Please advise me. I am majoring in SpEd and need advice.

I love what I do. But if I knew 20 years ago, what I know now, I wouldn’t have. If I had four children, my family would get free lunches! And the ‘public’ says we are overpaid. The day to day business is emotionally exhausting. You pour yourself into the job everyday, writing IEP’s late into the night, My classroom budget has been cut from $3,000 to 400. in the last 10 years. I use to have an aide for my classroom, now I share one with 3 other teachers.

I would give it a lot of thought too. Your family needs to come first. In education, it is really tough to do. Once you are done with your degree, you will find out you will have to go and get extra training on your own if you really want to help the kids. The colleges do not provide training in methods/materials that work.
Sorry so negative, just trying to be real.

That is absolutely true, you will have to go to training after college to learn methods to remediate reading disorders. Then you will work in a school where you are given too many children at one time to do any good. If you want to combine helping dyslexic children and having enough time for your family, I’d strongly suggest taking one of the best reading trainings and tutor children at a schedule you set. I’d consider Lindamood Bell or Wilson, as they will train you and give you all the materials to use once you buy their kits. Or PhonoGraphix…I am certified in that. A college special ed. degree will not prepare you to help dyslexic chidlren and the schools will not usually let you work one-on-one so you could relaly make a difference. You can take Lindamood Bell trainings (LiPS, Seeing Stars, and Visualizing and Verbalizing- V/V) in 7 days at about $1400. The kits will cost another $700. A week of Phono-graphix training is about $750 and that includes a kit (but you’d still then need to take V/V for comprehension). You can probably charge anywhere from $30-50 an hour depending on where you live.

Sorry to discourage you, but few special ed. programs in schools are set up to be effective.

Janis

To continue on with the same train of thought, I went into Special Ed because I love working with children-especially those considered a challenge. However, the amount of paperwork, money we spend on our students, continuing education classes (at our own expense), and more and more children with behavior problems in the LD program have caused me to rethink whether or not I will stay in teaching. Your family needs to come first and they probably won’t once you step into the classroom.

Thank you so much for your honesty. I am currently finalizing a presentation to my class about how unprepared General Ed and even SpEd teachers are to meet the needs of their LD students. I enjoy the presentations and writings of Rick Lavoie.

Do you mind if I lurk?

I agree with Janis and the others. After having taught in the field for 7 years, what I know about teaching students with learning disabilities and/or reading difficulties has come from self searching—not from my traditional training in Learning Disabilities from a reputable college. What I learned in my preparation there was a thorough understanding of the special ed “process” and the importance of “compliance.” Your money would be better spent taking training in the various programs designed for kids with unique learning needs. Ironically, I am finishing my masters and am looking at a combined total of over $25,000 in loan repayment only to learn that as a special education teacher who has finally stumbled upon some programs (recommended in the posts here) that are resulting in real gains for my students, I am not even considered “highly qualified” under No Child Left Behind.

I’ll include myself in all this. I’ve learned more reading this board and my own investigations— including: reading Reading Reflex and a sister book on Dyslexia; going thru (very slowly) V/V; Seeing Stars; LiPs; and then getting a couple of Susan Barton’s excellent OG offshoot “Barton Reading and Spelling, then I have the whole however many years I was in special ed. Prolly was less expensive, even though it wasn’t cheap.

*Most* of my special ed classes consisted of cut and paste exercises; making up little booklets and the like. I had one happy exception where I had one teacher who was OG trained and an excellent teacher.

I ended up not handling the politics and other nastiness (like the teacher’s lounge) of public school teaching, and ended up taking a drastic pay cut and working in private schools and day programs for mentally retarded and autistic adults. And now I am trying to start a private practice tutoring.
The one exception to the public school nonsense was that I worked in a federally funded center for the deaf-blind. None of the above was at all typical teaching.

—des

Special Ed (Behavior Disorders) was my call in life. I answered the call, the career was tough, but God has more than honored myself and my family. If you’re a special ed teacher - have you a choice but to answer that call? If not, sell something and get rich. Ken

Well I did do special ed, but unfortunately I made even less than a public school salary. I don’t regret it and I would do it again, I suppose. If I were to do it again, I would have started a private practice a lot sooner.

—des

I love what I do, but to do it the way I want is to take the pay cut and work in a private school for LD kids. Most schools for LD students are more understanding if you need family time, particularly for Dr.’s appts. and IEP meetings for your own children; however, be prepared to work long into the night. You really should get a masters degree to have a stronger base for teaching and go to as many workshops as you can. I get so angry when the proponents of inclusion say that inclusion will work if the teachers get more training. If they got more training, then they would be special education teachers!! Good luck, and don’t get discouraged.

Fern

What a double-edged sword inclusion is. One group wants the kids in where they belong, singing and playing with their peers. Forgetting that if someone doesn’t have the time and expertise to help them they languish.

Then there are the cynical anti-education politicians who latch on to inclusion as a cheap way out.

A caring society would give the children the help they need as best we can afford. leaving no child to languish. Alas, but I’m dreaming again.

:? I hate to be a downer here as well but with NCLB legislation and the lack of funding to education in our country at the present moment, I wouldn’t go into teaching. Special ed is a difficult area to teach. I agree with the other posters. I would get training in Grapho-Phonixs or the Orton-Gillingham approach and be a high price tutor. I will never go back to special ed if I can help it. I prefer being a regular classroom teacher. Sometimes I feel I can help the spec. ed. kids better by making the majority of their day less frustrating by modifying and accommodating for their needs.

Well I don’t know how hard it would be to go into tutoring (high price or not) with NO teaching experience. People want a tutor with experience. What will you say in your ad or when asked. Nah, I have no experience, but gods I’m good. :-)

As for the high price stuff, I think the only way you can really legitimately do that is be a Lindamood Bell tutor. Or maybe be Lindamood or Bell! :-)
I’m not so high a price one. I think you charge what the market will bear and if you live in New Mexico or Arkansas or Mississippi or.. you wont’ be a high price tutor and if you live in NY or CA you will be. Also you DO have to consider who can afford to pay your rates.

Anyway I hate to rain on your parade and all but an inexperienced person hasn’t a prayer of making much of a living tutoring. I think seriously though you could work for someone and get your experience that way.

—des

I have been both an LD teacher as well as a general ed teacher. and I have to say the paper work is bad in both rooms. In gen. ed you have more students with longer assignments in the upper el. and it takes time. IN sped you have fewer kids with more paperwork. Honestly, it was probably worse in general ed if I counted the hours I spent.

Our district is going ONLINE with IEP’s. I think this might be the new trend. THis first year it will take time to enter the initial info. Next year, we will only have to revise a few sections. No more will we have to enter the student number or name on a 19 pages of IEPs or the date etc.. NO MORE REDUNDANT STUFF. Yippee. The goals are in a library that we can copy and paste. After this year, our paperwork will be greatly decreased via these IEPS. IEPS do take up time. Other documentation will remain. We are picking fewer goals to monitor. We are trying for 1 or 2 goals per subject. This will give more time to teach. Of course we still teach to many other goals, but we won’t need to do extensive documentation on those goals.

In Special ed, your kiddos learn because of you. In general ed, they learn whether you are good or bad. This is why I love my job. There are so many bad, clueless teachers I feel I am needed. My kids won’t leave my class. They are so needy.

I agree that we have too many kids with little help. I do the best I can.

You will probably make a great teacher because you have walked in the shoes of the mothers and fathers you will meet.

We need excellent teachers. If you think you have what it takes, go for it. It won’t be easy. Don’t depend on the college to prepare you. Get some good training in some reading program as was mentioned. Do it now, while you have time if you have the money.

Before you take a job, check out the position. Not all postitions are equal. I have 23 kids on my caseload. A teacher I know has only 12 and she is down the street. I have 2 ED and one MIMD class that feeds into my LD class. The other lady has nothing feeding into her class except plain old LD kiddos. Ask how many kids you will cap out at during the interview. SInce you will be in demand (most likely) you might tell them this will weigh into your decision just to send those a message for the rest of us that it matters. Ha. I know one teacher who only had 5 kids on his caseload last year. We all are on the same pay scale. Do your homework.

It is frustrating yet oh so rewarding.

Good luck.

Michelle Az