Family Factors in Special Education

Students that require special education often need increased involvement by their parents or guardians. The website SERC states, "While family engagement confers benefits on all students, those with disabilities often require a greater degree of parental involvement and advocacy than their peers without disabilities in order to be assured of receiving the same level of instruction as the general student population". Parent involvement is essential so that students with disabilities can receive the best education, can have someone to advocate for them, and to ensure a good home life. Students who are supported by their parents/guardians then they perform significantly better in the classroom. If a parent is involved then they can work more closely with their child's teacher. When teachers and parents work as a team, then the student will have a more positive learning experience. 

In high school I interned in a special education classroom. Doing so, I became close friends with several students to the point where I would hang out with them outside of school. I started noticing a pattern; their home life was not always the best. Couples that have a child with a disability have a much higher divorce rate than couples that do not. I saw this and the effect it had on those students. It left them distracted, feeling sad, feeling depressed, and confused. I quickly learned which parents were involved and which were not. The students with parents that were not involved struggled in different areas. However, I do not want to point fingers. In my experience, students with supportive parents perform better in the classroom and do better in general. Having increased parent involvement does not just help students with disabilities, but it also helps students in the general education classroom. Increased parent support is essential to guarantee student success.

LGBTQIA+ in the Classroom

(Trigger warning: mental illness, bullying, and suicide)

 I will start by describing an incident that happened here in Tennessee from Edutopia, "Pinning Roddy Biggs against a locker, a student whaled on him, giving him a black eye, fracturing his eye socket, and bruising his ribs. It wasn’t a lone incident for Biggs, who came out as gay to his Tennessee high school when he was a freshman". Incidents like these are not uncommon and occur more often than one would expect. Schools do not teach about influential people in the LGBTQIA+ community and most schools do not educate their students about the community. People fear what they do not understand so this community is an easy target especially students. Students in the community have a higher chance of being bullied, having depression/anxiety, being ostracized by family members, and committing suicide. Students in this community attempt and commit suicide in higher numbers than students not in the community. Being in that community is not easy in the United States and then it does not help that they must face this bigotry. To make matters worse, politicians have been banning books related to the LGBTQIA+ community and have banned educators from teaching these topics.  

I have two stories that I would like to discuss. The first one is my story about how I came out. I am bisexual and I came out while I was in high school. During my sophomore year, one of my friends accidentally told someone about my orientation. It was accidental and he had no intention of outing me. After the news had spread around, some close friends of mine stopped speaking to me and spread it even more. I was lucky enough to never be physically harassed but I was verbally harassed by people I had thought to be my friends. My parents heard about this before I could tell them. I honestly had no intention of telling them but that choice was taken away from me. However, I am blessed to have loving and understanding parents that accepted me. This incident was not good for my mental health and it caused me to become depressed, fall behind in school, and it caused me to fear how people might think of me. I have moved forward, growing with the help of others. Although this incident was unfortunate, it showed me who my true friends were and it showed me that my parents were loving and understanding. In high school one of my closest friends was lesbian. She was out a lot longer than I was and she had it a lot harder than I did. Although she was not outed like me, her parents were not accepting of her. To preface, I lived in South Carolina which was not an accepting place for people in the LGBTQIA+ community. During her freshman year of high school, her parents woke her up in the middle of the night and drove her to what she thought was a church camp. She later learned that it was conversion therapy. She was there for several weeks and she went through hell. I cannot imagine having parents that did not accept me and then being sent to a conversion therapy camp. That incident stayed with her and caused her to have several mental health problems. She dealt with this at home and then at school she had to face the bigotry I was referring to earlier. Schools need to do a better job of educating their students, stopping bullying, and need to continue to provide support to that community. Although you may disagree with how this community lives their lives, as teachers it is our responsibility to support our students and to keep them safe.

IDEA and Special Education

 

Images representing different disabilities 

 

As a future special educator, I have studied and learned about IDEA in almost all of my education courses. IDEA is defined as, "the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) is a law that makes available a free appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and ensures special education and related services to those children". IDEA guarantees that students with disabilities will be given a free and appropriate education (often referred to as FAPE). It also guarantees that students will be placed in the least restrictive environment (referred to as LRE). IDEA is the largest and most important law regarding special education. IDEA guarantees that students with disabilities will have an Individualized Education Program (IEP); this document records information about the student's disabilities, their goals to be achieved, their accommodations/modifications they receive, and any assistance they require. This document protects the student from not receiving a proper education and guarantees that they will receive it; if they do not, the document states how the parents and students can use due process to fight for a proper education as guaranteed by law. 

IDEA was a huge milestone for special education in the United States. It laid out students' rights, parents' rights, teachers' rights, and what students with disabilities are guaranteed. Since I am majoring in special education I have learned about IDEA at least 20 times, and I am only a sophomore! In my opinion, IDEA is the most important special education legislation put into effect in the United States. If you were to actually look at the bill you will find how dense it is and how much detail was put into it. This bill laid the groundwork on how special education should be run and what rights are guaranteed to students with disabilities. Special and general education teachers should become familiar with this law so that they can be better educators and so that they can ensure all students get the help they need.