Special Education Today Newsletter 1(24)

The week’s news and info for 29 November 2021

Dear Colleagues,

It's that time of the week again! I’m preparing this issue of Special Education Today so that I can have it mailed to you in the early hours of 29 November.

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Intro

This 24th issue of volume 1 of SET has the usual content. In addition to referring to (a) articles published on the Web site this past week, there is (b) a brief status report for the site and the newsletter, and (c) a bit of commentary at the end. If you’re a regular reader, this structure should sound familiar.

Status update

SET had a little run of new subscribers, but the curve flattened. I'm still hoping "the word" (not the Biblical Word!) will get out to the special education community and the subscriber-base will grow.

Thanks for folks' efforts to let others know about SET. As I've written before, "flashes of the electrons" to SET pals who passed along links to SET content. And, thanks, too, to the host of folks who regularly interact with SET. I'd like to thank Jane B., Jose B., Clayton K., Rob O', Li-Yu H., Michael K., and others!

Please keep clicking on those share buttons (and equivalents). Not each share will increase the base of addresses, but I appreciate your help.

Thanks, too, for tweets, retweets, and likes on Twitter (and elsewhere). I suspect that there was activity in many places this week that I didn’t catalog. Sigh. Probably I missed a lot, but I appreciate efforts by any of y’all to spread the word (there is it again! ) on that medium (and even FB!).

And Here is This Week’s ToC

• Hechinger Report examinations of reading—Are there things to learn about literacy from the venerable education source?

• Friday Photos—10—Where was Li-Yu in this photo?

• Guardian feature article on actors with Down Syndrome—

  What can we learn from people with disabilities in mass media?

Commentary

As I drafted this newsletter, I realized that I wanted to comment on two experiences: The importance of (1) family and friends in our lives and (2) taking care of each other...maybe this is just one topic? Well, I'll take them in reverse order.

Taking care

As have many readers, I have been monitoring new, possibly-ominous news about the SARs-Cov-2 virus. Mutations! New (not "nu") variants! Unknown risks! Oh, no! I heard that on Friday 61 people out of 600 were positive for COVID when they got off airplanes from South Africa!

Will my vaccinations protect me? Do we have to wear masks? Do we have to stay at home again? Are the schools going to close? Should we get a new booster? What about the children and the old people (e.g., JWL)?

Well, in the interests of protecting my family, friends, and neighbors, I plan to continue being cautious. I will limit my excursions. I will wear a mask when I might be among people who are at higher risk than I am (i.e., unvaccinated) and two masks when I'm in a mass gathering like an indoor sports event. I will not mimic tightening up the spaces in a line at stores, unlike what drivers to at stop lights. I'll monitor local conditions. And, if I develop anything like symptoms, I'll test and act according to the results.

For additional information, I recommend that folks read some of the sources I read:

• Eric Topol: Dr.-Professor Topol is one of the foremost scientists in molecular medicine. His work is accessible at his Web site, and via his Twitter feed.

• Katelyn Jetelina: Ms. Jetelina, who has lots of credentials (MPH, Ph.D.), provides wonderfully sage and up-to-date content. She has 1000s of followers on her Web site as well as people who monitor her updates on Twitter @dr_kkjetelina

Although there are many sources, some are more trustworthy. I trust these two. Given the COVID context, I hope we all seek and comprehend scientific evidence...and act accordingly.

And I hope I will do so in the future...and did so this past week.

Ffamily and friends

I think I can confidently say that almost all the holiday left-overs are gone from Pat's and my refrigerator. Part of the reason for that is that we did not host a holiday dinner this year. Instead, we attended a group dinner hosted by some friends of our daughter.

Thursday was a good time, with a diverse group of people seated around a long table (really, two put end to end) eating lots of seasonal foods. I skipped the fowl (as some readers already know), but I did some carb loading with spuds, sweet spuds, vegetarian stuffing, and a lot of other dishes. The conversation was rich, with children of some of those attending chipping in and also sometimes looking incredulous, like, "What did he just say?" (I remember similar expressions on the faces of students in my classes). That was fun!

Friday, I didn't buy anything (with a nod to Rev Billy, Savitri D, and the Stop Shopping Chorus). However, I did attend a basketball game with my pals, M. Kennedy, B. Cook, and W. Therrien. Although some of the attendees harbored doubt (as usual), UVA won pretty handily. That was fun!

Saturday, I walked a couple of miles to the UVA grounds and met Michael and his father for a brief visit. It was chilly (like colder than 6 degrees?) and I had to walk into a nasty wind from the NW. But I got to hang out with the two Kennedys. That was fun!

The usual exhortations

• Wear your seatbelts.

• Get vaccinated and boostered…and wear masks, keep distance if you don’t know someone’s status, aerate areas, and just give a damn.

• And, please, teach your children well.

JohnL
SET Editor
Charlottesville

SET should not be confused with a product with the same name that 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.