and she told me what the girl said - just basic mean teasing. I told her to stay away from her and keep close to her friends and our aide. She seemed pretty happy and confident. The next day, her mom brings her to school and says that the 8th grader is threatening her life. I was shocked because I got a different story. Now mom wants to transfer her to a different school. Ugh. Not a good week...
A lot of kids do NOT like being in resource room past elementary. They dislike being separate, and your class being life skills would probably even worsen it, since they aren't even learnng what the other students are learning, they are learning life skills. YOu might want to talk to the parents and try to find an mutually agreeable solution with the student. Maybe sit him in the back where the band students can't see him?
I don't teach special ed, and we don't have a special ed population in my school. But NOBODY bullies ANYBODY in my hearing!!! I don't care who you are or what your intentions are. It's pretty much the only area in which I have absolutely no tolerance. So no snide comments from teachers, no "mean teasing"-- nothing!!! Call the bullies out on it each and every time. And be sure to leave a paper trail.
Well... that's not really an option. There's no way of "hiding" him when they walk through to go to band. I almost wish they had given me the back of the room, instead of the front by the door. What I might do is next year ask them to switch it around. That way when the band walks in, they won't walk past us. At this late date, I doubt they'd do it - there's so many large pieces of furniture to move we would need the help of the custodians. This is the first time I've had a student that's had a problem with being in my class. Last year I had ten students and they were all fine. AND I had no bullies - the kids left them alone or were friendly. I am doing weekly team building exercises with the 6th grade developmental classroom next door. Yesterday they did the human knot with my kids. And even my debbie downer kiddo was smiling. It's my hope that other classes will join us and they'll get to know my kids and vice versa and become less segregated.
Is it possible that when the band kids enter, your kids could be so involved in an activity, that he wouldn't notice?
I think it's rough that they didn't think of how disruptive it would be to have kids parading through your classroom. I don't think it's too much to ask to see if you could be on the other side, and offer to help make the switch. If not to help make this kid feel better... To lessen the disruptions and distractions to all of your students. DEFINITELY ask about this for next year if it's not an option for this year. How much space do you actually have? Is it a lot? Some states have square footage laws. I might have already told you that, but it's helped me in the past.
