Basically. I can't even refer to myself as a special education teacher
in my current district on my staff webpage if I want to put anything
that my students have done on that page. I'm going to start my students
doing audio-blogs using Audacity (as soon as I have time to get trained
on the software!), but in order to do that, all references to me being a
special education teacher had to be removed. The district doesn't allow
us to identify students as receiving services, so if I'm a special
education teacher, and post work that "my students" did, I've identified
them.
I'm definitely not allowed to say, even in an IEP meeting, that a
student has mental retardation. And this is at the point where we're
doing a re-evaluation and the child has had that label since they were
4, and they're 18 now. We never ever say it in the IEP meeting itself;
we usually just refer to my classes as "smaller classes with more
attention". And, I'm ALWAYS getting in trouble for being too blunt and
using "emotionally laden" words. I'm really bad at that ... I hate
beating around the bush.
Magi
Yves wrote:
Magi's comments are spot on. Thank you; you expressed my thoughts that I
could not put words to. (Guess that's why I teach math!)
>From experiences in my district, I know that we are expected as teachers
to not discuss controversial topics with students without specific
parent approval. The most difficult part is identifying the
controversial topics before you actually reach that point in your
discussions.
This is frustrating! I kept rewriting a paragraph illustrating real life
examples where teachers I know have gotten suspended for responding to
students questions about topics that people outside of school speak
about all the time, that I am actually choosing not to include now
because I want to make sure it doesn't come back to haunt me out of
context (once on the Internet, forever on the Internet). Teachers are,
with somewhat a good reason, guilty until proven innocent. Is this
censorship of sorts? Yes. Is it life? Unfortunately, yes.
Yves
On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 18:38:24 -0500, "Magi D. Shepley"
<magid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:
Okay... I'm only going to explain this one time: I cannot and will not
present information to the students in my class if my principal or the
parents object. I need to keep that paycheck coming so I don't wind up
living in a house made of empty Fluxx boxes.
Personal opinion aside, whether or not I think some of the
administrators that I've worked with are loony tunes (and NOT from
playing Looney Labs games!), I have started to learn that stepping over
those lines in the sand just aren't worht it!
Magi