While looking at the trainwreck where Kyle or whatever his name is threatened legal action and got banned, I came across a post where somebody mentioned the “Resource Room”. I’ve heard of Resource before, and it seems to be a sort of Special Ed. Lite; the kids aren’t quite what you’d call handicapped, and can learn the same things the others do, but they need more time to do it in. Can someone explain how Resource differs from Special Ed, and how they came up with the name?
Strictly speaking, Resource is Special Ed. However, the students in Resource are only in there part-time – to get special assistance with whatever area they need help in. “Special Ed.” is generally thought of as being for students who need help in pretty much everything.
Because of that, the services provided to the student are “resources” to help him/her with the regular academic load.
First of all, the wording has changed from handicapped to disabled about 20 years ago. A handicap is something that makes performing a function difficult to the point of impossibility. Think about having a broken leg. It would be a temporary disability but it is not a handicap until you need to climb 4 flights of stairs. Extreme myopia is a handicap if you break your glasses, etc.
Second of all, there is no such thing as “special ed. lite”. Special education is required to meet the individual student’s needs. It may be true that Resourse students have less need than other students, but to call this Special Ed. Lite denigrates the work the RSP specialists does with these students.
Third of all, saying that students in Resourse need more time greatly simplifies the issues. Some students suffer from processing delays which necessitates alternative teaching styles. Many also need assistance with some of the ancillary functions of learning such as study skills and time management.
OK, to answer your question. Under the first Special Education law, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (Public Law 95-142), mandates a spectrum of setting where a student with disabilities could receive an education on par with non-disabled peers. The part of the program that is called Resourse (technically RSP for Resource Specialist Program) is the closest to general education. As originally designed, the student with disability would be placed in general education a majority of the time and would be pulled out for would be provided **resources ** for dealing with the academic issues they face with their disability. The actual term “Resource” probably originiated the the US Dept. of Education when they interpreted the law in order to issue guidelines for the schools.
Just as a small note, the resource teacher would mostly be helping students meet the same mainstream requirements. Sometimes, though, students with good enough behavior but limited ability (slightly retarded) are in mainstream classrooms, even though they are being graded on different objectives. Their actual learning target has changed, instead of just the methods used to try for it.
Errrr . . . maybe.
Some districts have all students that are included (“mainstream” is about 5 years out of date) graded to the same standards as the general education students. In fact in some schools (like mine), the SDC students are also held to the general education standards.
And then we enter the 21st century, where Resource is replaced with Inclusion. In this new manifestation, the Special Ed/Resource person provides the additional instruction to students inside the mainstream class, as an addition to what is already going on there, rather than pulling the student out of normal classes to receive remedial instruction. This means that the Resource teacher travels from class to class, and no longer needs his/her own classroom, thereby freeing up a classroom for another class.
Furthermore, the term “Child with disabilities” has been pretty much replaced with “Special Needs Child,” at least in the experiences I have endured with my own son, who is hearing-impaired, language-impaired, social-skills-impaired, behavior-impaired, AND has ADHD to boot. Meaning that he has LOTS of “Special Needs”–none of which are really being addressed well in the Inclusion scenario our local school system has adopted.
i happem to be the poster that made the resource room reference. while i am not totally familiar with why it is called such and how it special education has progressed over the last 10 or so years, i can relate my expeience.
in 4th grade my teacher believed i was learning disabled due to extremely poor spelling achievement. when i took my first IQ test i came back gifted. my teacher was so insistant that the test was in error she had me retested with the same outcome.
at my IEP (individual education planning?) meeting post the tests she still believed i was learning disabled and insisted i spend time in the special ed program. so for the first semester of my 5th grade year i spent time in both the resource room and a seperat classroom for gifted students. After the first semester the resource room was dropped. I remained in the gifted program for the remainder of my public education.
i guess i shouldn’t leave out the imporntant part, like what i actually did in the resource room.
i would go for an hour at a time, twice a week. there i’d recieve individual instruction of different things. there was only one or two other students in the room at a time with me.
the two things i remember the most is running dictionary drills. first i’d search for a specific letter, then two letters, then guide words, then specific words. this was a timed event. i also remember learning to type in the resource room.
My mother was a resource room teacher for K-5 for many years. Some of her students came in for an hour per day or less, while others would spend half a day or more with her. The instruction was highly tailored to the individual, but the goal was to keep them in the regular classroom except for their areas of special need.
“Gifted” does not mean “without learning disabilitles”
An IQ test is given to test for the child’s IQ, or aptitutde tests may be given instead. Only then can it be determined if the child has a certain area of concern which can be called a disability. The performance in one area needs to be two standard deviations lower than the IQ or aptitude test to qualify as a disability.
Wassat mean? It means if your IQ is low all around, and your performance (grades) match with your IQ in all areas, then you don’t have a learning disability. You may be dumb, but it’s an all around dumb. OTOH, if your IQ is high, but you can’t spell for shit (more specifically, if your spelling scores are those of someone with an IQ much lower than yours), it’s time to find out why. The most likely cause is a language processing disability. The IQ test doesn’t test for a disability, but gives us a base-line to judge from, essentially. Dofferemt language proxessing tests will then be given, to discover the exact nature of the problem.
An IQ test very specifically predicts how well you will do in the American mainstream school system, and it’s very accurate at that prediction. When that prediction doesn’t come true, then a disibility needs to be tested for.
So your teacher was right - having a high IQ did not mean you didn’t have a learning disability. In fact, it *increased *the concern that you did have one.
I’ll let you in on a huge secret. The reason most districts are moving to inclusion has **nothing ** to do with Least Restrictive Environment. Most high-school special education teachers cannot meet the subject knowledge requirement under No Child Left Behind. This means that despite having a credential, they’re not allowed by the Federal Government to teach in their own classroom.
This actually makes sense in some way. For example in California, a special education credential is a multiple-subject credential so they take the same test as elementary teachers. This means that there are many special education teachers in high schools without the subject knowledge to teach the students at grade level.
Here’s the problem: to teach in high school, these teachers need to pass the appropriate test at $250 a pop. There is an alternative way to meet the NCLB standards for more established teachers, but new teachers (those who got their credential after 2000) don’t have this priviledge. The question is, how else would we know if a high school special ed teacher has the content knowledge to teach to the standards?
Special note to Calif SpEd teachers: As per the CDE, the CSET: Multiple Subject test will allow you to teach in middle school in addition to elementary school.
I just want to point out that some districts are still using the term Resource Teacher, Resource Room, RSP designated kid, etc. I’m not being dumb by using it.
No, not at all are you being dumb. Are you respoding to this?:
There’s lots of “maybes” and “somes” in there. I hope SaintCad wasn’t trying to speak for all schools. Didn’t seem like it to me.
We still use “resource” here too. And, at least in conversation, teachers use “mainstream”, although I think “inclusion” is more PC.
Not *all *the special ed kids are graded to “mainstream” standards in the school districts in Illinois that I know of, even though they may sit in a “regular” classroom for all or most of the day.
Each student’s IEP includes details about not only what extra resources or aids will be used (WhyKid gets to use the word processor and spellchecker for everuthing, for example - his disability makes writing so difficult that he cannot write a paragraph in under 30 minutes. Of course, this simply won’t do in seventh grade. Give him Microsoft Word, and he composes beautifully.)
The IEP form also includes a section for what grading modifications will be used for the student, if any. The form is a state-wide form, so grades are flexible state-wide. (State achievement test grading, OTOH, is not. But it can be writtem into the IEP that the student gets unlimited time to take it, or someone to read aloud the questions, or whatever modifications the student needs.)
It is clear to see, even in these few posts, that public law 95-142, in its well-meaning way, has spawned an industry. Special education has commandeered not only enormous amounts of money and, yes, resources, from the rest of the system, but has also taken the moral high ground, using personal and heartbreaking stories, and guilt, to shift the energies and focus of teachers, classrooms, schools, and school districts. Look at the language, alone. Probably no other part of society is so bedeviled by its own terminology, tripping over and changing one term after another in an effort to not hurt someone’s feelings. I believe that the fear of lawsuits connected to this one law is enough to determine most educational policy in most school districts. The problem, in many cases, is not the inadequate education of the students, but the sensibilities of the parents, which is the overriding and controlling power. Talk about a powerful lobby. I anticipate a lot of flack, for introducing opinion in the GQ thread and for introducing a very incorrect (politically) point of view. None-the-less, part of the answer to the OP is in the thick, potent miasma of the complex segment of society we refer to as “special education.” xo, C.