i’m finishing off my first year of teaching at a middle school as a tutorial/resource teacher for the special education students in full inclusion or taking at least one regular class (excluding electives) i’m having trouble with organization and communication with the regular ed teachers. hardly any one communicates with me about lesson plans and pacing guides except for maybe two teachers, i send out letters weekly asking for these items and rarely get any responses. the teachers use me as a behavior bail out when having trouble with “my kids” as some of them put it, i feel i’m very open and friendly when it comes to suggestions but the only time i get any feedback is when the student is doing poorly. i have over 70 students to pull each week alone and it’s difficult to do when you are trying to do one on one or no more than four students at a time. we only have four classes a day 90 minutes each (one of those classes is an elective) i’m getting frustrated because i feel i could be helping the students better but need more help and feedback from their teachers. a lot of the teachers think because i don’t have a “class” of at least 25 students that i’m not doing anything so they use me for testing, subing classes, etc. oh yeah, the regular teachers don’t like me coming into their classes to help “our” students because they say it makes the other students question who i am?(what?) “our” students come to me constantly wanting help but unless we go and check with their teachers about assignments and where they are on the pacing guides (which i just received last week after we’ve been in school for almost three months) i’m clueless. i’m at the point now where i feel like telling the principal that i’d rather teach a study skills class then tutor.
Re: first year special ed tutorial teacher needs help
Oh, one thing you might be able to do is figure out some things you could do that really would benefit *all* students — like helping with lesson plans that are more interesting and multisensory.
reg. ed/spec. ed
I’m coming in late on this but… if we must try to look at the bright side, I’d guess I’d say - let the sad silence of the reg. ed teachers be a signal that all is well with ‘your kids’. When they tell you they’re doing poorly, that’s when you know you must step in if possible.
Your caseload is of course way too big but that’s the system’s fault and not yours and will limit what you can accomplish. If they don’t want you in their classrooms, you can either fight that battle or use the time to work with students - may you ‘pull’ them?
I find these days that so much homework is assigned and expected that if you do nothing other than help them with their homework, you’re doing a lot and a lot for them too. Sometimes instruction in study skills takes years to pay off and help with homework pays off in the very next class.
And the more you can help ‘your kids’ to be successful in the very classrooms they’re in now, the more accepting of you and your kids reg. ed teachers will be. In the best of all possible worlds they should respond to your weekly requests if no other reason than to be polite, but these days many teachers feel overwhelmed by their work load and their paper load.
Good luck to you. Every school should have more teachers like you.
reply
Dear 1st yr middle school sped teacher: Keep up the great work! You are on the right track. I know it’s frustrating, but try to rmember that it isn’t easy for reg ed teachers to accept new teachers and new ways of doing bussiness~This is a common complaint of education in general: Lack of good Communication between staff-both administration and certified.
The reg ed teachers probably respect your involvement more than you know. There will always be the negative teachers~both sped world and beyond (reg ed), who will have difficulty seeing the whole picture. Since you have sped backgrd, you will learn tolerance for those teachers and find a way to work on a day to day basis with them~as our students have had to learn.
You already have several teachers who are working with you-providing you with their guidelines. This is a good start-keep working on the others. Your students will greatly appreciate your efforts. Also, DO keep your administrators informed on what you are doing/how and results. Statistics and work samples help. Good Luck
PS: When starting something new, the 2nd yr is always better.
Gosh, you haven’t gotten replies :( I’m afraid when I saw that trend I quit public schools to go private where I would still be teaching skills.
Basically, if you want things to change it’s going to take plannign and time — any way to set that up? Is there an admin who would work with you? Seems to me what’s happening is inclusion has been thrust upon the system as an add-on and nobody knows how to make it work. Can you get inservice points or something for doing some research and collaboration to figure out a better role than unglorified teacher’s aide? (There are some good ideas on this site for helping inclusion work, and at www.powerof2.org as well.)
One thing I tried to do with students I monitored (didn’t even go into the classroom) was get a regular detailed feedback form from them. However, it really wasn’t that effective. And it seemed the whole process was simply a ticket for the teacher to be able to say “well, it’s not *my* job to reach him, hope that special ed teacher can” — easy enough when you’re alreayd trying to juggle too much.