NCLB Part 2 Grade Level Achievement for Special Education Students

No Child Left Behind had just been enacted before I entered the classroom. During my school site training (prior to meeting my students) I was told over and over again, all students must be exposed to the standards. Your students (special needs students) need to be taught from the grade level general education curriculum.

This was my first year teaching and I really did not know any different, so I taught from the 4th grade Teacher's editions in reading and math. I attended regular education grade level meetings. I went to trainings on ELD (English Language Development) and other general education curriculum.

You would not believe the amount of whining I heard in the first week alone. We can't do this! This is too hard! We didn't have to do this last year! There were tears. There was anger. There was a teacher more stubborn than the kids in that classroom. I put up my sign that let students know "I can't" is illegal in my classroom and began teaching them that we say "I will try" or "I need help" instead. It was not long before someone would slip and say "I can't" and the rest of the class would say "ooooh". Mission accomplished.

Soon they began to realize that I was not giving up and they began to achieve. They began helping each other in reading groups. They began to feel successful at reading and math for the first time. The best part was that they could take what they learned in my classroom and apply it back in the general education classroom. I had a general education teacher come up to me one day in complete shock. She began to tell me how one of our (I say our, not my for Special Ed. students--my way of helping gen. ed. teachers understand that they belong to them too) students had raised his hand to answer questions in the general education classroom. What was even more shocking, the answers were correct! On that day, I had another believer in grade level exposure for special needs students.

The best part of this was not that the students would do well on the testing. It was that they were learning that they could achieve.

More to come...