Special Education Today Newsletter 2(28)

Did you miss the week's news and info for 12 December 2022?

Welcome to the the current issue of the second year of Special Education Today. As I assembled this issue, it was (about) the middle of December and I suspected that many North American educators were counting down the hours or days until they got a few days off from work.

Even though I was way invested in teaching (whether with children or college students), I welcomed the winter break. The break provided a time to hang with family and friends and to recharge before the long winter push that seemed to last all the way through the US presidents' b'days and into spring break.

It was also a time to work on special projects. I remember writing reports about reseach during holidays. I could spend almost an entire day just focusing on accounting for efforts to review a research question.

So celebrating the respite, let me also note that regular readers might know that SET has a very special place in my heart for you. Hundreds of you show up every week on the site! Nearly 1000 visit on some days. Bring it on! Share! And, thank you!

Thanks to you subscribers, SET gains currency. Some of your pals apparently come visit. And your (and your pals') visits make the Intertubes (e.g., Google, Alexa, and etc.) take notice that SET is a desirable destination. I hope you're finding SET worth the effort to visit and I appreciate you sharing links.

There are a few respected, loyal, wonderful subscribers who keep coming back to SET. I'd like to acknowledge Clay, K., Joel M, Julie B., Michael K., Tim L., Nancy C-W, Linda L., Mary-Anne. L., Ed M., Jim K., Dan H., Mike N., Angelique W., Michele M., Ed P, Larry M., Bryan W., Ronnie D., Bob P., Kimy L., Anita A., Christine T., J. Jones (!), Anna G., Hill (Top) W., Kristin S., Aletta S., Kathy M., George S, Kim L., and Jill S. Y'all are my peeps. Thanks so much for supporting SET!

ToC

So, what could you read last week on SET? There were a half dozen posts last week (not counting the newsletter). Here are stories from that week. There are lots more coming!

• Special Education Today Newsletter 2(23)—The week’s news and info for 5 December 2022

• Timeline: HB, J. M. Kauffman!—What will Jim be doing?

• Teaching is changing brains—Are we too enamored of fantasical neurological ideas?

• How media cast "learning disabilities," disability, and special education—Is it all about "learning disabilities?"

• Investigative journalists reported unseemly practices in private facilities in Washington state—Do you have children going to a facility run by Universal Health Care?

• Another journalist wrote about reading problems—What's a mother of children who have substantial reading problems doing about it?

• US ED called for proposals for the “Supporting Effective Educator Development Grant Program”—Sounds good, right?

I hope those of you who read these posts as they apppeared found them informative, intriguing, and interesting (supposing you have three 'Is'—teehee).

Commentary

This past week on my dang-nearly daily walks, I repeatedly saw this bracelet in a gutter. I anthropomorphized it pretty much every time I saw it. "This bauble," I thought, "is in search of the wrist of some child. Somewhere, there is a wrist that needs to have this bracelet wrapped around it."

Child’s bracelet on the street near my home. Photo by John Wills Lloyd 2022.

Kids lose stuff. I lost things. Did you? I've seen other examples and, in fact, I have the images of other lost objects that I could share, if readers would like to see them (let me know!).

But all of this reminds me of a story my mother told me. It was a cautionary tale. It stuck with me.

She said that when she was a little girl (probably in the late 1920s or early 1930s) she had a decorative paper umbrella that she had gotten as a gift. She and her family were driving from their home in Palmyra, VA, to Charlottesville. The road they took goes by Monticello, and she explained that she was playing with the umbrella in the wind generated by the car's movement.

Her mother cautioned her about losing the umbrella, and she did lose it out the window, sure enough. As a 30 or 40-year-old (when I was young), she told the story; as a 60- or 70-year old woman, when I was an adult and when we drove through that area, she would remember that she had lost "that lovely parasol" about there.

Somewhere along the side of VA Route 53 mear Monticello, there must be remnants of a 90-year-old paper umbrella, just waiting for a child's hands to hold it and love it. Just up the street from my house, there is a bracelet quietly searching for its familiar wrist.

Maybe, reconstituted, the bracelet and the umbrella together can find a new child and make her or him happy. I hope so.

Meanwhile, dear readers, please remember how important it is to care for our fellow humans (and other organisms) and to promote effective instruction (e.g., keeping umbrellas and bracelets inside cars).

Teach them well!

Love,

JohnL

John Wills Lloyd, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus, UVA School of Ed & HD

Co-editor, Exceptional Children

Editor, https://www.SpecialEducationToday.com/

Charlottesville, VA, US

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 and others using the name nby decades.