A TEACHER’S LAMENT TO STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

A TEACHER’S LAMENT TO STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

 To My Students,

“More than anything, I’d like to understand how you learn. I would like to have the answers and solutions for you—for all of you. Each of you learns differently. We all do, but how you learn is sometimes a  mystery to you and me. I have taken a multitude of courses and have several degrees, but no two of you learn exactly the same way. I even have the programs that are supposed to help with your exact problems, but after doing quite a bit of investigation, I found that there is more hype and more anecdotal stories than research to support the use of these programs. Especially when they are to be used outside of a clinical setting and in a public school.

I don’t understand how these publishers can do this to us. How dare they say these programs are research-based when that only means they have some loose association with some other research and no real research—whatsoever--to show it works in school settings. That is not fair to anyone, but worst of all to you.

Yes, we are making progress, but I would like for us to make even more.

I wish real science knew more. And, like you, I am not going to stop trying.”

Your Teacher