Welcome to the 44th issue for the first year of Special Education Today! As I assembled this issue, it was the 17th of April 2022 and you’ll receive it the 18th. I’ve been busy this past week, and you’ll see some of the products of that business in this newsletter.

You’ll find notes about what’s appeared since the previous issue (i.e., the “ToC”). There’s also some accounting of recent changes in the community and a list of members who’ve contributed to the community and some half-baked commentary.

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Fundamentals

SET has grown over the past week. We have added maybe 20 new sign-ups in the past week and lost zero. Many of the new sign-ups are from addresses that I don’t recognize (i.e., they are not my academic pals). I love this! I’m very happy to have teachers, parents, and administrators joining the community. I encourage all members to interact with each other: comment, like, comment on comments. Share…share…share!

Electronic Flashes

Here’s a special welcome to all y’all (I’m from Richmond, VA, so I know that “all y’all” is the plural) who signed up since 10 or 11 April 2022. If you read extensively, you’ll discover that there are members of the community who interact often on the site. I’m flashing electrons to some of those folks:

• Members who have frequently commented on posts over the past 30 days: Jane B., Ed M., Julia L., Jesse F., John R., Dan H., Lorraine S., Michael L., Luann D., and Sheldon H. Thank you!

• Members who have viewed lots of posts the past week: Jane B., Ed M., Julia L., Lorraine S., Jessie F., John R., Dan H., and Michael L. Thanks for visiting often!

Thanks to all y’all!

Quasi ToC

There were seven posts since the previous newsletter. Read those that you find interesting. Of course, I hope you find all of them interesting and read them all (and comment, like, share)! Here they are, from oldest to newest.

• It’s great to promote disability awareness!—What’s the matter with “Autism Awareness” month?

• Concerns about brain-based analyses—Are we chasing the right squirrel?

• Notes about the Midwest Symposium for Leadership in BD—What can we learn from MSLBD? https://www.specialeducationtoday.com/p/notes-about-the-midwest-symposium

• Friday photos—#20: Paige Pullen and Dan Hallahan—How much can we learn by listening to pioneers?

• Barbara D. Bateman—1933-2022

• Myths, scams, shams, and BS—How should we recognize faulty recommendations?

• Math and teaching kids with EBD—What can one learn from reading Beyond Behavior?

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Commentary

Please let me comment about how hard it was to write my remembrance of Barbara Bateman. Barb was way important in my professional and personal life. It’s hard to type when you’re trying to keep your tears from fallling on your keyboard.

As some readers know, Barb was my doctoral advisor when I studied at Oregon in the 1970s. Although I was attracted to Oregon because of what I’d read by Gerry Patterson, Sig Englemann, Wes Becker, and Hill Walker, I’d also read articles by Barb, and I fell under her spell.

Within weeks of my arrival at Oregon, Barb became my unofficial advisor. After many meetings during classes, in her office in one of two trailers where special education was housed at Oregon, and over beers at bars in the student ghetto, we rapidly formed a relationship. That relationshiiop was, as she liked to say, akin to Socrates and a student sitting on a log floating in the sea. In an image about teacher and student that has stayed with me, she said she wasn’t sure which one of us was Socrates and which was the student, but if we were going to keep our log stable we had to work together. Ne night she said, “I don’t want you to stand on my shoulders. I want you to stand on my head.”

Around 2011-12, Randy and Marilyn Sprick led a group of scholars (including Doug Carnine and Ed Kame’enui!) who recommended Barb for a prestigious award. I contributed and this is the opening paragraph of my letter:

My introduction to Barbara Dee Bateman came on the first night of my first class as a masters student in 1973 at the University of Oregon. I was a bearded young guy who had been working with children with disabilities since I was 18 and I thought I knew a pretty good bit—both from experience and books—about special education. So there I was, sitting among about 60 people in a long, skinny room in Deady Hall when she began the Introduction to Learning Disabilities class promptly on the hour by introducing herself: “Hello. I’m Barbara Bateman, first-year law student.” Over the following few hours she delivered a lecture—with neither any notes nor any “uhms,” “ahhs,” or “uhhs”—that described the state of LD as if it was a metaphor for special education, even for education in general. In those few hours she covered content that I had reviewed over the previous several years in texts by Cruickshank, by Lerner, by Quay, and by Sarason and Doris and along the way she integrated it with lots of research that I did not know. This diminutive figure at the front of the room made clear to me that I had a lot to learn, a lot. That night, at 25 years of age, I was hooked.

Barb advised me during my doctoral studies, even as she completed her studies in law school. Of course, she guided me about what classes to take, but she did much more. Early on, she pointed at me and said, “I want you to teach my class [intro to LD].” She gave me a key to her office and told me to use it as my own during the coming year. After a horrible automobile accident, she welcomed me at her home and asked me to intervene at a hospital on her behalf. After the birth of Pat’s and my daughter, she held that infant in front of her in that very office she’d let me occupy and, using her speech-language smarts, said, “She has a good palate.” Over those few years in Eugene, she created a relationship that has lasted throughout my career.

Barb was passionate about many things. Effective instruction was way high on her list of passions. We shared that from the get-go, and I’m very glad to remember that emphasis here. In honor of her, I hope I can pass that passion along to readers, just as she shared it while we sat in a booth in a beer hall in 1973 after one of her “Intro to LD” class session.

I think that Barb would agree with me imploring you to remember to practice using masks, wash hands often, keep appropriate social distance, wear your seatbelts, and (for dang sure) teach your children well.

JohnL,

SET editor guy
Beautiville

SET should not be confused with a product with a similar name that is published by the Council for Exceptional Children. SET predated CEC’s publication by decades. This message does not constitute a position of CEC.