Special Education Today newsletter 3(36)
The news and info for 26 February 2024
And we’re away into the month of March! To help you start the month, here’s yet another issue of Special Education Today. It’s a quick one. Thanks for reading!
The issue’s contents will be familiar. You’ll find (a) a table of contents listing the posts from last week, (b) a couple of notes about subscribers and their activities, and (c) a dash of commentary. There’s the advance organizer. Read on!
Table of contents
Here is the usual list of post from the previous week. There were 10 posts (including the newsletter of 26 February) for that last week that began in February and then spilled into the first few days of March 2024. As usual, they are in chronological order, FIFI
Special Education Today Newsletter 3(35): Anyone tired of this project yet?
Developmental disabilities awareness month: Wait...what's special about the next month?
Ruth Gottesman endows med school tuition: What's the story about this $1 billion gift from a professor of special education?
ASD, neurodiversity, advocacy, & behavior analysis: What can we take away from the overlap among these topics? (Reprinted in the newsletter of the Association for Science in Autism Treatment; see the later post about the ASAT newsletter)
Misleading ratings of literacy curricula: What could be the matter?
IRIS behavior modules: Anyone need some good basics on behavioral principles?
Reforming reading instruction: eating elephants and pushing back: What about some analyses of literacy reform in the press?
Celebrating businesses that hire individuals with disabilities: Where do you stop for coffee?
ASAT newsletter for March 2024: Have you read this month's issue yet?
Snippets: Notes from the SET beat: March 2024: What's been happening?
Status and appreciation
I am grateful for readers dissemination efforts. Our community grew by 10-12 this past week. There are nearly 670 subscribers to SET over all. In the past month several people opted to provide financial support for the project, too; about 7% of all the subscribers pay for their subscriptions. (I’ve got notes of thanks in a subsequent paragraph for a couple of y’all!)
Thanks to everyone who shared posts this past week (or anytime, actually), whether by using the official sharing function of by passing along links, forwarding email messages, or etc. Please keep clicking on those share buttons (and equivalents). Not each share will increase the base of addresses, but I appreciate your help.
Speaking of interacting with SET, here are some thanks for folks.
I’d especially like to thank Jane B. and Dan H. for dropping comments in the past week. I keep hoping your contributions will spark conversations among readers; those conversations won’t get started unless reader like Dan and Jane provide fodder to ignite them. o thank all y’all who subscribe and read SET.
For sharing here are special shoutouts for Jane B. and Stephanie J. It’s very nice that you’ve used the share option to alert others to what you’re reading on SET. Thanks!
For dropping “likes,” I’d to flash the old electrons to folks who clicked the “like” button on a post (and some of you clicked it on more than one post—double or triple “yay”): Michael R., Adelaide D., Jane B., Michael K., Sarah S., Ed S, Clay K., Dan H., Laura M., and at least two readers whom I cannot identify because their profiles are empty (I don’t know how one has an anonymous Substack profile…interesting).
Commentary
These are three views of the water courses near my home. All three are from the same day; the time of the photos is only separated by a few minutes. The order reflects my walk upstream one afternoon.
I like living near water courses. A beach house has water, too; I’ve visited lots of beach houses, but my experience at them hasn’t been as pleasing as being near flowing water. A lake house might be okay; having not lived at one or stayed at one for an extended time, I just don’t know. (I have a photo of Barb Bateman and me wading in Diamond Lake when we visited her family’s cabin 30 years ago; that was nice—I do remember a magical morning watching eagles and a family of otters when I sat for 30 min on a tiny pier over the laker after an early, high-altitude run.)
I regret that I shall not be in San Antonio, Texas, for this year’s convention of the Council for Exceptional Children. I first attended a CEC Convention in 1975 in Los Angeles. At that first meeting, I remember being amazed (“shocked” might be a better word) about how many exhibitors were selling and how many speakers were championing materials, methods, and practices that appeared to me to have zero evidence that they were actually beneficial for students at all, let alone for those who had disabilities. Those hours at that meeting nearly 50 years ago supercharged my grad-student resolve to promote evidence-based education. I’ve pretty much been campaigning for effective instruction ever since. In part, I suppose, one can blame the existence of SET on that experience.
I’ll miss the opportunities that come with attending the CEC Convention—along with, what, 4000 other people? I won’t get any photos to add to my CEC collection (some of those from 2023 are here, here, here, here, and here) nor will I have the chance to visit with the folks in those photos and many others from whom I can learn a lot in conversation and discussion. I won’t attend a few sessions where I hope people with report about how to refine and improve special education services. I shan’t have the chance to meet new folks with whom I share interests and maybe even opinions about special education. I won’t have a chance to walk along the River Walk and eat at local restaurants. Oh, right, I’ll miss the parties…err, uhm…The Receptions! Ahh well, here’s to all y’all who are attending.
Well, that’s going to have to do it for this week’s editorial comments. I’m all wrote out. However, I am compelled to reiterate my regular recommendations about actions that I hope you, dear readers, take: Wear your seatbelts; drive carefully; take steps to stay healthy and help others stay healthy; and, please, teach your children systematically, explicitly, and effectively.
JohnL
SET Editor guy
Charlottesville
SET should not be confused with a product with the same name that is published by the Council for Exceptional Children nor other products with similar names. SET predated other publication by decades. Despite my appreciation for CEC and the efforts by others to promote special education, this product is not designed to promote other organizations or publications.