Special Education Today Newsletter 3(5)

What do you mean,I fell on my face last week?

Welcome to the fifth issue in the third volume of the newsletter for Special Education Today. I hope that regular readers, who constitute the blood, flesh, bones, synapses, and spirit of SET (thank you!) will not feel insulted when I explain that this iteration of the SET News provides a little intro, a listing of the (few) posts from the past week, recognition of some members of the community, and a few comments (of perhaps little value).

Is that what people mean when they say, “It’s the same old same old? Booooring!” Well, I’ll mix up the order a bit so that there will be some novelty.

Some Comments

As many readers know, Pat and I spent most of last week in the central parts of Oregon, attending the annual summer meeting of a sizable group of Direct Instruction devotees. Yes, I number myself among those devotees, and it was delightful to have the opportunity to hang with them. Many thanks to friends, colleagues, and fellow devotees—especially to Bryan W., an SET subscriber for some time now—for making us welcome.

Some special sort of lichen growing on a tree in Ed & Trish’s garden. If I heard it right, Pat said this can serve as food and is akin to what those children who survived a place crash in the wilds of South America ate during their extended ordeal prior to their rescue. Photo by John Wills Lloyd..

With Ed & Trish hosting us in the woods of the middle McKenzie River area, we were almost on vacation. I did take time out from lallygagging, however, to visit with Ed K., Doug & Linda C., Marcy S., Kurt & Owen E., Anita A., Jerry S., Mary G., Bonnie G., and a host of other luminaries. In addition, I delivered a somewhat vacuous talk, making tenuous connections between aspects of cooking and of applying the so-called “science of [reading | writing | arithmetic].” I expect that Bryan W. will provide notice when the video version is published on the NIFDI Web site.

In connection with that talk, I want to point out how humane and considerate (caring and concerned) the DI folks are. People may harbor a vision of DI people as cold, hard-hearted, behavioristic, robots…but they aren’t.

At the beginning of my talk, I used an attention-grabber (some of you may have seen me do it before): I fall to the floor. Suddenly there were 5-7-9 people rushing up from the audience to help me. I thank them for their concern...seriously.

Of course, y’all know that I post messages to the Web site for SET repeatedly during the week. Sometimes, I push one of those posts out via the email list, but you can see them all if you visit the site regularly. If you’re a subscriber (free or paid), you will get this newsletter regularly, and it will have these familiar updates.

Table of Contents

The following ToC is rather brief. Excuses: We spent two full days traveling. I’ve been under weather. I’m indolent. Readers can riff on that last item to explain the modest production this past week.

Here is a list of what I did publish:

• Special Education Today newsletter 3(4): Where am I? What am I doing?

• The McKenzie this morning: What a great spot, no?

• Friday photos: NIFDI #1: How did I get in with this group?

Invite your friends to read Special Education Today by John Wills Lloyd. Make sure you go to the Web site to see the most current content. There will be additional posts during the coming week. You’ll find an HTML-formated version of this newsletter (much prettier than this funky version that comes in the e-mail) as well as any newer posts.

SET’s Situation & Recognition

Recently the base of subscribers has grown by 10, a big step toward passing 600 total free subscribers. Thank you new folks for joining the gang. . The following graph shows the growth of total subscribership during Jul7 2023. Essentially, every three days there were two new subscribers.

Welcome to you recent subscribers. I’m very glad you’re here and I look forward to hearing from you about what you like and what you’d like to see covered more often or in greater depth.

I want to shout a special word of appreciation to the subset of community members who are paying subscribers. Y’all know who you are. You need to know that you help “keep the lights on” and “pay the bills.” Though your numbers are few (below 10%), your regular contributions are greatly appreciated. Thanks to everyone who has recently upgraded to paid and everyone who’s renewed subscriptions.

As mentioned previously, there are a couple of mechanisms that I hope will enhance growth. The first one applies to both paid and free subscriptions. The second one provides a way for many people to become paid subscribers.

1. As you may have noticed if you already read the post of 2 July (“Invite your friends...”), I am testing whether rewards associated with bringing new subscribers to SET will help the community grow; see the post for details.

2. I am launching group subscriptions; the general idea is that a school administrator can have multiple members of a local education agency’s team subscribe or a professor can have many students subscribe to SET at deep discounts for the individuals. Write to me for additional details; just reply to this newsletter from your e-mail application.

Regardless of free or paid subscription status (and there are some folks who simply drop by on their own, too), I hope we all remember to take care of ourselves (e.g., wear those seatbelts), take care of others, and teach our children well.

JohnL

SET Editor guy

Charlottesville

SET should not be confused with a product with the 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.