Special Education Today newsletter 4(8)

What's the haps in SET over the week beginning 12 August 2024?

Yep, you are reading another issue of the newsletter for Special Education Today. This one covers what transpired since I published the previous issue 12 August 2024. I’ll be mercifully brief.

New opportunity

Development of a new path at Riverview Park? Photo by John Wills Lloyd, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

That’s a recent photo of what appears to be a new path through some underbrush at Riverview Park, which is just about 5K away from where we live. I first noticed this little path in late July 2024. Do you think it’s going to become a full-blow trail?

Status

To say that SET is hemorrhaging subscribers would be too strong a statement. Suffice it to say that we’re not growing. For those who are accustomed to looking at graphs from single-subject studies: There’s no increasing trend in the subscription data. Sigh.

But thanks to everyone who’s hanging around. Y’all are great! And here comes the beginning of the school year (at least in the northern hemisphere)!

Contents

Here’s the quick-link review of posts from the past week:

• Special Education Today newsletter 4(7): What's to know about SET over the previous week?

• A surprise history lesson for me...: Does disability = ugly?

• Our manual for self-monitoring of attention: Would you believe you can still get a copy of this document, even though it was written in 1981?

• Ph.D., LCP, BCBA, BCBA-D...: What in world do all of these alphabet soup noodles mean?

• Another special person talked with Chris Ulmer: What has Chris Ulmer caught on his camera this time?

• Adirondack Nature Festival for People with Disabilities: Where can people go for outdoors adventures?

Did you miss any of these posts? Here’s your chance to find them and either read them again of take a first spin through them. They’ll stay live for paid subscribers, of course, and if the idea of being able to access all 1000+ posts from SET since its inception appeals to you, you can become a paid subscriber (at a discount) and have that idea be real and true.

Notes and comments

I won’t add much in this issue’s editorial section. I had fantasies of recounting some remembrances of my beginning-of-the-year experiences. I was going to tell about, for example, how I remember remembering (that’s not a typo) that it always took a few days (at least) to get “back in shape” at the beginning of each school year. I had to remember my timing for catching kids being good: See the behavior; provide behavior-specific praise; deliver a reinforcer—click-click-click. I had to observe carefully to deduce each kid’s fun spots and foibles. I had to remember not to stand around, tapping my foot, and waiting for compliance—just give a simple, clear direction, smile, and walk away…then check back for the opportunity to catch the student doing what I’d ask and deliver some goodies (click-click-click).

One year I had a total of 17 kids on my class role ranging from 7 to 13 years of age.¹ Pat was a co-teacher and she would take 2-3-4 of them at a time to an adjacent room for 40-min Big DI lessons; Gerry, another co-teacher, usually had the three most severely involved (verbal, but mostly echolalic) in an adjoining room, and he was doing a great job of keeping them engaged, so I only had to look in there occasionally.

I understood the general principle that it is a lot easier to loosen up structure than it is to impose higher structure, so I would want to start out with everything functioning smoothly and efficiently. Balancing that strictness with positive regard took skill. That was another part of the beginning-of-the-year challenge, too: I wanted the kids to feel welcome and successful…eager to come to school the next day.

Those were the days, and those were great days, too. I remember them, and I also remember how tired I was. And I was in my 20s then. I couldn’t maintain it now…sheesh.

I hope each and every one of y’all are maintaining whatever it is you’re doing these days, that you taking care of yourselves and others, and that you’re teaching your children well.

JohnL

John Wills Lloyd, Ph.D.

UVA Professor Emeritus

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

Footnote

1. It was the early 1970s—i.e., before the law—and it was a private school.