Human Performance Technology (week 4 reading response)

For the past several years, I have been discouraged by the quality of teachers who teach children with low-incidence special needs.  This is not based on data or objective measurement, but is purely subjective.  However, even years ago, when I spent large amounts of time in these classrooms during observation and student teaching, I collected a long list of "things I will not do" and very few things on the list of things I would do.  I remember the coach who said he "wanted to keep coaching, but didn't really want the stress of teaching," so he got his special education certification. (Thanks, Texas for making it possible for any teacher, currently certified in anything to just pass any other test and gain certification.)  Even now, when I visit other classrooms like mine and, more often, listen to the concerns of others who spend a great deal of time in these classrooms (therapists and itinerant personnel), I worry about the education that children with the most serious special needs are receiving.

Standardize testing was supposed to help verify that 'no child is left behind', but here in Texas, in my opinion, the results of the testing is more a reflection of the efforts of the teacher than the student.  Is this actually standardized testing?  Also, is it providing any information about the quality of the teaching that is occurring in that classroom?  The standardized testing that occurs in general education settings makes the assumption that basically all classrooms in a given school (and sadly across districts and states) are generally equal.  How can this be assumed in my type of classroom, when each child is in the program because of serious differences.  I do not think this testing is giving us the measurable data that we need.

So, how do we improve the quality of teachers in low-incidence special education classrooms?  My first solution, seems fairly simple to me.  I believe that my district needs a better worker selection process and better a better evaluation process for these teachers.  Currently, the Special Education Department interviews and hires Diagnosticians, Speech Language Pathologists, Occupational and Physical Therapists and many other specialists that are considered "itinerant".   These professionals are assigned to one or several schools and serve the population of students that need them within these schools.  Because these professionals are not "teachers" they do not have Professional Development and Standards (PDAS) evaluations (more on this later).  Teachers are interviewed and hired by campus administration.  The Special Education Department dictates their curriculum, produces their handbook of expectations, holds their professional development meetings, and can move these teachers from one campus to another.  Then, they are evaluated, using the PDAS evaluation system, by the campus administration.  I have tried to simplify this in the table below.

What does this mean?  Special education teachers are under the control of the Special Education Department.  However, the department, in reality, has no control over them.  In order to influence their evaluation, at all, they would have to communicate with, and convince, the campus administration.  The Special Education Department does not evaluate the teachers under their guidance and more importantly can not put one of these teachers on an improvement plan.  Why is this important?  Special education classrooms, especially those that are self-contained and contain mostly students with low-incidence disabilities, are rare.  For example, my classroom has 11 students, who, if they attended the school closest to them (instead of the school closest to them with my type of classroom) they would be spread across 5 different schools.  This means that 4 schools in my surrounding area do not have a classroom like mine.  So, the chances of a person becoming an administrator without having any exposure to this type of classroom are high.  So, how do these administrators know what a great self-contained classroom should look like?  How do they know what questions to ask a person interviewing for this position?  I understand the need for teachers to be evaluated using the PDAS evaluation system, and I believe that this is why principals hire and evaluate special education teachers.  I also know that in order to be a coordinator for special education in my district,  you must have principal certification.  So, my non-instructional solution is that all candidates for a special education position (especially the self-contained positions) must be, at a minimum, interviewed and approved by the Special Education Department.  My preference would be for these teachers to be interviewed and hired by the Special Education Department.  In addition, I think that, still using the PDAS evaluation system, these teachers be evaluated by the Special Education Department.  The administration in the Special Education Department visit (hopefully) all of these classrooms over the year and know the specifics of what these classrooms should look like.  They can compare apples to apples, while campus administrators are comparing apples to oranges.  Would this make my PDAS evaluation more difficult?  Yes.  However,  as a teacher who is frustrated by the quality of education that children with severe special needs are receiving, I would welcome it.

Performance support systems are systems that provide access to support information at the time of need.  Performance support is best used when tasks are not frequent and critical in nature.  My first thought was that performance support could not be used to help in the problem that I am currently addressing: the lack of quality teachers who teach children with low-incidence special needs.  I then realized that I was thinking of teacher performance when I tried to apply performance support.  However, the teacher's is not the only performance that occurs here.  It is possible that campus administration is failing to hire quality teachers for these positions.  Could we use performance support to help with this?  Absolutely!  I, personally, consider hiring quality special education teachers as very critical, but even if the district, considering all the other teaching positions, consider it less critical, these situation are low frequency.  Whether performance support could be a stand-alone method to help campus administrators make better hiring decisions or training needs to be added, there is definitely an application here.  How could performance support be applied?  Perhaps, in addition to the standard set of questions to ask perspective teachers, the Special Education Department should provide a more specialized set of questions for these teachers.  Also, the Special Education Department should take the standard "walk-through" expectations and PDAS expectations and define what that should look like in this specialized classroom.  Additionally, as a training addition, campus administrators could be given a list of quality self-contained special education classrooms that they could visit.

**Quick note to reader - I am sorry that this post is so long, but I am very passionate about this subject and found some great motivation in the reading today.  I feel like I should add a link to cute kittens or something here, so I did one better and am adding a link to an amazing song a brother wrote about his little sister, who happens to have Down Syndrome.  If you really need a break, go listen to this kid's lyrics.  If only everyone felt that way.

**Question to self - Is there a limit to the length of posts?

Knowledge management in my particular type of classroom is a definite problem.  Even campuses that have my type of classroom typically only have one.  This means that collaboration is difficult.  The monthly meetings that we used to have were held after school, so participation was limited due to exhaustion and the desire to go home.  We now have monthly, on-line meetings where we watch and listen to our coordinator and can type if we have questions, which isn't conducive to collaboration. The 'products' that we produce (student success) are difficult to compare or present.  While the tacit knowledge that we have could be so valuable to increase the quality of teaching, we have not found a way to manage it.  I use the term "reinvent the wheel" when talking about our classrooms, because we often have common students, situations, curriculum, goals and objectives, but we are each dealing with them separately.  Rarely do teachers in my type of classroom ask one another how they dealt with something.  I tend to be one of the few that offers suggestions at meetings and feel that it falls on deaf ears.  Occasionally, a teacher will present something they learned at a training, but again, with limited success.  I am, honestly, at a loss how to collect the tacit knowledge of strong, long-time special education teachers much less how to manage it.  I tried, at the start of this year, to place activities on the intranet that I had created for my students, so that other teachers could use them, but have not received any feedback to know whether they are using them.  The reading this week made me realize that I am simply adding to the stuff being thrown at the teachers.  The informal learning experiences that lead to this tacit knowledge is extensive in our classrooms.  There is not a lot of guidance (even on Google) to show a new teacher how to schedule when you have 10 students in grades 1-5 and each grade goes to specials (PE and such) at different times, each grade teaches various subjects at different times and some of your students go out for reading and some for science, plus everyone needs lunch, including your paraprofessionals and you.  Every year, once I gather the information from the other teachers, it takes me hours to pencil out a schedule.  Has it gotten easier each year?  Yes.  Could I make a quick video about how I make a schedule?  Absolutely.  I think this is the way that I should be working to share my informal learning experiences.

The section on informal learning really inspired me.  While I have been trying various techniques to help with improve the quality of teaching in special education, I have forgotten the most important part of learning, the teachers have to want to learn.  I do not need to start with materials or invitations to visit my classroom.  I need to start with something that makes these teachers want to learn more.  I have to lure them in as the museums have.  I am not sure that my knowledge and passion can be codified and managed, but maybe I could use what I have learned and my reasoning for learning to help others replicate it.  At this point, I have already contacted a parent of one of my students to help me with my plan to do just this.  I would like to create a video detailing how my classroom is structured and specifics of what students and staff do each day, but with added (inspirational, if you will) information.  Things like, how I quit my software engineering job to become a special education teacher, how my son (who doesn't talk or walk at 11) inspires me and how rewarding our jobs can be.  The parent that I asked to do the video with me has a child in my classroom.  This is her third year in my class and 3 years ago at her transition ARD (exiting the Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities (PPCD)), I talked this mom into giving me a chance.  She and her husband had decided that they were going to place their daughter in a private school.  I did not want to see this family spend the money to send their child to this school, when I knew that I could do an amazing job with their daughter.  The mom saw my passion and decided to give me a chance and is thrilled with the education that her daughter is receiving.  That is so rewarding to me.  So, this mom is going to talk about this experience and maybe together we can inspire.  I am not unrealistic in thinking that every teacher will watch the video.  But, I have learned here that the way that I am going to start a true informal learning program to benefit these children is to inspire them to want to learn.

As I said, I was really inspired by this reading and looking forward to trying to change the problem, one teacher at a time.  Thanks for reading my long post.  I hope you found some inspiration as well!