Special Advice for Special Educators

This issue of NASET’s Practical Teacher series was written by Mr. Nicklaus Khan. New teachers in the field of special education often enter the classroom taking one or maybe two special education courses in college.  Other new special educators that have left their careers in non-education related fields may be enrolled in alternative certification programs.  These alternative programs can have their first set of education-related courses the summer before the start of the school year.  In any scenario, some special education teachers start their first year with minimal preparation for what the job entails. The guidance offers ways to navigate the first few years as a special educator and grow professionally. Additionally, it gives a perspective on the importance of self-care.

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Abstract

New teachers in the field of special education often enter the classroom taking one or maybe two special education courses in college.  Other new special educators that have left their careers in non-education related fields may be enrolled in alternative certification programs.  These alternative programs can have their first set of education-related courses the summer before the start of the school year.  In any scenario, some special education teachers start their first year with minimal preparation for what the job entails. The guidance offers ways to navigate the first few years as a special educator and grow professionally. Additionally, it gives a perspective on the importance of self-care.

Walking into your first year as a teacher is exciting and “nerve-racking” at the same time. You are full of energy, optimistic, and overall happy. Unfortunately for many teachers, these emotions are not what is reflected at the end of the school year and can impact the educators’ growth in the field for years to come. In his book The Human Side of School Change, author Robert Evans (2001) titles the first five years in a career the entry phase.  During this phase, an employee studies the occupation, battles with its difficulties, and acquires mastery of the craft. The facets of this advice will foster growth in the field, assist in navigating the inevitable difficulties, and set a foundation for your future in the field. This article will provide you with some practical ways to not just survive your first year in the classroom as a special education teacher, but to thrive during that year. 

Remember Your “Why”

In your first year as a special education teacher, you will need to recall the “why” of your career choice and use that as a lighthouse, leading you ashore through the rocky ocean called teaching.  Your first year will call for you to foster new relationships, implement or develop your organizational skills, continue to learn, and manage to take care of yourself despite your workload. The first piece of advice is to remember your “why”. 

Most education majors have concentrations in elementary or secondary education, but there are not many college students that have a concentration in special education. (Yellin et al., 2003).  Why would a student seek to become a special education teacher? There are multiple personal reasons people choose the field of special education.  These reasons can include a history of educators in their family, their siblings having struggled in school because of a disability, or their children struggling in school. It is important to remember these reasons as you work daily with students, parents, and colleagues, amidst the struggles.

Build Relationships

One area of focus for your first year and every year following is building relationships. Positive parent-teacher relationships will enhance your understanding of your students’ education needs and family setting. Positive relationships will increase the chances of the students’ achievement.  Positive relationships will foster the organization of support efforts for students with disabilities (Pham, Murray, & Good, 2018).

The foundation of serving students with disabilities is the Individualized Education Program (IEP) development process. The supports developed in the IEP can be implemented with higher fidelity if all stakeholders, including teachers, parents, or any other persons that have the child’s best interest in mind, are involved.   Part of that process is the factor of parental participation.  Involvement or meaningful involvement can be enhanced by the relationship you build with the parent.  Part of supporting students with disabilities is the array of needs that they can display.  Some of the most challenging deficits that you can face in your first year are found serving students that display behavior challenges.  Your relationship with the parents of the students with these challenges can help support your implementation of the IEP tenets that are developed to support the students’ challenging behaviors.  At times, that home-school connection can be the shift in the students’ behavioral support that increases their progress in this deficit area. The same can be said for academic challenges. For any positive achievement outcome from building positive parent-teacher relationships, the student cannot be left out of the picture.  Therefore, it is also crucial for the teacher to build a relationship with the student.

The student-teacher relationship is the underpinning of a positive school experience for both childhood and adolescence. The natural structure of the school day places students in your care for more time throughout the week than with their parents, guardians, or any other adult. Various studies display the connection between the quality of the student-teacher relationship and academic performance (Cook et al., 2018). Key aspects to foster this relationship are consistency and authenticity. Students at any age will respond positively to the authenticity; this is assuming that the “genuine you” encompasses a “why” that has students’ needs at heart.   The other component of consistency calls for saying what you mean and meaning what you say all the time. Once the students know what to expect, then you will know what to expect, therefore making planning and implementing supports not so overwhelming.

I know you must be saying to yourself that you are looking at this article for advice for the first year of your career and not to build relationships like you are running for office.  However, there is one more essential relationship that you must foster. That is the relationship between your colleagues; whether it be a co-teacher or another special education teacher, building internal relationships with your coworkers is necessary. Getting to know other special education teachers in your building or school system can provide you with knowledge and resources. You should utilize your judgment to discern which coworkers you should form close relationships with as, unfortunately, not all special education teachers have a positive outlook.  Please remember that the relationship does not have to have the expectations of friendship.  The outcome of building a relationship is not about becoming friends. It should be grounded in trust and respect with the shared result of meeting students’ needs. Collaboration is not an isolated practice. It is a system intended to achieve a goal that you cannot accomplish alone (Hernandez, 2013).

With the various special education services models, you may find yourself in a general education classroom as a co-teacher working with a general education counterpart. In a study done with accomplished and less accomplished special education teachers, they both discuss the significance of the collaborative relationships with the general education teachers (Urbach et al., 2015).  Just as you can learn from your special education colleagues, you can also learn from your general education counterparts. No pressure, however, know that they depend on your area of expertise.   That is why it is necessary to put forth collaborative planning efforts even if the structures to support do not exist. 

Plan, Plan, Plan…Oh and Plan

The saying by Benjamin Franklin “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” serves true to your role as a special education teacher. Your general education counterparts may have access to a somewhat scripted set of curriculum resources where unfortunately you will have to implement innovative practices to address curriculum standards and meet the diverse needs of the students with disabilities that you serve.  As I stated previously in my second area of advice, building relationships with other special education teachers can provide you with resources to assist you in your first year of planning. However, with the nature of being a special education teacher the individualized nature of the IEP will call to uses those resources as a foundation to create your own set of resources. You may be reading this and saying to yourself, “where am I going to get the time to do this and how am I going to do it”? There is no easy or joy filled answer.

Preparation calls for a review of the students’ IEPs, some form of collaborative planning between your general education counterpart, and developing a formal structure to create related artifacts. Reviewing the IEPs provides you with a specific understating of the students’ needs and background. Reading any available minutes of the IEP can give you an impression of parental interaction. This information will help you with your planning.  The expectation of collaborative planning is not necessarily a face to face exchange.  Having a grade level, content area, or co-teacher provide you with their form of lesson plan will assist you in utilizing the IEP document to develop specially designed instruction for the students that you serve. Having the information in advance provides you with the guide to plan for the implementation of the accommodations.  The reality of being a special education teacher calls for not only focusing on the general education curriculum but also fostering growth on the student’s goals and objectives in their IEP. This responsibility will call for the organization and development of data collection. With the commonality of technology immersion in the classroom, I would suggest that all aspects of planning and progress monitoring utilize tectological resources as much as possible.  Technology will provide you with more of a structured and effective way to accomplish your planning goals. Whether you want to use technology or pen and paper, you cannot achieve these necessary duties in your role as a special education teacher without planning. Mainly as a new teacher you have to plan to plan.

Keep Up with Your Craft

In the midst of planning and building relationships, I am going to recommend that you stretch yourself a bit further by continuing to develop your knowledge and skills. There are a few reasons why you need to seek out professional development opportunities both internally and externally.  First, there is much to gain from attending special education conferences or professional development sessions and interacting with teachers that have many years of experience.  These teachers or those in other special education positions can provide insight, guidance, practical advice, and encouragement. The nature of your role as a special education teacher can at times make you feel isolated in a school as the vast majority of your colleagues are general education teachers. This brings me to my second reason for your participation in continued learning opportunities. Due to the specialty of your role as a special education teacher, your colleagues and often administrators will turn to you for professional guidance for special education matters.  When they inevitably ask for your guidance you want to be prepared to provide confident and accurate feedback.  This feedback and the outcomes of the implementation of your guidance may have you “tapped” for leadership roles in your building or district.  My third reason for continued learning depends on your career aspirations.  This reason may not apply right now as you try to navigate your first couple of years as a teacher, however, if there is a chance that you pursue formal special education leadership opportunities, being abreast of current special education issues, regulations, and practices would be essential.  This step goes just beyond participation in conferences or isolated session but calls for self-initiated activities. The truth of the matter is that you have already dipped your toes into my third reason by reading this article. 

Put your own oxygen mask on first

Friends and family members that do not work in the field of education often make the comment, “it must be nice to get summers off”. They make this comment unknowing of the job of a special education teacher, especially a newbie to the field, takes a physical and emotional tax on that person.  They are unaware of the planning, the IEP meetings, the emotional toll of serving students that at times depend on you to teach them basic life skills.   However, your friends and family members are correct, you do get summers, and other breaks throughout the school year.   How you use those breaks is critical to your success.    

My last piece of advice does not involve planning, building relationships, or even learning more about your craft.  The last piece of advice is probably the most important and most personal piece of advice.  This seemingly simple nugget of guidance is to take a breath and take care of yourself. This statement is a personal nonprescriptive piece of advice. Simply do activities that bring you joy.  An activity that has no other purpose but brings you joy. Indulging in joy focused activities will foster improvement in your physical and mental health, ability to build those relationships, and increase your aptitude to innovate (McKeown, 2014). I am asking that as a flight attendant explains before take-off, before helping others “Put your oxygen mask on first”.

References

Cook, C. R., Coco, S., Zhang, Y., Fiat, A. E., Duong, M. T., Renshaw, T. L., & Frank, S. (2018). Cultivating Positive Teacher–Student Relationships: Preliminary Evaluation of the Establish–Maintain–Restore (EMR) Method. School Psychology Review, 47(3), 226–243.

Evans, R. (2001). The human side of school change: Reform, resistance, and the real life problems of innovation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Hernandez, S. J. (2013). Collaboration in special education: Its history, evolution, and critical factors necessary for successful implementation. US-China Education Review B, 3(6), 480-498.

McKeown, G. (2014). Essentialism: The disciplined pursuit of less. New York: Crown Business.

Pham, Y. K., Murray, C., & Good, R. H. (2018). Grades, Behavior, and engagement of adolescents with disabilities: An examination of social relationships among students, parents, and teachers. School Community Journal, Vol. 28, No. 2

Urbach, J., Moore, B. A., Klingner, J. K., Galman, S., Haager, D., Brownell, M. T., & Dingle, M. (2015). “That’s my job”: Comparing the beliefs of more and less accomplished special educators related to their roles and responsibilities. Teacher Education and Special Education: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children, 38(4), 323–336.

Yellin, P. G., Yellin, D., Claypool, P. L., Mokhtari, K., Carr, R., Latiker, T., & Szabo, S. (2003). “I’m not sure I can handle the kids, especially, the, uh, you know special ed kids.” Action in Teacher Education, 25(1), 14–19.