Lack of Support Effects Us All

Thanks to the Gradebook for keeping tabs.

I wrote about this issue in February regarding the SpEd teacher accused of mistreating her students. If one is in doubt, click on the link to the reports the investigators made, and then read them.

I followed my first post with this one.

There is today a follow up story.

My focus is not about the acts of the teacher. My focus is on the systemic issues that face all of us, not just special education teachers, students, and parents.

My focus is on the "lack of support" in all phases of our education system. This includes lack of support in educating the educators and providing support to the educators. I have read reports that have found that the single most reported reason why teachers leave the profession is lack of professional support.

Below is an excerpt from the Herald Tribune that frames the issue:

"The turnover rate among special-needs teachers is one of the highest in the profession, with Florida losing about 14 percent of the educators in this area each year.

The high stress of the job, along with what teachers say is limited support and resources, drives people out of these classrooms.

"They don't spend enough money on training, and they don't give them enough support," said Sharon Boyd, a member of the Charlotte County chapter of the advocacy group Autism Speaks. "No wonder no one wants to do it."

Finding full-time certified teachers to fill the spots is a challenge under the most normal circumstances.

Recruiting substitutes who typically do not have the same training or experience is even more difficult.

"What seems to happen is the individual working with them doesn't really have good training in how to handle unusual behavior," said Peter Wright, an attorney and advocate for special-needs children. "They get frustrated.""


Behavior of a student is the most critical issue educators face. How to appropriately address behavior may be the most missed aspect of our educational systems.

Behavior is communication. Pure and simple. Yet, instead of trying to understand what is being communicated and addressing the issue, all too often we attempt to address the behavior.

I will relate a story to illustrate my point. Years ago when my son was around six or seven, on some days on the way to school he would start kicking the dashboard and flailing around. To make a long story monotonous, I finally figured out that it was because I didn't stop at McDonalds on those days. It took me weeks to figure out that most days I stopped and got coffee for me and a cinnamon roll whatever for him. But some days I didn't, and he went nuts. His reaction was delayed, therefore making what could have been a more readily recognized correlation between passing McDonalds and the onset of his fit. So I would say what I have so many times hear teachers say: "For no reason at all, he just started hitting the dashboard".

I could blame my son. Or I could blame myself because I did not understand what he was "saying". The fact that he was communicating in a manner that was unacceptable not only did not get him what he wanted, it brought on consequences that made matters worse. For both of us. Because I could not understand kicking the dashboard miles down the road as "Dad, you didn't stop at McDonalds" or "Dad, I wanted a cini-mini".

It was my job, as a responsible adult,to learn what he was trying to communicate. It was my job, as a responsible adult, to then educate him on how to communicate more appropriately.

Years later, I had another one of these moments. My son had come home from the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf/Blind in New York. The morning we were to go to the airport to go back, he was in his room rummaging around, obviously looking for something in his electronic game stuff. I kept signing to him it was time to go. He kept rummaging. I kept signing. Finally, I physically moved him out of his room and off we went.

When we finally got to his room at HKNC, we opened up his luggage to get out the new Play Station games he so loves to play. But there was no eagerness on his part. I kept prodding and he signed "game broke". He was right. I asked the staff what was wrong with the system and they said he was missing some kind of cable the game system needed. It hit me then that that was what he was trying to find, many hours ago. I still get emotionally overwhelmed at my shortcomings, not his.

Our system is unfortunately more about punishing behaviors as an attempt to extinguish them. I have a pretty good understanding of operant conditioning. I also know that we will get more of what we pay attention to. The logical extension of that statement is that if we focus on negative behavior, even though we may be trying to extinguish it, because we have chosen to focus on it, we will get more of it. When kids get angry at us, it may be that their only goal (although misplaced) is to get us angry. They will face whatever consequences comes to them as long as they know we are angry too.


What we fail to recognize is that if we just had the capability of translating their behaviors correctly, then dealt with the real issue, most negative behaviors would lessen.


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I just read this from an e-mail sent to me.

Amanda Baggs says it better than me:


"These forms of nonverbal stimuli constitute her "native language," Baggs explains, and are no better or worse than spoken language. Yet her failure to speak is seen as a deficit, she says, while other people's failure to learn her language is seen as natural and acceptable."