Many people have heard of the special education program known as SPED, but how many people really know what it is like? Throughout my elementary, middle, and high school career, I was a SPED student. As a child, I had terrible ADD. In fact, early elementary school is a blur. No matter how hard I tried to focus in class, the lessons would literally go through one ear and out the other. It was frustrating when my fellow classmates would understand the subject while I sat there trying to catch up. I was placed in math and English SPED classes and formed a bond with my fellow SPED students since there was about five of us. We were taught the same material, just at a slower pace. The program worked as I received A's on my tests and felt confident that I could possibly leave the SPED program. But when I attended a regular math class with the rest of my grade, I was completely lost and did not understand a word the teacher was saying. I would get called on to solve a problem and I would sit there begging for the teacher to call on someone else. With my luck, the teacher insisted I solve the problem, which resulted into embarrassment from getting every problem wrong.
It was the different style of teaching that made me far behind from the other regular classes. We were taught at a slower pace to fully understand the material. Teachers thought it would be best for me to remain in the program to continue getting good grades. Mainly, it would be better to be smarter in a smaller class rather than struggle in a larger class. I did not argue but I wished that I was treated the same as the rest of my grade. For instance, we would be taught from the same textbook but be several chapters behind. I'm a very impatient person and once I understood the lesson from a chapter, I wanted to move on to the next one; not wait for my fellow classmates to catch up.
From this alternative of teaching, I was embarrassed to say that I was a SPED student. I would be considered retarded by the students in my grade but be complimented on my intelligence from my SPED peers. I was stuck in the middle of two worlds that should have been one to begin with. While gaining a high GPA, I mainly used the program to find a way to manage my ADD. I wasn't placed in a SPED class for high school, but I was under watchful eyes from the teachers to see if I struggled at all. I ended up receiving honor roll for all four years of high school and am glad to say I've overcome my ADD. But what frustrated me the most from this whole experience was the treatment from the teachers.
Even though I would have considered myself a bright student, I was treated constantly like I was mentally retarded. Just because I had the status of being in the SPED program, my teachers would be sensitive to what I could possibly learn. For example, we were assigned to pick a book to write a report on. I chose "How To Kill A Mockingbird," but when I told this to my English teacher, she told me that she thought that book would be too difficult for me to understand. I was in seventh grade and ended up reading it anyway in eighth grade. It was almost like they spoke a different language that would be easier to understand, like talking slowly to a baby.
I mainly used this treatment as motivation to get into college to prove that breaking the SPED mold would not intimidate me, but the scars from the teasing of my peers and the lack of confidence from my teachers still linger. The SPED program in general is great for struggling students to be relieved from the stress and frustrations that I've dealt with. It's the different treatment from teachers and fellow peers I would consider the downfall. I cannot control on how people would perceive SPED students or the SPED program. When I was in elementary school, being called SPED was just as bad as being called retarded. Classmates and teachers need to know that SPED students are struggling students. We don't volunteer to be in it, we are placed in it. We don't get the easy way out by being given easier assignments, we feel inferior to everyone else by being offered easier assignments.
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5 comments:
First off Shawn, thank you for posting a honest account of "Alternative" education.
I feel Special Education gets a bad rap, usually because it is grossly misunderstood. The association of special education students with M.R. students has always seemed to go hand in hand. What we don't understand while we are young, ignorant High School students is this: A small number of special education teachers work with students with severe cognitive, emotional, or physical disabilities; primarily teaching them life skills and basic literacy. However, that being said - the majority of special education teachers work with children with mild to moderate disabilities, using or modifying the general education curriculum to meet the child's individual needs and providing/developing an IEP (individual education program).
In your case, we can see the success and merits of this individualized plan, but my question is: How many other of your SPED peers have attempted to "break the mold" as well, and to what degree of success have they done it?
I have similar experience Shawn. I was put in speech therapy for elementary school because I had trouble pronouncing words with R and W's. It was almost as if over night I went from being an average student to one who was judged on something that had nothing to do with intelligence. I was kept in the lowest reading groups because of this and was considered "lacking" by my peers (and myself). The result: a complete lack of confidence in myself. At first I only disliked reading out loud, eventually I became so self conscious of my speech that I didn't want to participate in class period.
Also like you, I used this as motivation. I may still be hesitant to speak up in classes, but I have practiced "trouble sounds" for years in order to eliminate the impediment and the stigma that comes with it.
Being in SPED or speech therapy doesn't usually have anything to do with intelligence, but students and even teachers tend to judge students when they are put into such groups.
Personally, if my teachers had been more supportive I might not have been so extremely self-conscious about it. I was a very good reader and was great with comprehension, however teachers never seemed to see that. They kept me in the lowest groups (which I found extremely boring) because I had trouble reading out loud.
I was embarrassed to be in speech therapy, an embarrassment that has remained with me even today. It is hard to say that support from teachers would have fixed the problem, but I feel that it would have helped if teachers could have seen beyond the label and acknowledged (and/or praised) that I could read and write at the same level as my peers.
As young students we tend to look up to our teachers and see ourselves through their eyes. I saw myself as inadequate, because that was how my teachers saw me, and it effected (and is effecting) my entire academic experience.
To answer your question, Uncle Evil J, my SPED peers viewed it as the easy road to get through school. As far as I knew, they liked the easy tests and bragged at the fact of getting easier tests. I remember one of them randomly told me that I would never make it in life because of the state that I was in. This statement shocked the entire room since I was academically smarter than her. I'm not sure where everyone is now, but that one negative peer in particular, the last I've heard, is in community college as undecided.
And I know exactly what you went through Meg Bowker. I should have added that I had speech therapy as well. I had to see a therapist early in the morning before homeroom and everyone always wondered why I went into a private room rather than sit with them and wait for the homeroom to be unlocked. My pronounciation was terrible and I hated reading out loud as well. My friends would tell me that I mumble too much but really I wanted them to assume what I said instead of hearing what I actually pronounced. As practice, I read out loud to myself at home and I'm much better at reading aloud now. I have my bad days where I mess up and cannot even correctly pronounce a word, but I just laugh it off and say that I cannot say the word at the moment. It resulted me being a quiet child, which I got rediculed for. I learned it's best to not rush it and calm myself down and relax my tongue. I'm glad college students are more mature and understand the situation rather than jokingly asking if I'm retarded.
Shawn, a student who went to school with me from 1st through 12th grade was in very much the same situation as you. From 4th grade on, he was identified as an "at-risk" learner with some social disorders. I wish I could say that I was his friend– from 4th to 8th grade we were in the same class of about 30 kids for each year. Unfortunately, his label of "special" really did affect my perception of him, and I was never much more than an acquaintance with him. His label stuck in high school, and he struggled there too, always performing well, but lagging behind in social skills, a disadvantage which led him to have occasional breakdowns in the classroom. He was constantly accompanied by special education helpers and the like.
Flash forward to the present. That same student is here at Penn State. I see him occasionally– last time I saw him, he was at dinner in a dining hall with a large group of friends. We got to talking, and he told me that he was one of the top students in his organic chemistry and physics classes, no mean feat. The simple change of scenery from high school to college, coupled with the liberation from the label of "special" or "at-risk" has allowed him to become more confident in himself, and it shows. I think you're right– all too often, student are labeled because they are "slow" learners at an early age, and that label sticks. The same goes for children who speak a dialect, or for children who come from different socioeconomic situations, or who are of an ethnic minority. Their differences do not necessarily indicate a deficiency, and we would do well to remember it.
Like Jeff said, in high school and middle school the kids not in that class look down on the kids in that class for being stupid, dumb,SPED, retarded and any other mean thing you can say to them.
My buddy FRANK was in that class yet probably for different reasons than you, and as we all can probably conclude, there were completely different outcomes. I also had two friends that I can think of that I remember seeing in the SPLED room. One has graduated with a degree in sociology, and the other is finish up his comp sci degree. I think an issue with the SPED departments in schools are that there just isn't enough money, therefore enough people to make enough separations that are needed. A lot of people also don't understand with a little extra teaching geared towards there problems that the kids in these programs are just as functional if not more than others. I had to have SPED classes for my hearing impairment, yet didn't get the same social stigma from fellow students since it was physical, yet it is still a problem nonetheless.
I personally think I would have benefited from this program because they found found out I had pretty bad ADD in 11th grade, before that they just chalked it up to me being lazy and not wanting to do my work, which was also true, but not being able to remember assignments, or even understand what was going on wasn't helping my cause.
Although some might find this obtrusive, especially parents who think their children are special and faultless, I think children at a young age should be screened through the schools for learning disabilities such as ADD and dyslexia. Once again I feel money and people willing to do this would be a hard thing to come across.
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