What makes bosses feel they need to needlessly hold your feet to the fire?

Question

When you are teaching Mentally Handicapped Children why do they expect you to have exceptional lesson plans?

Answer 1

They lack a working of knowledge of special ed. Those in administration rarely come from that area of expertise; however, I have worked for two in 26 years.

We have a superintendent that is like that, he is trying to destroy the special education department in our syte. he is trying to mandate inclusion in every case. He reminds us all the time about No Child Left Behind, but he was a band director. how many special needs children do you think he ever taught? He does not care about IDEA and the fact that there must be a continuum of services. He never had that severe profound student that cannot feed or potty himself. He never had that autistic student that cannot handle the noise and sensory overload that occurs on a regular bus ride home.

The only thing you can do as a professional is to use a subtle approach and work to educate your administration in the various level of needs in special ed. You can share informative articles about those little celebratory successes special ed teachers make somewhere every day. Like the special ed teacher that taught a student to swallow so he would not have to get a feeding tube which would shorten his life and damage his present quality of life. A feeding tube was suggested because it took two hours to feed the student lunch at school. The teacher could not accept that mandate and begged for time to turn his situation around. Now that's what special ed is about and those are the kinds of sepcial ed teachers that you want.

If a student learns what green is, or that five fingers are on one hand - what a day!

Answer 2

Aren't you being paid to have exceptional lesson plans? And to do the very best you can to help these kids develop to their fullest potential?

Answer 3

it's a power trip thing-don't take it personally