Reading Summary

SPED 3100

January 16, 2015

Ashley Kania

Special Education seems to be a subject that evokes an abundant amount of various

responses. Depending on the person you ask, some of the responses could be ones that hold
respect for the people who choose this profession and advocates for the rights of students with
disabilities or it could be the complete opposite and the reaction could be one of someone who
expects for these students to be completely separate from the normal children in school and
just bring unnecessary finances that take up tax dollars. While there are many opinions of special
education, this chapter goes into finding what exactly is special about special education. It is
not that special educators are special but this chapter seems to say that the program is more
personalized to meet the individualized needs of these students with disabilities. However the
case may be that these special education teachers arent special, a lot of the time it is found
they are not ordinary either.
Teaching special education does not come with one standard way or setting for each
student to go into. Throughout the chapter it is mentioned about some of the different settings for
students with special needs may need in order for them to prosper. The settings and teaching that
goes along with the setting that are briefly covered in this chapter include an inclusive classroom
with a general education teaching, co-teaching in a general education classroom, a resource
classroom, and a self-contained special education classroom. There are some similarities between
the settings, but each serves its separate purpose for the students educational needs. One of the
similarities to point out are that the big difference between the co-teaching and inclusive
classroom is that in co-teaching classroom there is also a special education teacher that is
present. In an inclusive classroom there is only a general education teacher that oversees both the
students with disabilities and those who dont have disabilities.
A major point of the chapter was about the professional disposition of a teacher and what
it means to be a committed professional. This point seemed to tie into many of the other points

Reading Summary
SPED 3100

January 16, 2015

Ashley Kania

that were made throughout the chapter because it is so important to understand how much it
means for a teacher, especially a special education teacher, to have a professional disposition.
This disposition shows that you must accept that you have a responsibility to work with all
students regardless of their different challenges or special needs. (p. 17). Being a professional, it
is important that your disposition reflect a positive attitude for the every student so that every
child feels that they are important as a student. While these professionals are making every
student feel important it is essential that they remain fair, be caring and show respect. The text
expresses respects very adequately of what it should be: Respect means that a teacher interacts
with students in a ways that acknowledged their humanity and strengths. (p.18) Once a teacher
has all of these qualities of a professional, they need to be dedicated and be motivated to be the
best teacher they can be for these students.
While there seems to be a lot of positive big points in the chapter, one point that I could
consider as a muddy point would be the topic of teachers using evidence based practice. There
are many reasons that the use of evidence based instruction can be beneficial to students in the
special needs program as the specific method may have been successful for many students before
but this doesnt seem to be something that should be required. When the word required is used,
its not necessarily stated that its required, but it seems like it is implied. It may be conventional
to use evidence based instruction because there has been success in the past, but that just goes to
show that it was in the past. In a fast changing world with new advances of technology coming
out all of the time sometimes these methods wont work as well because the world has changed
so much that the method needs to be updated and adapt to the new world. These methods should
definitely not be forgotten, but instead built upon and integrated into methods that apply to all of
the new advances and changes of the special education classrooms of today.