Teach Effectively!

Susan Kramer, a columnist for an online resource called Bellaonline that bills itself as “The Voice of Women on Line,” writes about Learning Disabilities. She has more materials there than I can review quickly, but I have a few initial impressions.

First, Ms. Kramer seems to have a genuine interest in a broad array of the problems that confront many parents who have children with disabilities. There are entries on music (especially dance), structuring home times, arts and crafts, as well as standard academic areas (e.g., reading). It is important for those of us who are concerned about children with Learning Disabilities, Emotional and Behavior Disorders, and other problems that we should remember to consider the “whole child,” not just the academic and social areas of development. It’s just as important for our kids to have fun and learn other things (e.g., crafts) as it is for any other children.

However, Ms. Kramer’s columns seem to run pretty heavily to the squishy and unfounded. She has recommendations about using kinesthetic learning techniques—she claims to have a kinesthetic learning style herself—to concepts such as arithmetic (have students walk across a line and count up one as they do so; have 18 students divide themselves into 3 groups…18 ÷ 3 = 6). Most of these are cute and I can see doing some of them about once. They do not constitute a curriculum. They are likely to take more time than they would yield in benefits. And, Ms. Kramer offers no documentation that they are beneficial beyond her own personal experience.

Sadly it is this level of analysis that too often passes as worthwhile recommendations. Teachers and, especially, teacher educators must ask tough questions when confronted with recommendations of this sort. I outline these in sundry publications and will review them here later. In the meantime, it’s worth remembering the words of Og Lindsley to which I referred in earlier entries here and here in these blogs: “Show me your data!”

Link to Ms. Kramer’s section of Bellaonline. I hope to devote time to reviewing these recommendations more closely. Thanks to Liz Dtiz for alerting me to this site.

Erinello, a blogger from the Chicago (IL, US) area, reported that she’s happy to be working as a teacher’s aide in special education.

Well, I’m not a teacher, but I am an aide, and that’s better than nothing. I’m just happy to be back in the classroom. I’m a special ed. aide for 7th graders with learning disabilities. I really like working with these kids, and I’m thinking this is what I need to get my master’s in. I also love working with the kids with behavior disorders. We have a few kids who are supposedly BD, but it’s nothing extreme with them. Nothing at all like what I dealt with on the west side.

She’s apparently taking classes—at Northern Illinois University—pursuing licensure. Let’s hope she hooks up with good instructors there and learns lots about evidence-based practice.

Link to Erinello’s entry.

A blogger identifying himself as N*** K*** and reporting about his experiences as a Teach for America (TFA) teacher in Camden (NJ, US) has an entry about another teacher who is having a difficult time with students who have behavior problems. I am never sure how much of what I read in others’ blogs to believe, and a recent entry in Mr. K***’s blog raises that uncertainty for me.

Here is poor Ms. E***. Passed out.
I mean passed the fuck out.

Elementary teachers got it tough. Wait let me rephrase that: C*** E*** has it tough. She has 18 kids, 6 of whom are BELLIGERENT and uncontrollable BD (behavior disorder). The 1st grade teachers gave her the trimmings–the fat, if you will–from the 1st grade class. The fuckups and put them all in one room with a novice teacher.

The entry is accompanied by a picture of a person face down on the floor. Actual? Posed? I do not know. I do know that I have substantial reservations about

1. Putting unprepared people into teaching positions, especially those requiring work with students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, Learning Disabilities, and other special education needs
2. Assigning students with EBD, LD, or other special needs to first-year teachers regardless of their preparation.

TFA is founded on a wonderful altruistism, but the failure to prepare people to teach is problematic. It may be that the brief preparation provided by TFA is more valuable than some teacher education programs, as Mr. K*** noted in a separate article from the Daily Texan (see following quote), but I would still bet on the benefits of teacher preparation programs (even though I would like to change them, too).

K*** went into Teach For America with no formal teacher training, but he said that Teach For America’s summer institute made him as prepared as he could be for his first year. “My roommate was certified as a teacher before he came to Teach For America,” K*** said. “Now he says that Teach For America taught him more in five weeks at the institute than he learned in all his time in school.”

Other entries in Mr. K***’s blog illustrate the problems he faces; to be sure, he is probably working in difficult situation and has some difficult students, but more (high-quality) training probably would help him.

Link to Mr. K***’s blog entry [no longer active--Admin]. Link to the story in the Daily Texan.

As I have reviewed news articles in writing the entries for this blog as well as LDBlog.com and EBDBlog.com, I have often found myself shaking my head at the lack of depth and the flat-out misinformation published in the mainstream press about special education. Liz Ditz, who maintains a blog to which I have referred repeatedly and admiringly, has similar concerns and she raises them in another fine entry in her blog, I Speak of Dreams. Go! Go and read it. Go now to Educating Education Writers.

A blogger who identifies herself as Lisa has comments on literacy that echo other’s concerns about failing to teach students to read, but that endorse the National Institute for Learning Disabilities. The National Institute for Learning Disabilities turns up regularly among advocates of private and home schooling, especially those affiliated with Christian faith. NILD is a private consulting organization that does not have strong research support and its apparent theoretical foundations run counter to the best evidence we have about remediating Learning Disabilities. I shall comment on Lisa’s entries about the need for rigorous verification.

Links to Lisa’s first and second entry on literacy.

The number of students with disabilities suspended or expelled by the School District of Beloit (WI, US) has increased dramatically, rising from 117 in 2002-03 to 330 in 2003-04 and to 362 in 2004-05, according to Rebekah Danaher of the Beloit Daily News. Ms. Danaher reported that the local education agency is seeking ways to address the increases. She also described some of the impediments to the effort.

Late in the report, Ms. Danaher raises an entirely different topic, racial-ethnic disproportionality in identification rates for special education. She does not connect this to the lead part of the story. There may be a very important connection, however. Does anyone know whether rates of suspensions and expulsions of students from different ethnic or racial groups differs by special education status? I need to go to the library.

Ms. Danaher’s report provides some misinformation that is does not alter the basic content of her story. She has several mistakes, including one in which she confuses IEPs with how students are identified (“Students categorized as special needs through an Individualized Education Program…”) and another in which she uses Learning Disability as if it was a synonym for disabilities in general (“Whereas other students might face immediate suspension or expulsion, in many cases special needs students are kept in the classroom because of leniency afforded by their learning disability”).

Link to Ms. Danaher’s story.

What do you think are the most important articles, chapters, or books about teaching effectively? If someone who did not have a background about teaching children and youths with disabilities were to need a reading list of materials that, over a period of time, have continued to be important, what should be on that list?

Please click on comments and provide a citation to those publications that you consider parts of the classic literature on teaching effectively.

Rules (abitrary, to be sure):

• Please provide full citation using the style recommended in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
• Originally published at least 10 years before being posted here.
• One citation per comment (so I can aggregate them into a data base more easily later).

I am inviting submissions for teaching effectively here. If you have some recommendations about classics in Emotional and Behavioral Disorders or Learning Disabilities, please see the comparable entries on EBDBlog.com or LDBLog.com.

V. Dion Haynes of the Washington Post (DC, US) reported on an apparent shortage of textbooks in self-contained special education classes. “After six weeks of classes, many special education students in D.C. public schools still are without math and reading textbooks, according to several teachers.” Administrators say that 90% of the students have textbooks and all materials have been sent to schools.

Link to the story.