A Special Education Math Teacher

Today’s classrooms are becoming more and more diverse with students that have disabilities and those that come from different cultures. It is important for educators to ensure that their teaching strategies are appropriate for all of the children in their classroom. When it comes to the classroom there can be many cultural challenges that educators will have to address to ensure that all students are growing and developing appropriately. Educators need to make sure that they are capable of addressing each of their

Students with special needs should be placed into specialized schools so they are able to receive individualized learning. If they are in a classroom specific to their needs, they are able to receive much needed attention. In order to receive the optimal level of attention that is needed, schools would have to consider reducing class sizes or hiring multiple teachers for one classroom so more help would be readily available for these disabled students. Corwin argues that today’s schools offer a general curriculum and that they should convert to a specialized system. He states that students of various backgrounds, ethnicities, IQ scores, and physical, emotional, and mental disabilities should not all be placed in the same classroom because students learn in diverse ways and at different paces. Further, it is necessary for teachers to become specialized in certain areas in order to effectively teach students with special needs (Corwin).

In elementary school, my classroom had students with and without disabilities, and we all shared the same space while working towards a common goal, but over time this diverse community diminished. This phenomenon of tracking and hierarchy of opportunity in education that I notice today is also responsible for creating an environment in which secondary special education is often a segregated locale, physically and socially removed from mainstream public schooling. I've witnessed Syracuse University push against this norm and challenge these boundaries time and time again, and I feel that before entering my own my classroom I want to address these issues of homogeneity and continue to build my tool box of inclusionary practices that extend past my current

Debates on the overrepresentation of minority students, particularly African- Americans and Hispanics are not new in special education and have characterized research in this field for over three decades. Regardless of time, legislative debate and a great amount of research theories, this problem remains. “In general, research has supported the public concern but the picture is unclear because studies have varied so much with

Preparing regular education teachers to address the diverse needs of children with special needs in inclusive set up.

The notion of inclusion is progressively being accepted as a vital method of learning in our growing school systems. I believe that every student, those with and without exceptionalities, have the right to be included in a general education classroom. Students with learning, social and behavioral exceptionalities or varied abilities deserve the right to be provided with the same opportunities as any other students in the regular general education classroom. The information that I have acquired through my own experiences (in my observations and my classes) have molded my goals as a future teacher. I believe that teaching and education are fundamental in getting students to grow, learn, and flourish;

As we grow in education, it always seems as in there is someone that is left behind. Educators need to be able to reach out as many students as possible, but some may argue that it does not feel this way. Often, students with special education needs are considered to be too difficult to teach, or simple just a “lost cause.” The way we interact and care for all students not only shows in each student, but it shows in the impact it has on the community as a whole.

Diversity encompasses numerous characteristics including socio-economic background, ethnicity, special needs, gender, and giftedness (Cazden, 2001). Today, classrooms are getting more varied and diverse with students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and students with a disability. It appears that teachers must meet the needs of all students successfully and individually to effectively teach a classroom of diverse students. This paper will first identify three challenges involved with ensuring that teaching strategies are

In the profession of a special education teacher, a person commits to helping children achieve their best and to help “students overcome their obstacles” while finding a way that the child can effectively learn (Hollingsworth). My mom’s career as special education teacher for twenty-two years, allows me insight and experience into the tougher aspects of this career, but also the rewards to the job. My mom helps me understand that a special education teacher guides a child to expand their strengths, develop strategies to overcome weakness, and to make best use of all available resources. Through helping her, and learning from her experiences, she taught me that a career in special education can not only challenge me, but may also become a

Harry, B., & Klingner, J. K. (2006). Why are so many minority students in special education?: Understanding Race & Disability in Schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

The purpose of the article’s introduction is to highlight the challenges that students from minority go through in special education schools. Linking his personal experiences as a former special educator, Connor strives to explore the intersection of learning disability, race, and class. The author collected data by conducting interviews with a participant researcher to get his side of the story. Connor planned to compare his LDs experiences with his own.

Diversity challenges can be affected by misunderstandings in difference of gender, race, class, geographic location, language, religion, family structures, abilities, and family/personal history (Dray & Wisneski, 2011, p Teachers should also understand the deeper meaning of behavior in daily classroom interactions of students who may or may not be labeled with a disability but who present behavior challenges in the classroom (Dray & Wisneski, 2011, p. 31).

Teachers have a vital role and their tasks are many in the classroom, they must be an educator, and a manager of children’s disruptive behavior regardless of their best efforts teachers detect students constantly becoming off task or showing disruptive behavior; such as calling out across the room, arguing, noncompliance, tantrums (Perle, 2016). To combat disruptive behavior researchers have noted that character education is a unit of the child’s growth, which marks the child’s tendencies and dimensions to be in control, and allows them to have moral and self-management (Lapsley and Yeager, 2013). There has been a revival of character education, placing a strong emphasis on the teachings of moral qualities, and has been a wide spread instructional trend the past decade. Character education is one way some schools in a variety of communities are trying to improve these behaviors (Davis, 2007). In addition, a well-known body of research discoveries purports that children living in impoverished areas have a more advanced risk of developing a diversity of social, demonstrative, and behavioral problems (Armstrong, 2009; Eamon, 2001) With the aim of developing character virtues demonstrating virtues such as compassion, bravery and thankfulness in youth are being properly adopted into school curricula in several countries (Olof Franck. 2017). Teachers and parents are of great concern for children’s moral virtues (Lapsley and Yeager, 2013).

The modern classroom has many challenges that face it. Shrinking budgets, less parental involvement, higher expectations, and growing class sizes, just to name a few. If this list was not daunting enough you also have the special needs students that have an array problems in your classroom that need specialized attention, lessons and seating. There are many forms of diverse learners from students who suffer from ADHD to physical disabilities to students with autism to ones that are bullied in school. There are so many things going on in our students lives we sometimes forget they have lives, pressures and disabilities that affect their performance and attitude in our class that have a profound impact on how they learn. For this paper I

Throughout my years at Lehigh, I have proclaimed that I have a passion to teach, to show students that mathematics is not difficult, and that they are able to understand mathematics. However, when it came to special education students, my philosophy changed, due to their learning disability. I was ignorant to the special education movement of inclusion, because I feared the idea of teaching students who were not “normal”.