I went to school in the 70’s and was never aware of the special ed classes. I’m not even sure if they were held at my high school. They might of been held off campus somewhere. That also meant I never really knew which students had learning difficulties. Welcome Back Kotter and the sweathogs were the only special ed students I ever knew. I’m not even sure if Mr Kotter was a special ed teacher or just a teacher assigned to troubled, under achieving students.
I’ve read a lot of special ed students are mixed into the regular classrooms these days. Do they still have a special ed teacher and classroom?
Tony Danza wrote about some special ed students in his book, I’d Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High. He was given very strict instructions that the special ed students took their tests in a special resource room. He taught them in his English Literature class but wasn’t allowed to administer their tests.
Were you aware of the special ed classes at your school? Did you know any of the students?
I was aware of them in elementary school – there was a classroom at the end of a hall on the first floor that was theirs. The other stuff on that floor was the kindergarten classroom, music room and gym so we were rarely down there, much less in that particular hallway.
I don’t remember them in jr high or high school so either they cloistered them off better or I just never noticed with the school being larger or they weren’t there.
I was in grade school in the 80s, and the special ed kids were kept completely separate in their own classroom. The only reason I knew they existed was because my friend’s sister was in that class.
By the time I was in high school the special ed kids were still kept somewhat separate but they would come to the lunchroom with the rest of the kids. So we at least knew they existed but they didn’t interact much with anyone else.
I was a special ed student during the 80s and 90s. Most of my experience was tutoring in high school, but in 6th grade I did spend time in resource room. I was basically mainstreamed.
It occurs to me, we might be discussing different populations. I was talking about kids with learning disabilities, sometimes in addition to a physical disability. Everyone else seems to be talking about kids with Down’s Syndrome.
My school years spanned 1960-72. Sometime around grade 5-6-7-ish, the term “sped” became a popular insult, standing for Special Ed. I’m thinking in context, it was said in the same way you’d say “Don’t be retarded” - “Don’t be a sped.” A couple of my sisters still use the term. I always thought it was kinda nasty.
So, to answer the OP, we were aware there was such a thing as special ed. And throughout my school years, classes were made up of students of similar abilities, so you had the smart classes, the middle classes, and the lowest classes. I don’t think the lowest classes were necessarily special ed - sometimes they were just kids who were lazy or didn’t care, so their grades sucked and they ended up on the bottom of the pile.
Honestly, I don’t recall if there were special schools for kids with special needs, or if there were specific classes/teachers in our school. I was always in the college-bound classes in high school and I didn’t pay much attention to the other programs.
The definition I found for the OP indicated any child with learning difficulties (emotional, physical, or mental) could be in special ed. Although they do mainstream as many of the students as possible.
It sounds like special ed teachers have a challenging job with a wide range of students.
I started first grade in 1975, and was aware of the special ed students pretty early, because I was telling my mom about “the man who rides my bus,” and she explained that he was a little slower than other kids, but trying to finish high school. (Seriously, he was in his mid-twenties. Rode the bus every day, nice guy, finally got some sort of diploma, for whatever it was worth. He might not have been smart, but he was by golly persistent! IIRC, he suffered a brain injury due to oxygen deprivation at birth.) In addition, my mom volunteered with education programs - first with Head Start, and later with “The Sunshine Center,” which was the local program for people with mental disabilities. The man who rode my school bus graduated from the high school to the Sunshine Center. I think he got a placement as a grocery bagger, but there were plenty of other clients who were never able to work, so the Sunshine Center acted a lot like adult day care for them.
Throughout elementary and junior high/middle school (the nomenclature changed between my seventh and eighth grade years,) the “regular” students weren’t exposed to the special ed students too much, except that their classroom was next door to the Enrichment classroom at one of my schools. By high school, there was a little more integration - some students attended mainstream classes in certain subjects, the special ed classes had their lunch periods with the regular rotations (which depended on which hall you were on.)
And today, a guy I used to date, one of my nieces, and one of my best friends are special ed teachers. They still exist, even though students are more actively “mainstreamed” into standard classes whenever possible.
It was kind of like that in my school, but not always. The kids who were a little to moderately special went to a whole school for it. But the most severe cases They just kind stuck in class in their neighborhood.
I remember one girl from second grade. If they ever said what condition she had, I don’t remember. She had some extreme dwarfism, and wasn’t even 20 inches tall in second grade. She had those crutches with support bands up to the bicep, but mostly used a very tiny wheelchair, and never went to recess. She was totally non-verbal, her left hand didn’t work and was only able to use her right hand a bit. She sat in a custom raised desk next to the teacher,and had a special teacher who would rotate all day between her and about 6 other severally disabled kids in other grades, in the same situation in their classes, all at school within a couple miles. She was in our classroom but really not in our class at all.
I remember it so clearly because it was just so confusing to us as second graders, there was no “spectrum” at all. Any kid designated with the smallest level of special needs was sent to a special school, except the most extreme cases, and no explanation attempted.
In my case, I didn’t have any disabilities, I was just a slow learner. As was every one else in my class. The kids with disabilities were in another program.
I am a current student in high school and its very apparent that there are special ed students this is apparent because the teachers dont look after the students and special ed students go around the cafeteria making fools of them selves(not on purpose) and people laughing.
I’m a high school student. In my school, the special ed kids are taught alongside the general population - there are a few classes just for them, but for the most part it’s mixed. “Special ed” in this context generally isn’t minor learning disabilities - think Down’s Syndrome and autism. Kids are given an aid who follows them around and helps them stay organized (depending on the student’s independence, it could be a one on one aid or one aid for two or three kids).
Although this is a bit of a generalization, I’d say that the special ed kids are “off-limits” in terms of bullying or teasing from other students. Which isn’t to say bullying doesn’t exist, but if you pick on a severely autistic kid, you’re not going to be thought of as cool. The mixed classrooms start in kindergarten and go all the way to 12th grade - overall I think it’s a great experience for both the special ed students, who are socializing with “normal” kids and learning skills teachers can’t necessarily teach them, and the other students, who learn to have some compassion and understanding.
If we had a special ed program in elementary, it wasn’t called that. Starting in 4th grade, I was vaguely aware that a small group of kids were getting pulled out for extra help with reading. But as far as their diagnostic labels go, I have no clue. They weren’t mentally handicapped in any way that I could tell.
In middle school, there was an actual special ed program. But I didn’t know any of the kids in it, and the students that were in it weren’t overtly handicapped. There was one boy in my class who regularly “acted out” and the teacher wasn’t shy about asking him if he’d taken his meds. But he was of normal intelligence and not physically handicapped in any way. I’m guessing he had ADHD.
In high school, there was two groups of special ed kids. One were the kids who spent much of the day engraving trophies and learning other trades. The non-special ed kids would only see them in home room or in electives. Then there were the kids with severe mental and physical disabilities, who were essentially being babysat all day. The only time I’d ever see them was during fire alarms.
I went to FIVE elementary schools from 1972 through 1979 (or about those years). In most of those schools, segregation by ability was huge and started in Kindergarten. By the second or third week of school, my table in Kindergarten had kids who already knew their color words and ABCs - other tables were sorted similarly so there was a table - where the teacher spent ALOT of time - for the kids that were slow.
Our table got different worksheets than other tables. I think there were six tables, and three different sets of worksheets, but it was kindergarten - I know MY TABLE had different sheets.
One of the schools I went to was very modular - you went to class with kids of your ability - you could be a third grader in classes with first graders or a first grader in classes with fourth graders - another school had a similar deal, but with smaller overlaps (third to fourth, but not third to fifth or sixth).
I’m sure in these strange schemes some of those modular groups were special ed kids - but from my point of view it would have just been kids in a different module.
My kids swung completely the other way - even math had no segregation - every kid in school was learning the same math. Special ed kids got pulled for special math courses - but during time like PE, they were also expected to sit through regular math (which in my mind must have been very frustrating - you are still trying to get your head around triple digit addition and someone is throwing multiplication of fractions at you at the same time, but I’m sure education research has shown that this is best :rolleyes:)
At my school, there were in separate academic classes for special education students, but they were in the same classes as everyone else for things like P.E. and had the same lunch periods. I don’t think this was a great set up as some of the kids were quite a bit older, bigger, and kind of violent, so liked to make all sports high contact.
I’m not even sure if Mr Kotter was a special ed teacher or just a teacher assigned to troubled, under achieving students.