Tanfolyam

 Possibly the largest and most pervasive issue in special education, as well as my own journey in education, is special education's relationship to general education. History shows that it has never been a simple clear cut relationship involving the two. There's been plenty of giving and taking or possibly I should say pulling and pushing as it pertains to educational policy, and the educational practices and services of education and special education by the human educators who deliver those services on both parties of the isle, like me.Tanfolyam

Over the last 20+ years I have now been on both parties of education. I have seen and felt what it had been like to become a regular main stream educator coping with special education policy, special education students and their specialized teachers. I've already been on the special education side hoping to get regular education teachers to work more effectively with my special education students through modifying their instruction and materials and having a bit more patience and empathy.

Furthermore, I have now been a popular regular education teacher who taught regular education inclusion classes wanting to work out how to best use some new special education teacher in my own class and their special education students as well. And, in contrast, I have now been a particular education inclusion teacher intruding on the territory of some regular education teachers with my special education students and the modifications I believed these teachers should implement. I will inform you first-hand that none with this give and take between special education and regular education has been easy. Nor do I see this pushing and pulling becoming easy anytime soon.

So, what's special education? And why is it so special and yet so complex and controversial sometimes? Well, special education, as its name suggests, is really a specialized branch of education. It claims its lineage to such people as Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard (1775-1838), the physician who "tamed" the "wild boy of Aveyron," and Anne Sullivan Macy (1866-1936), the teacher who "worked miracles" with Helen Keller.

Special educators teach students who have physical, cognitive, language, learning, sensory, and/or emotional abilities that deviate from those of the general population. Special educators provide instruction specifically tailored to generally meet individualized needs. These teachers basically make education more available and accessible to students who otherwise could have limited access to education as a result of whatever disability they're struggling with.

It's not only the teachers though who may play a role in the history of special education in this country. Physicians and clergy, including Itard- mentioned previously, Edouard O. Seguin (1812-1880), Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876), and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (1787-1851), wished to ameliorate the neglectful, often abusive treatment of an individual with disabilities. Sadly, education in this country was, more often than not, very neglectful and abusive when coping with students that are different somehow.

There's even a wealthy literature within our nation that describes the procedure provided to people who have disabilities in the 1800s and early 1900s. Sadly, in these stories, as well as in real life, the segment of our population with disabilities were often confined in jails and almshouses without decent food, clothing, personal hygiene, and exercise.

For an example of this different treatment within our literature one needs to appear no more than Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843). Additionally, often people who have disabilities were often portrayed as villains, such as for instance in the book Captain Hook in J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan" in 1911.

The prevailing view of the authors of this time period was this one should submit to misfortunes, both as a form of obedience to God's will, and because these seeming misfortunes are ultimately intended for one's own good. Progress for the people who have disabilities was hard ahead by currently with in this manner of thinking permeating our society, literature and thinking.

So, the thing that was society to complete about these people of misfortune? Well, during much of the nineteenth century, and early in the twentieth, professionals believed people who have disabilities were best treated in residential facilities in rural environments. An out of sight out of mind sort of thing, in the event that you will...

However, by the finish of the nineteenth century how big is these institutions had increased so dramatically that the goal of rehabilitation for people with disabilities just wasn't working. Institutions became instruments for permanent segregation.

I have some experience with your segregation policies of education. A number of it's good and a few of it's not so good. You see, I have now been a self-contained teacher on and off through the years in multiple environments in self-contained classrooms in public places high schools, middle schools and elementary schools. I also have taught in multiple special education behavioral self-contained schools that totally separated these troubled students with disabilities in managing their behavior from their mainstream peers by putting them in different buildings which were sometimes even in different towns from their homes, friends and peers.

Over time many special education professionals became critics of the institutions mentioned previously that separated and segregated our youngsters with disabilities from their peers. Irvine Howe was certainly one of the first to ever advocate taking our youth out of the huge institutions and to place out residents into families. Unfortunately this practice became a logistical and pragmatic problem and it took quite a long time before it might become a feasible alternative to institutionalization for the students with disabilities.

Now on the positive side, you might be interested in knowing however that in 1817 the first special education school in the United States, the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb (now called the American School for the Deaf), was established in Hartford, Connecticut, by Gallaudet. That school remains today and is one of the top schools in the country for students with auditory disabilities. A genuine success story!

However, as you can already imagine, the lasting success of the American School for the Deaf was the exception and not the rule during this time period. And to enhance this, in the late nineteenth century, social Darwinism replaced environmentalism as the principal causal explanation for those people who have disabilities who deviated from those of the general population.

Sadly, Darwinism opened the door to the eugenics movement of early twentieth century. This then resulted in further segregation and even sterilization of an individual with disabilities such as for instance mental retardation. Appears like something Hitler was doing in Germany also being done right within our personal country, to our personal people, by our personal people. Kind of scary and inhumane, wouldn't you agree?

Today, this kind of treatment is actually unacceptable. And in early area of the 20th Century it had been also unacceptable to some of the adults, especially the parents of the disabled children. Thus, concerned and angry parents formed advocacy groups to greatly help bring the educational needs of children with disabilities into the general public eye. The general public had to see firsthand how wrong this this eugenics and sterilization movement was for the students which were different if it had been ever likely to be stopped.

Slowly, grassroots organizations made progress that even resulted in some states creating laws to protect their citizens with disabilities. As an example, in 1930, in Peoria, Illinois, the first white cane ordinance gave people who have blindness the right-of-way when crossing the street. This was a start, and other states did eventually follow suit. With time, this local grassroots' movement and states' movement resulted in enough pressure on our elected officials for something to be performed on the national level for the people who have disabilities.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy created the President's Panel on Mental Retardation. And in 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which provided funding for primary education, and sometimes appears by advocacy groups as expanding access to public education for kids with disabilities.

When one thinks about Kennedy's and Johnson's record on civil rights, then it probably isn't this kind of surprise finding out that both of these presidents also spearheaded this national movement for the people who have disabilities.

This federal movement resulted in section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. This guarantees civil rights for the disabled in the context of federally funded institutions or any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. Each one of these years later as an instructor, I personally deal with 504 cases every single day.

In 1975 Congress enacted Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA), which establishes a right to public education for all children no matter disability. This was another positive thing because just before federal legislation, parents had to mostly educate their children at home or buy expensive private education.

The movement kept growing. In the 1982 the case of the Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the level of services to be afforded students with special needs. The Court ruled that special education services need only provide some "educational benefit" to students. Public schools weren't required to maximize the educational progress of students with disabilities.

Today, this ruling might not seem such as a victory, and as a matter of fact, this same question is once again circulating through our courts today in 2017. However, given the time period it was made in, it had been a victory since it said special education students couldn't move across our school system without learning anything. They'd to master something. If one knows and understands the way the laws work in this country, the other knows the laws always progress through tiny little increments that total up to progress over time. This ruling was a victory for special education students since it added one more rung onto the crusade.

In the 1980s the Regular Education Initiative (REI) arrived to being. This was an endeavor to come back responsibility for the education of students with disabilities to neighborhood schools and regular classroom teachers. I'm very acquainted with Regular Education Initiative because I spent four years being an REI teacher in the late 1990s and early 2000s. At this time I was certified as both a particular education teacher and a typical education teacher and was in both capacities in a duel role being an REI teacher; because that's the thing that was required of the position.

The 1990s saw a large boost for the special education students. 1990 birthed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This was, and is, the cornerstone of the idea of a free of charge and appropriate public education (FAPE) for all of our students. To make certain FAPE, what the law states mandated that each and every student receiving special education services must receive an Individualized Education Program (IEP).Tanfolyam

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 reached beyond just the general public schools. And Title 3 of IDEA prohibited disability-based discrimination in anywhere of public accommodation. Full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, or accommodations in public places places were expected. And needless to say public accommodations also included most places of education.

Also, in the 1990s the entire inclusion movement gained plenty of momentum. This required educating all students with disabilities in the normal classroom. I'm also very familiar with this particular aspect of education as well, as I've already been an inclusion teacher from time to time over my career as an instructor on both parties of the isle as a typical education teacher and a particular education teacher.