Special Education Today newsletter 4(7)

What's to know about SET over the previous week?

It’s time for me to post another newsletter for Special Education Today. This one covers the events of the week beginning 5 August 2024. You’ll learn that it’s a thin issue, particularly because I only posted one article outside of the newsletter for a week ago.

Photo

One of the highlights of my career has been the opportunity to work with wonderful people, one of whom—Melody Tankersley—stopped for a brief visit. Because I’ve mentioned Melody in earlier posts (see Friday Photos 6 and Friday photo: TECBD #1), I won’t review her accomplishments in detail here. Suffice it to say that despite her leadership role as senior vice president and provost for Kent State University. she stills says “hi” to the old editor when she’s in town. And so it was that one fine day Melody. Pat, and I strolled the grounds to see some of the changes at UVA since her last visit.

Pat and Melody on a sunny, hot August afternoon near the Contemplative Commons at UVA. Photo by John Wills Lloyd; please consider this work licensed under Creative Commons guidelines Attribution-NonComerrcial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

We found ourselves walking around the new “Contemplative Commons” (and morning the loss of the Dell Basketball Courts). The Contemplative Sciences Center which was built in an area of UVA called “The Dell.” Befitting the center’s emphasis on contemplation, The Dell was and largely still is an oasis of greenery near the center of the UVA grounds. If any readers visit UVA and park in the Central Parking Garage, they can simply cross the busy street (use the elevated footbridge) and spend 30 minutes in The Dell (and walk around the Contemplative Commons, too!).

Status

The total number of subscriptions continues to increase gradually. It’s “inching up.” Why am I thinking of the Frank Loesser song from my childhood, “The Inch Worm?” I suppose that the numeric message might be fitting, although it describes a geometric progression (“Two and two are four; Four and four are eight…”) and the number of subscribers is not increasing geometrically…sad, right? Perhaps I’m flashing back to the lyric about “business?”

Speaking of business, here are special thanks to all the paying subscribers for renewing, some of whom are Linda L., Vicki W., John U., Shari M., Keith L., Tina C., Bob P., LuAnn J., and others.

If you forgot, readers can become paid subscribers at a discount during the month of August. Pay for 9 months during this sale and your subscription will be good for an entire year. See “1000th-post and end-of-summer sale!”

Recent contents

These are the posts from the previous week. It’s sort of a meager offering…sigh.

• Special Education Today newsletter 4(6): What's been happening here in SET land?

• Calling "BS" on some pop-psych: Would you be surprised to learn that popular personality styles are bunko-hokum?

That’s probably enough for this week, no? It’s surely not too much. Read them before they go behind the paywall…or click this link to subscribe at the special discounted rate that’s available until the end of August.

Notes & comments

Although I generally do not raise politics, political issues, and political campaigns here on SET, I want to call attention to one topic that has been discussed in the US political campaign over the last couple of weeks: Tim Walz, the likely nominee for vice president of the US, has a child with a disability.

There have been stories in the popular press—see, for examples, People magazine, NBC (US) Today¹—as well as in disability sources (e.g., Shasta Kearns Moore’s Medical Motherhood²). One of the stories in People regarding Gus, Governor Walz’s son, uses “non-verbal learning disorder” in its title. It also includes terms that may be familiar to many special educators, including “ADHD,” “anxiety disorder,” and “secret power.” Such is the way of popular press reporting that it is not clear by whom these disorders were identified nor whether Gus has an IEP.

I could find very little objective evidence about the story about Gus Walz and “disorder” or “disability.” According to an 2024 article in the Minneapolis Star Tribute by Jessie Van Berkel, the younger Mr. Walz is apparently 18 years old and a rising senior. Perhaps there are facts in some other sources I didn’t find…probably—and, Readers, please send those sources to me.

I hope that the press will simply leave the young man alone. He doesn’t deserve to have his personal life dragged around by some people making his father seem more electable or casting aspersions on his father. Neither of those are good uses for the kid’s life story.

There aer more important “fish to fry.” What has his father recommended for policies about special education? Does his father’s voting record reflect support for advancing the rights of individuals with disabilities and the availability of services for them?

Meanwhile, the 2024 Olympics have come to a close and we can anticipate the late August beginning of the Paralympic Games and look ahead to the 2025 Special Olympics. I hope every one will help people prepare for those events and will heed the usual admonitions that appear in this last paragraph of the SET newsletter: (a) take care of yourselves and those around you, (b) share some joy with others, and (of course) (c) teach your children well.

JohnL

John Wills Lloyd, Ph.D.

Founder and editor, Special Education Today

Footnote

1. The Today story and many others I found crib from the People stories extensively. There doesn’t seem to be much independent reporting yet about this matter.

2. Read past the first entry in Ms. Moore’s post. Although the first one is fun, she discusses the Gus Walz story after it. Her reporting is also based on the People coverage.