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Beginning Reflection
My immediate responseand I find this reaction occurring with increasing frequency as
I further my educationwhen I think of a teaching a student with special needs, is that I await
the challenge and hope I can use the tools I have acquired through my education to bring out the
best in the abilities of the student. A combination of my Child and Adolescent Development
course, as well as Educational Psychology and even Childrens Literature have contributed to
this approach, making me feel empowered rather than bewildered by the challenge of a student
with exceptional abilities.
I think to a certain degree that the best environment for a student with exceptional
learning is usually to be integrated with the rest of the class normatively, with supplement time
set aside to accommodate either their disability or naturally-high aptitude. This would ensure that
not only is the student obtaining their education in the least restrictive environment, but that their
unique needs as an individual are being addressed. When I was in elementary school, I was in a
program called Gifted and Talented, a head-start program for students who exhibited test scores
in the highest range of their grade. This class was in place of Homeroom and served to further
stimulate my learning, teaching me essay-writing, citations, complex sentence formulation, and
even Blooms Taxonomy, all by age seven. In hindsight, I found it invaluable in keeping me
competitive in the classroom, as my organization skills were abysmal for most of my childhood
and adolescence.
Conversely, students with disabilities would benefit from this supplemental education
opportunity, in that they would be given individualized attention in order to determine that the
information presented in class is comprehended and does not overwhelm them. We as educators

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should do all that they can to ensure that students do not fall down the slippery slope of falling
behind curriculum.
In order to keep students in the least-restrictive environment and normalize their
opportunities in the classroom, accommodations should absolutely be make for students of
exceptional needs. If its a vocoder, an ASL translator, a seat at the front of the class,
supplemental homework, and so on, we should provide students with any tool at our disposal to
keep them up with the rest of the class and achieving at their maximum ability.
I am very much interested in becoming a gifted and talented program educator. I have
always had an interest in developmental psychology and feel that my empathy and
communication skills would be put to use in a challenging and rewarding way for having been
able to further the opportunities naturally gifted students have. As I would enjoy this with gifted
and talented students, so would I in a classroom of AP studentsin History or Government or
Economy, for instanceor a classroom at any level. My goal as an educator is to give my
students the best shot I can to seek their goals, both inside and outside of academia.

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Middle Reflection
I feel as if I am better-equipped than ever to handle teaching a student with special needs.
I think my classroom experience has turned my opinion toward being more open to teaching
students of all stripes, though I would still love to teach individuals with gifts and talents the
most.
My view on inclusion for students with special needs in the classroom has still not
changed. I still believe they should be afforded the least-restrictive environment and that school
systems should do whatever possible to accommodate students in a way which allows them to
experience school in the least-disruptive way possible while not slowing down or sacrificing the
lesson for the other students in the classroom.
I think one aspect for different learners as well as special-needs learners would be to
integrate visual, auditory, and tactile aspects into my lesson plans. This is something I did not
mention in my previous reflection, but I am now more cognizant than before of the
misinterpretations possible in diagnosing or recognizing learning disabilities and special needs in
students. Every effort on my part should be made to make sure a student is learning how they
best learn, not one pre-defined system which judges them.
I am still very interested in pursuing my education to bend toward teaching gifted and
talented students. I aspire to teach AP government, AP economy, and AP history courses for high
school students, and to better prepare them for a successful beginning to their college education.
Education to me is the most important factor in propelling our society to become better to
itself, for itself, and to break the cycle of poverty which cause many to view themselves with low
self-esteem they would not otherwise have if they were not looked down upon by others for their

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particular style of learning. I believe in a different kind of no child left behind, and regulations
have little to do with it. Teaching is about human connection and bringing out the ability in each
student, regardless of their advantages or disadvantages.
I have not been exposed to any other resources besides the text at the moment, but this
coming Thursday on October 23rd, I will begin tutoring a special needs 3rd grader to help out in
my local school district. This will be accompanied by putting in my classroom observations at an
elementary school special education resource room, and I anticipate the learning experience and
the perspective change I will receive as this semester is coming to a close.
I think the IDEA 2004 changes detailed in Exceptional Learners are exactly in line with
my thinking as to what is best for students with special needs (Hallahan, Kauffman, & Pullen,
2014, p. 22-42). The IEP system, multi-tiered response strategies, and emphasis on inclusion are,
in my view, the most effective way to make the most out of a situation which could otherwise
result in severe societal disadvantage.

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References
Hallahan, D., Kauffman, J., & Pullen, P. (2014). Exceptional learners (12th ed., Pearson new
international ed.). Pearson.

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End Reflection
Not one of these kids asked to be this way, Melanie Gross explained to me the first
time we had the chance to speak in private. She has taught for thirty-three years and when I
asked her how long she would like to keep teaching, she spit-balled: Fifty is a nice round
number.
I observed Mrs. Gross special education resource room at Stringtown Elementary for a
month with students between the ages of six and nine, who all suffer from a variety of learning
disabilities or neurological conditions. They were all in the same class and would be called in
sequence to a semi-circle table in the back, centered on the teacher, as she worked on particular
curriculum unique to each set of students she called up. The classroom was in the basement, with
only one other room, occupied by a teacher fresh out of college, her first year teaching.
While I realized the assignment was to observe, I walked in the room in mid-October and
felt a dozen pairs of eyes settle on me. Mrs. Gross was in the back of the class working with the
second-graders on words like hop, light, stop, and gotwords their age peers could
have been able to spell back and forth and every which ways, but most of the students were
struggling to pronounce light, to which Mrs. Gross replied the phrase I would mimic for a month:
Sound it out. A cacophony of luh-eye-guh-huh-tuh followed, with sss-tuh-ah-puh and so
on.
I was not prompted by her to do so but I immediately began to help the students still
seated at their named desks with their assignmentsthird graders struggling with the word
about or the problem 171 minus 90 or word problems intended to help with perspective.

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Some gravitated toward me and some were shy. By my final visit, they were raising their hands
and boldly asking, Mr. Dimmett, can you help me with this?
I could, and I did, and I have not stopped being bothered by the nagging sense that it was
not fair for these students to have to struggle with things their peers could do at the snap of a
finger. Some of them were perfectly intelligent but for trouble with reading or trouble with
numbers. One had dyslexia. Most of them at some point showed visible frustration with their
inability to intuit the answers to basic questions, like they knew they were behind the curve and
suddenly felt all of it behind their eyelids.
My regard for special education is still the same: it is absolutely necessary, and very
positive for them not to be sequestered away from the rest of their age-peers. My feelings on the
matter have only been reinforced by working more closely with the students struggling. They did
not ask to be this way, not one of them. If anything, I am more compassionate than before and
more open to the idea of teaching special education than before.
I asked Melanie if she felt like sometimes she was rearranging the deck chairs on the
Titanic and she said that while sometimes it is very frustrating, she has seen kids in her class who
did not have the motor skills to pick up a pencil properly leave her classroom being able to write
their own names, and that was enough for her. She told me one student in particular to work with
who was struggling with spelling her name and I set to work with her on letter flashcards.
By the time we were done, she could spell her own name. We repeated it the next time I
was in class and she nailed it. It did not feel like rearranging chairs at all. It felt like helping.