BellaOnline Forums Education Special Education Your Idea of a Perfect Special Education System

Hi all,

I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments on what you think the perfect special education system would look like.

Would it be improving the current system or starting all over again from scratch? Rethinking the whole thing?

I personally feel we should be asking the experts - The children! I remember my daughter saying to me a few months ago that no-one was listening to what children wanted or needed to be happy at school. I think she might have a point.

So what do you think? What's your idea of an excellent Special Education system and do you believe we can ever achieve it?

Vicki

I believe all "Perfect Education" requires "give & take" from both the Educator & the Student. I believe that some individual instruction time; some small group time (i.e. 3 to 6 students to an Educator) and Large groups only for certain activities is best. Rotating instructors adds optional POVs. Also curriculum that is generated by both the Required studies and Optional studies which have been submitted by student & staff request is preferable. And any school that doesn't listen to it's students is just a shambles with a nice facade; i.m.h.o. (in my humble opinion). The fact that all of this would cost more than even Oprah could afford is irrelevant to the question, LOL. (Can you tell I'm a frustrated Ex-educator; turned Health Care Worker?!!)

An excellent SPED system needs to be responsive to the needs of all students. Some students do well in collaborative classrooms, while others do better in self-contained classrooms. There needs to be a continuum of services to reflect the needs of the students. Most students need a combination of services to suit their learning styles and areas of competence and need.

The students need to have input on what is learned and how it is presented.

An alternative solution to this issue would be to ensure that every teacher is working to differentiate in the classroom for all students, whether there is an IEP present or not. By using this best practice, we can see if our students make progress in the normal classroom setting with just these accommodations, and maybe then we can lower the number of students sent into the special education process in the first place.

I think a perfect special ed system would not use so many untrained, uneducated assistants to do the majority of the teaching while the informed professional deals with all the paperwork. I think the professionals need to rotate between students so both teachers and children can learn from everyone. And I don't think a special ed student's day needs to be the same length as a regular ed child's.