Eduacating the Educators

Today I gave a talk on “Family Adjustment and Coping, and Our Expectations of Teachers” to a class of special-ed-teaching students, a talk I give yearly at this institution. I always try and slip in here and there a few points that I fear these students may not have been exposed to, ideas that are a bit more contemporary to the norm here. Over the years, the teacher who invites me has asked me not to dwell on this point or another, and I had the talk pretty well set up to our mutual satisfaction. This morning, before leaving, I looked over my notes and revamped my speech. I talked a bit more about offering more choices to the children and adults that they may work with, the importance of not being patronizing, and the importance of a school to do a reality check of their work.
If you go to this address: http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/ALESSI1.html
You will find a report on a very interesting study, showing that school psychologists will nearly always blame failure in studies as the fault of either the parents or the child. Almost never will the school step back and ask themselves:
”How can we do this differently? What do we need to do to make it work?”

I felt that it was important to broach these ideas to our future educators.
We’ll see if they invite me back next near….