Hello, readers, friends, colleagues, and everyone else (including enemies, though I hope I have none).

This week’s newsletter for Special Education Today has some good news and some sad news...sigh. On the whole it’s good, but you should make your own decisions.

I’ll follow the usual structure: (a) an updated status report for the site and the newsletter, (b) a table of contents for the past week, and (c) some personal opinion at the end. I presume that the vast majority of readers will recognize the organization.

Status update

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SET lost one subscriber and picked up three over the past week. Welcome to the new folks. A special welcome to J. B., who jumped right into the pool of paid subscribers!

Why am I thinking of the song from my childhood, “Inchworm?” Is it maybe because SET gains subscribers at a tiny pace?

Anyway, I’m very glad to have all y’all here!

Flashes of the electrons

Let me recount some of the interactions with the site and posts this past week. Thank you to those readers who chipped into the commonweal!

I appreciate comments over the second week of March 2023 by Jim K. (more than one), Karen A., Larry M., Michael G. (multiple, too), Kathleen L., Lilieth H., and Dan H. (I’d also like to express my appreciation to many of these folks not only for being loyal readers and contributors, but also for sustaining SET with their paid subscriptions.)

Thanks, too, to the many folks who dropped “likes,” including many of those whom I just noted, as well as Joel M., Jane B., Michael K., Clay K., Ed M., Charlie H., and Mary, K. (and anyone whom I missed). It’s great to see the confirmations about the content.

This week’s ToC

Some folks might generalize from the past week’s contents that I am publishing an obituary blog. Understandable.

I went back to some posts from previous publications (e.g., LDBlog.com, spedpro.org, etc.) and brought forward some posts I’d written when heros from the past had passed away. I wanted to post them here so that contemporaneous readers can have a sense of the past (at least, my view of those days gone by). There are more coming as I get a chance.

Well, be it as it may be, let me list the posts from the past week.

• The previous newsletter

• Work by L. & D. Fuchs recognized in Institute of Education Sciences post: Isn’t it nice to know that someone is paying attention to some of the quality research being done in special education?

• Recognizing women who lead special education: How about the wonderful contributions from these colleagues?

• Reginald Jones: Remembering a giant

• Kimberly L. Bright, 1957-2010: How could someone this helpful fly under the radar?

• Lee Wiederholt, 1942-2007: Can you believe that Lee wrote a congratulatory note to me when I was still a student?

Please remember that you can find the latest SET posts by going to the main page at https://www.specialeducationtoday.com.

Commentary

As I mentioned, in a previous paragraph, that ToC may look a lot like an obituary page. In addition to the three straight-off reprints of obits from earlier sources, there was the previous week’s contemporaneous obituary for the late Judy Heumann and a post about many deceased women who provided leadership to special education in its relatively brief history.

Rather than taking this coverage as morbid, I hope readers will see the posts in the ways that I do. With spring coming along pretty rapidly here in central Virginia (although we had light snow yesterday—Sunday 12 March 2023), it is the season of renewal, of new growth, and the hopeful thoughts that come with spring. Blooms. New green stuff. Shoot, summer vacation can’t be too long from now, can it?

Also, paying homage to those who were leaders in a field—special education, in our case—is an important way to inform ourselves about from whence we come. Just as acknowledging one’s parents, siblings, grandparents, grandaunts and -uncles, great-ancestors, and even farther back in ancestry provides helpful perspective, knowing about special education predecessors can be beneficial.

I mentioned Lee Wiederholt’s history of learning disabilities in a post from this past week. Some of my closest colleagues have also provided excellent treatments of the histories of LD and emotional and behavioral disorders. Let me call readers’ attention to these two academic treatments of history. These treatments (see sources) are by my esteemed colleagues, Dan Hallahan and (the late) Cecil Mercer and by Jim Kauffman and Tim Landrum. I encourage readers who would like historical perspective on LD and EBD to read them. Highly recommended.

I’ll skip the trite comments about the consequences of failing to learn from history. Instead, allow me to go to the usual recommendation:

1. Wear your seatbelts (and make sure your childen’s seats are affixed properly).

2. Get COVID boosters if you haven’t already.

3. Maintain safe social distance (especially in tight conditions), wash your hands, use masks, and protect your family and friends. And

4. Please, teach your children well.

JohnL

SET Editor

Charlottesville

Sources

Hallahan, D. P., & Mercer, C. M. (2002). Learning disabilities: Historical perspectives. In R. Bradley, L. Danielson, & D. P. Hallahan, (eds.), Identification of learning disabilities: Research to practice. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Kauffman, J. M., & Landrum, T. J. (2006). Children and youth with emotional and behavioral disorders: A history of their education. PRO-ED,

SET should not be confused with a product with the same name that is published by the Council for Exceptional Children. SET predated CEC’s publication by decades. Despite my appreciation for CEC, this product is not designed to promote that organization.