Special Education Today newsletter 4(40)
What in the world is going on?
Can you, dear readers of Special Education Today believe it?
Oh, you want to know what “it” is? Well, the mundane “it” is that this is the 40th newsletter of the fourth year of SET. So, we’re on the downhill toward the last issue of this volume. Woohoo! I’ll have a couple of weeks off and you won’t have to delete as many messages from me. The end of the volume year is coming in just a few weeks!
But, another meaning to “it” is that we are living in times filled with events that make us fret about the protections, services, and consideration that people with disabilities receive. It seems as though news headlines deliver underscored or new concerns about US government actions that could disrupt services for individuals with disabilities, including special education.
In the context of these interpretations of “it,” there is the proverbial good and bad news. On the good news side, this issue of the SET newsletter for 24 March 2025 will have a structure that is familiar to many readers. You may be able to take comfort in seeing (a) a photo, (b) status updates, (c) a quasi-table-of-contents. and (d) an editorial.
On the bad (at least “unsettling”) news side, there is all the 💩 that seems to be occurring. Those drops of excrement seem to have pervaded much of the content of SET in recent weeks. Sorry, but if one has to sift through the litter box, those drops may be what one finds.
So grab your face mask and make sure you have plenty of hand-cleaner handy (haha). Let’s get on with the week’s newsletter.
Photo
Pat and I attended a University of Virginia track and field meet 22 March 2025. Who should show up and sit with us for hours (track meets are long!)? Why it was SET contributor, David Bateman. Sadly I didn’t have the good sense to get a photo of us together. Sigh. Maybe next time.,
At one point, as we watched events, Pat pointed to the sky and said something like, “Oh! Look at that. It’s a question mark!” I snapped this photo with my phone.
I’ll return to the cloud photo in the editorial. I encourage readers simply to admire it for now. Don’t “try” to “read” much into it just yet.
Status update
In case you might have questions about what’s happening with SET, here are some notes.
Membership
There has been a surge is subscribers recently. Whereas SET usually grows by a coupla-few free subscribers a week, over the past week the rolls have grown by greater than two dozen total subscribers. Welcome to all the new subscribers and thank you to those readers who encouraged friends, colleagues, family members, and others to read SET.
In addition to the free subscribers, a few people have upgraded or started with a paying subscription. These folks are like the blood carrying oxygen and nutrients throughout the body. If SET is going to become a sustainable international community, these subscribers’ support will be a critically important part of that achievement. Thanks to people (a sample of sustaining subscribers)1: Marilyn F., Cheryl Z., Keith L., Jane B., Kristen McM., LuAnn L. D., Tina C., Janet J., Christine T., Kimmy L., Jim S., Linda L., Kristen A., Nancy C.-W., Anita A., Debbie R., Michael K., Paula D., Dimitris A., Bryan W., Paige P., & Judy V. And, while I’m at it, let me provide a special tip of the cap to Mike G., Li-Yu H., and Kathy M. blue-bloods in the arteries and veins, heart and lungs. Thank you, one and all.
Interactions
By my loose count, there were greater than 40 likes on posts over the past week. It’s great to have your feedback. Thanks for dropping those likes, thereby providing hints that some people actually freakin’ read the posts.
I was especially heartened by comments from Michael K., Tricia L., LuAnn L. D., and Jane B. I like not only the comment action, but also the content of the comments. And, I routine hope for the opportunity to announce a Double-flip Deep Dive award when we see commenters engaging in conversations with each other in the comments section.
Traffic
As of Sunday evening, SET posts had been viewed nearly 10,000 times this past week. Maybe some of you are clicking refresh on your devices repeatedly?
It’s wonderful to have y’all interacting with SET. Way to contribute to the community! Thanks!
Ersatz table of contents
There were 12 posts over the previous week. Not all of them were sent by e-mail. This list has links to each of the posts.
I am grateful to David Bateman and Mitchell Yell for their contributions to this week’s content. If you review the 20 March remembrance of Rud Turnbull, you’ll see that David co-authored that post. If you review the 21 March post about changes in the US Department of Education, YOu’ll see that David and Mitch both co-authored that one. Readers should know that together these two gentlemen (and I use the word with full reference to its meaning) have been publishing the justly well-regarded Sped Law Blog since 2016.
Special Education Today newsletter 4(39): Are you happy you missed some of this?
Pending events: What are some dates that are ahead in the calendar?
How other animals teach: Could meerkats help us understand teaching?
Free membership: Council for Exceptional Children: Yes, indeed, CEC is giving away a year's membership to new members.
Kindness Cafe + Play grand opening: Can you make it?
H. Rutherford Turnbull, III—1937-2025: The eminent advocate for students with disabilities and their families passed away 17 March 2025
Shuttering the US Department of Education: What are the facts about the action by President Trump?
Friday Photos #4017: Floral: Any interest in local narcissi?
Organizations organizing to resist shuttering US ED: What did leaders from organizations say about efforts to dismantle the Education Department?
Down syndrome day 2025: If it's 3-21, do you know what day it is?
Available resources for SET: What supplemental documents can one find on Special Education Today as of this date?
Party at Kindness Cafe + Play!: Are you sorry you missed this event?
So, there you have it. Twelve (if we can trust the numbering from the ordered list or my counting skill) posts. I hope everyone feels that she got her $$s worth! And, please remember that any and all readers can go to the SET Web site to find current and previous posts (and paying subscribers can read all of 1244 of them!).
Commentary
You know, dear readers, that the photo of the cloud formation earlier in this post is open to lots of interpretations. Indeed, as the many cartoons we have seen about people (and other animals) looking at clouds illustrate (teehee) prompt me to remember that seeing things in clouds is a matter of spin. We make up those interpretations. Question marks, pillows, bears, “rows and floes of angel hair, and ice cream castles in the air….”2
The interpretation of clouds sends me into one of my most frequent thinking areas. I think often about how we humans interpret events, facts, and etc. One of the ideas that I return to in this thinking is humans extraordinary capacity to think stuff that deceives us.
I remember taking cognitive psychologist Cordelia Fine’s (2007) book, A Mind of Its Own: How your brain distorts and deceives, to the first meeting of the classroom and behavior management classes I taught for 10 years; each semester, as I held the book at the front of the class and passed it around to students, I used snippets from it to illustrate how our interpretations often are mistaken.
I also waved (and passed) The Illusion of Conscious Will by my late colleague, Dan Wegner. Dan explained in detail and with loads of evidence, how the common human view of having agency—we make things happen—is quite probably a myth. We may think that we conceptualize and plan an action, but Dan showed how that thinking was probably an epiphenomenon of our actual behavior.
So, if you follow my drift here, I’m leading up to a point I’ve made repeatedly: The farther we get from dealing with what the student objectively did (the actual behavior), the less we should trust our interpretations (i.e., spin) about events. We need to deal with the facts. And this idea is not just applicable to the behavior (social and academic) of children, but the behavior of our colleagues and even ourselves. We have to be cautious about making mountains out of mole paths, theorizing or hypothesizing connections among events when there are many potential relationships, inferring intentions when we do not (and actually cannot) know the actors “motives.”
The clouds may, indeed, look like a question mark. That they do doesn’t mean we should decide to behave in a certain way. That question mark in the sky may not be a sign that we should re-examine our approach, that we should doubt ourselves, that the goddesses are asking us to change.
So, as you may guess, I hope that we educators, parents, administrators, policy makers, and (especially) psychologists will ease off spending our time trying to interpret the meaning of cloud formations. Let’s get on with teaching our children. Skip the cloud gazing and theorizing. Put proposed actions through this test: Does an action produce better outcomes on a measure of success that we agree is important? If “yes,” go! If “no,” test another action.
I’m recommending a data-based approach to special education (big surprise, hunh?). I’m making this pitch because I want us to help each other succeed, because I want us to feel good about what we’re doing, and because I want our kids to have optimal outcomes. So, take care of yourselves in this matter, help your friends and colleagues to do so, too, and endeavor to be sure that you are teaching out kids effectively.
Hugs & love,
JohnL
John Wills Lloyd, Ph.D.
UVA Professor Emeritus
Founder & Editor, https://www.SpecialEducationToday.com/
SET should not be confused with a product that uses the same name and 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 nor should the views expressed here be considered to represent the views or policies of that organization.
References
Fine, C. (2007). A mind of its own: How your brain distorts and deceives. Norton.
Wegner, D. M. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. MIT Press
Footnote
Readers who are familiar with scholarship and and advocacy in special education will be able recognize many of the people to whom I’m referring here. It is quite an honor to have people of these folks’ stature reading supporting SET. By referring to them by their given names, I hope I am providing a little anonymity…and friendship.
If you guessed Joni Mitchell’s “Both Side Now,” you win the prize! Congratulations. If you guessed “Clouds.” that was good; “Clouds” was the name of the album, but “Both Sides Now” was the name of the song. The album was released ~40 days after Pat and I married each other. When we were at the track meet Saturday, we were celebrating our anniversary. The question mark cloud didn’t have any deep or ominous meaning. It was just another fun moment that we’ve shared. For another illustration of those moments, see this post.