Dear dear readers,
Thank you for your perseverance with my posts on Special Education Today. As you may have realized, I have some passion regarding special education and individuals with disabilities. I hope I am conveying that passion in this medium, and I appreciate you following the posts.
Here, today 24 December 2021, I will quickly post notes about my view of individuals with disabilities and special education—and habilitation and rehabilitation. Please allow me to provide an incomplete list of points about what I wish SET does.
I wish that SET makes clear that people (children, youths, and adults) with disabilities are people. Just like me, they have thoughts, feelings, aspirations, sadnesses, and a host of other human features.
I wish that SET documents that some methods of helping individuals with disabilities have been shown to provide greater benefits to those individuals than other methods…and that we should advocate for society to use demontrably more effective methods.
I wish that SET makes clear that people who provide services (teachers, parents, teaching assistants, OTs, PTs, psychologists) are also people. Any of them (us) may get confused about things, but I hope SET encourages them to think about “things” in logical and evidence-based ways.
I wish that SET makes outcomes better for children, parents, teachers, and others engaged in or concerned about individuals with disabilities. I see “better” as referrring to individuals being more accomplished, more capable, more independent, more collaborative, more caring, and more able to access “normal” systems.
These are my holiday wishes for you, dear readers. To be sure, I wish you love, peace, joy, and many other wonderful holiday hopes. But, with regard to SET, I thank you for your reading, and I hope you can promote these and similar wishes with others. If you can, please tell some combination of Buddha, Santa, world leaders…etc…that we give a damn about these wishes.
Happy holidays,
—JohnL