Specialist Education Teachers
Teach academic and living skills to children and adults with learning difficulties, who are blind or have low vision, or are deaf or hard of hearing, and promote students' social, emotional, intellectual and physical development.
A day in the support class
You are a special education teacher with a class of eight students, each with different needs, and a teacher aide to help you. It is 9am and the class is settling. Today the group is due to go to a school excursion in the afternoon, and a few things need your attention first.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
Mateo is refusing to do the writing task. He has torn up the page twice and says he is stupid. I tried telling him to calm down and try again, but it made it worse. What should I do?
Tell Grace to firmly insist he finishes it, so he learns to push through
Mateo shuts down completely and spends the morning in the corner. Pushing harder at the wrong moment made the task bigger and not smaller.
Take over, give Mateo a break and later let him show the same ideas by speaking and drawing before writing a few words
Mateo calms down and tells you a whole story. With support, he writes three sentences, the first in weeks. Grace sees how a change of task can open a door.
Tell Grace to let Mateo skip it today and move on
The morning is calm, but Mateo has learned that tearing up the page works. Giving him a break was kind, and a smaller version of the task would have been better.
Ruby has been coming home upset. She says the work is too easy and the others laugh at her book. I want her to have harder work and be in the regular class more. I think you are holding her back.
Defend your program and tell her that Ruby is in exactly the right place for her needs at the moment
Mrs Hartigan feels dismissed and asks for a meeting with the principal. You may be right about the program, but she has not heard her daughter's worries taken seriously.
Say yes and move Ruby into the regular class straight away, without any plan or support
Ruby is thrown into a class with no plan and little support. She struggles and her confidence drops. Wanting more is good, and a step needs planning.
Thank her, take the laughing seriously, and meet to look at Ruby's work and plan a gradual move
Mrs Hartigan agrees to a staged plan. You look at Ruby's current work and set harder tasks right away. She feels her daughter is seen, and you have a team behind her.
Sorry to ask, but the bus company says we can only take seven from your class this afternoon, not eight. The excursion is already booked. Would one of your students mind staying behind this time?
Choose the student who has the most difficult time on excursions, and leave them behind
The decision is quiet and quick, and the student is left out again. Their family hears about it and rightly feels that the student was treated as the problem.
Ask Mr Doyle to find another bus or sort out the numbers so that all eight can go
After a few calls, the school finds a larger vehicle, and all eight go. Fairness for every student is worth a phone call.
Draw names so the decision is random
The draw feels fair to the adults, but a student is still left behind and confused. Fairness does not always mean treating a missed trip as a lottery.
How it went
By the afternoon Mateo has written his first sentences, Ruby has a plan and all eight students are on the bus. Specialist teachers adapt, plan and advocate, so that students find a way into learning. Would you enjoy working out what one student needs, then making it happen?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The assembly that was too loud
A fictional case set in a support class inside a primary school, working with students who learn in different ways.
The situation
Ms Rahimi taught a small support class at Red Gum Primary. One of her students, Caleb, was a gentle boy who loved to draw and found loud noises overwhelming. Every Friday the whole school gathered for assembly in the hall. Caleb had started to hide under his desk when it was time to go. His parents asked whether he could stay in the classroom, but the principal felt it was important that all students took part in school life.
What they did
Ms Rahimi arranged for Caleb to see the hall when it was empty and quiet, then took him in with headphones on for the first few minutes of assembly. She made a visual timetable he could check. She and Caleb agreed a signal he could use if it became too much, and she planned a quiet job for him with a trusted aide, at the back. She wrote up the plan, discussed it with his parents and the principal and checked in with Caleb each week about what was working.
How it turned out
After some weeks Caleb could manage the full assembly with only occasional breaks. Some Fridays were still hard, and Ms Rahimi adjusted the plan. His parents said it was the first time they had felt his school understood what he needed, and not just what he could not do.
What would you do?
- How is giving a student a way to take part different from keeping them out?
- Why might Ms Rahimi have asked Caleb what would help him?
- How would you handle a disagreement between a family and a principal?