Open the Door

When I taught high school resource, half of my day was spent teaching history, 1/4 was spent teaching a resource pull-out class, and 1/4 of my day was for prep, writing IEPs, and pushing into general education classrooms. There was a question I got often.

General Ed Teacher: "I have prep 4th period, are you teaching then? I'd like to work on something with you."

Me: "I have pull-out time then, so yeah, I have students in my class."

General Ed Teacher: "Oh! Okay, so you're not teaching, though? Can you come by my room then?"

In this case, innocent enough. I wasn't teaching something that most general education teachers can relate to. My job is a mystery, full of acronyms and ideas hard to translate from special education jargon to general education jargon. It's a reality of the job, and that's okay. 

Then there was this:

General Education Teacher: "This class sizes are out of control. I have 35 in my 5th period algebra class. How many do you have in your biggest class?"

Me: :embarrassed: "Um, well...I have 21."

General Education Teacher: "21? Seriously? So you see what, 65 kids over the course of a week? I have over 180!"

Or this: 

General Education Teacher: "Kid X failed the final, but they have a C overall in class. Why do I have to pass them? They got a 57% on the final, which means they didn't learn anything in class."

Me: "Getting a 57% on the final means they got a 57% on one test on one day..."

The teacher turned, walked away, then shouted across the main office, "SPOKEN LIKE A TRUE SPECIAL ED TEACHER."

I don't get angry at these comments anymore. OK, I got angry at the teacher who tried to humiliate me in the office. But these comments are generally born of ignorance, not malice. We don't share experiences. I don't have 180 essays to grade or had 40 students in one class period. By the same token, the teachers making those comments have never written an IEP or administered the Woodcock-Johnson.

My BTSA support provider was an English teacher. She had never supported a special education teacher before, so she was surprised to find that my resource pull-out classes were full of activity. She made the comment, "I'd thought these pull-out classes were just another study hall period. Wow, you keep these kids moving!" Yep. They had individual goals to work on, and post-high school planning to do. After seeing my class in action, my support provider made it a point to correct other teachers who expected me to be available to meet during my pull-out time: "It's not a free period for the resource teachers. They're teaching during that time."

I'd love for more teachers to come visit my class. I'd also love to go visit more general education classes. I think we have a lot to offer each other and it would only benefit students to foster more understanding across domains and subject areas. Not just between special education and general ed, but between career/technical education and college-prep. Fine arts and science. Math and world languages. How do we foster understanding and break down ignorance of what other teachers do? We go see them in action.

It's a practice that needs support from administration - in order to be able to visit other teachers during class time, we need to be provided time to do so. It also needs buy-in from other teachers. We need to be willing not only to open our doors, but to step outside of them and seek out teachers we may not know very well. That takes some bravery and a school culture that fosters trust and willingness to add one more item to an overfull plate. We need to trust that taking our already precious time to visit will be valuable.

At the end of ten years of teaching I've seen this in action once. It led to a lot of great collaboration across disciplines that extended beyond the end of the class visitation program. Is this happening in your schools? What does that administrative support look like? How much buy-in among teachers is there? Is it ongoing or was it one-off? What happens after the visits?