5 Things I Wish I'd Been Taught in College

Special Education for Beginners | Managing Paraprofessionals, Special Education Strategies, First Year Sped Teachers, Special Ed Overwhelm, Paperwork for Special Education Teachers

11/10/21 • 21 min

#60 5 Things I Wish I'd Been Taught in College

As a teacher leader and someone who provides support to other special educators both online and throughout my district as a department head and through providing professional development to teachers...I hear this All. The. Time.

I wasn’t taught that in college.

And the sad truth is that they are right. They weren’t taught a lot of things in college that they are having to deal with today and it’s very aggravating. Imagine if a doctor were to say..."Sorry I can’t treat that sore throat because I wasn’t taught that in school." Or if an electrician said, "Your house may or may not burn down because I wasn’t taught how to fix that in school." And just as 2 examples...both doctors and electricians are taught while actually working within their field. They have clinical experience and hands-on training that help prepare them for when the unexpected happens.

It’s frustrating to me because we need to know. We need to be told about all aspects of the job so that we can better prepare ourselves for what we will actually experience instead of having to figure it out on the fly and spend 5 years or more struggling. We need to experience a meltdown and see how an experienced teacher handles it. We need to see someone put together a schedule and plan instruction groups. We need to see how to progress monitor and organize data. It’s really no surprise that the burnout rate for special educators is so high We literally were not adequately prepared for this job.

So I thought I would begin to try to let you in on the biggest holes your college preparation classes left.

This episode discusses:
1) Dealing with behavior
2) Managing paperwork
2) How to work with a variety of students at one time
3) Supervising paraprofessionals
4) Scheduling

I truly believe our college preparation classes drop the ball in so many areas when it comes to preparing special educators for the real world. Hopefully this episode will help teachers who are struggling with these aspects of being a special educator.

Mentioned in the Show...

Episode 43 with Sasha from the Autism Helper
Episode 56 with Nicole from Adaptation Station

Paraprofessional Handbook

How to Write an Effective IEP Digital Notebook

11/10/21 • 21 min

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