I was but a few days into my first year of teaching special education and had the class pretty organized with various text books and reading cards. All my kids were indeed a good bit below grade level in reading, but one guy was not much better than 2nt grade, if that.

I had him read from the assigned text out loud and he struggled with every 2nt or 3^rd word in a 2nt grade level book. After a sentence or two of prompting him with the correct word pronunciation, I told him to just sound it out and I’ll tell him what the word meant. He looked up like he had not a clue what I had just said, so I repeated it, “you know, just sound out the word, a,e,i, o, u, the phonics of it.” He asked what I meant by that.

That folks, took me a-back. I again repeated the basic phonics needed to decipher the word we were on and he said he had never heard of it. This was my first revelation that someone had gotten the wild hair up his you-know-where, to come up with a fix to something that definitely needed no fixing.

I asked the reading teachers and the other special ed teachers what was going on in the elementary schools that they were no longer teaching phonics and got the explanation that it was pretty much a thing of the past and they now use what is called “sight reading,” where they basically learn words linked to pictures, if it means something that can be pictured, and memorize it. It’s like learning Chinese where you have to memorize all those characters, rather than learning to decipher any word through the knowledge of the individual letter sounds.

I repeatedly showed my surprise and disdain for the idea and got the same surprise from teachers that I had no clue what site reading was. Most talked of it approvingly as if some great step forward had been made when they through out phonics for sight reading methods. None seemed the least concerned at this weighty turn in American reading instruction and said phonics was still taught but only on a limited basis, what ever that meant.

Anyway, my little 7^th grade special ed reader had totally fallen through the sight reading cracks and was absolutely helpless. I am of the opinion now that the change to sight reading instruction is key factor in the nose dive of SAT/ACT scores over the last 30 years. Your regular, above the average kid is not going to have a problem I suppose, but the rest of them are going to struggle for the full duration of their grade school education and on into adult life.

The failure of our schools and the lower reading rates have been discussed in the open media, but to no great or detailed extent. Generally, teachers, or the neighborhood, gang influence, drugs, alcohol, uninvolved parents, too busy to aid their kids with homework,… everything but the system have I heard blamed for the falling test scores.

I have yet to see a single “in-depth” report that got anywhere near touching this item as a possible source of the greatly lowered reading levels of modern American high school graduates. It is a common problem dealt with by all employers. All universities and community colleges now have remedial English and math classes to prepare students for college level courses.

I mentioned in my 5^th post the guy with a 3^rd grade German education who eventually went to law school after being elected sheriff and obtained his license to practice law, then became a judge. I also brought up the fact my National Guard recruiter complained he was unable to enlist 5 high school graduates in a row due to their inability to read and pass the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Test.

5 guys, unable to pass a test to get into the military due to weak reading skills. All with better than average grades on their report cards. You are talking of individuals being deprived of productive career choices, not to mention their confidence in their own abilities. It is a common problem for recruiters.

What is happening? 50 years ago, a person dropping out in the 8^th grade could read on an 8^th grade level. Now a huge number of high school graduates can’t read on that level.

Well, back to my small slice of this life pie, I went and requested that we order “Hooked on Phonics” right away for a remedial curriculum and the principal agreed and I had it a few weeks later. Buy years end, that one guy and several others I ran through it had increased their reading comprehension by several grades.

I went to each child, one on one, once the example was on the board, and insured each student completed every problem correctly, of which there was rarely more than 10. Even with the close help of the teacher, for sometimes every detail of the problems, it gave these guys a good feeling to be doing the real math they knew their normal friends were accomplishing next door.

There was little discipline problems and a lot better focus on the work than I ever had with those “worthless” in my opinion, 3^rd grade basic math worksheets. By the 7^th grade, these guys had had quite enough of that as well. Pressing on into real algebra, just brought a happier feel and cooperation to the class. The faster kids, helped me with the slower ones and nobody failed to complete the assigned problems. It was very much a win win.

This day, there was a new boy in the class. One of those constant transfers who just dropped in out of nowhere totally unexpected, likely expelled from another school. He began to dominate and disrupt with complete disdain for lesson, class, teacher and consequences; likely why he was no longer at his last school.

It was like dropping an untrained wild Doberman into the middle of your well trained sled dog team. There was not the slightest hint of obedience as I pointed out the posted consequences and calmly tried to continue the problem explanation.

It was frustrating me, as the process of getting the others past that wild undisciplined strain had taken weeks if not months and I really despised referrals for the time it took from class just to write them and get a security escort; and the already mentioned lack of any real action that could be taken outside of expulsion. This guy was pressing the envelope however.

His smirky cussing and deliberate interrupting suddenly sparked a little black girl to take control and tell him to shut the F__k up. She was totally focused on learning the new formula and had already told him to shut up a few times in a calmer manner.

This time, there was no mistaking her demeanor. She was tensed like a cat about to pounce on a bird. Action would commence on his next word, which of course was quick to come. He smirked some confident foolishness back at her and got it hard in the teeth. Before I could grab her, she must have laid 7-10 hard ones on his face and head, fighting not round house little girly swings but hard, straight on punches like a prize fighter.

Desks were going everywhere and I shouted to punch the buzzer for security, some kids did. The girl was cussing him and he wanted to get at her in response, but was hesitating, cussing back with spit. I was uncomfortable holding holding a young girl tightly and she quickly escaped my grasp and plowed into him again. He was trying to fight but was being completely pummeled.

The buzzer kept being punched but no one in the office responded. A male teacher finally showed up at the commotion, while the lady math teacher next door peered in, then tried to call the office from her room. He grabbed the girl while I got a hold of the boy who was cussing mad at his beating. I had to hold him both arms behind his back hard as he spit and cussed her; which infuriated her even more. By this time, we had gotten them into the hallway but his cussing words so enraged the girl she escaped the hold of the other teacher like a mad cat clawing free of her captor, raced over to the boy I had in a tight arm lock and before she could be pulled off, punched him again with what seemed like another round of more than 5-7 quick hard straight on blows.

Security never did show up and we managed to haul our prize fighters to the office while the math teacher over-watched my class. They both got 10 days suspension for fighting.

The boy was quite subdued and said very little when I visited he and his mother with some make up work. What was sad was he got run over by a car while on that suspension and I never saw him again.

I silenced more than a few of those professors in my masters program who launched into the benefits to children now that the evil paddle was a thing of the past in most schools. Countless studies were quoted and assigned which dealt with such matters. But the plain reality was their new no touch policy had not only created an undisciplined idiot, but got him killed.

The paddle had kept me and my generation off the streets, in school, and in compliant obedience in class. When we got in fights, we were given the option of calling our parents in or taking swats, the number per specific offense which was posted. We always elected for the swats, were made to shake hands and sent back to class. There were no gangs wandering the streets in those days; there were no supplies of troubled, suspended kids to feed them.

 Next post: the Reading Class.

Visiting homes, I was beginning to appreciate the formulate and shaping power a child’s home life has on personality and cognitive ability. None of the kids I dealt with came from even what would be considered middle class homes. If they were in a home, it was an old frame house, likely rented, and often a royal mess inside and outside. One I came to had fire wood scattered all over the yard, so thick you could hardly find a place to set your foot. Add to that kids toys, the proverbial couch or car seat on the porch and a junk car, or two or three. The government projects were at least kept free of that on the outside.

But now, back from that rabbit trail, add to this low middle class to poverty upbringing what I was beginning to find as equally defective formal teaching methods, and you have a prescription for generational poverty, totally dependent on the government dole and without the knowledge base to even dream or read of the old ‘rags to riches’ stories of kids raised in similar situations a hundred years ago. At least that generation had a basic ability to read, think for themselves and the personal discipline to start and run their own enterprises, even if they had dropped out in the 8^th grade; a common level for the 1800s.

There is one biography of a guy born in 1869 in German-Austria who immigrated with his parents after only completing the 3^rd grade in Germany. Yet, he became a homesteader in Oklahoma, obtained a battlefield commission in 1899 during action in the Philippine insurrection, served as a deputy US marshal, then was elected sheriff of his county and while sheriff, went to a law school, obtained his license to practice law and ended up being a very good and respected judge. Try all that with todays 3^rd grade drop out. The recruiter for my National Guard unit had 5 high school graduates in a row fail the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Test, after multiple tries. He could not enlist them because they could not read. Their was no indication in their grade records of less than average passing grades. Something amiss there.

            Back to my own experience; in the math class I was teaching, I’d had enough of the prescribed, keep busy endless worksheets of 3^rd grade fractions, decimals, addition, subtraction and multiplication, so I borrowed some of the pre-algebra math books from the regular ed math teacher and soon had this bunch all dealing fairly effectively with basic algebraic equations.

            I had to confer with the math teacher myself quite often to gain comprehension of a problem type myself so I could teach it, as I had not seen any of it since high school either. The strategy worked. We repeated chapters and work over and over with me doing the assigned book problems on the board before and after, then making new problems exactly as the ones they just did but for a number change or two. The repetition caused the algebraic expression we were doing to sink into even the lowest of the low performers. And with the small classes, I could personally, repeatedly walk each through the work. I made no small deal about them being only pages behind the regular ed guys next door.

              Sometimes we actually were ahead in page numbers as I had to jump around the complexly laid out and uselessly hard to follow book to find the basic algebraic principals I sought to build on only gradually. In my opinion, the middle school math books I dealt with could all be simplified by rewriting them in Chinese. It was a good thing the math teacher was just next door, and a very sweet natured understanding mother of two girls herself, as I more than a few times slipped over in mid class for a clarification. Once I understood it, it seemed only too easy to do and to explain in a manner any of my guys could understand. I probably tend to the special ed myself, a bit thick some might say. If I end up understanding something, anybody can understand it.

                 However, the new challenge caught the class attention. I had 12-15 kids sometimes, as students in this school were often quite transient. They all had to be trained to obedience repeatedly. Rarely was a class not interrupted with “what is your option?” meaning, “are you going to write your 10 or push your 10.” But all knew they were doing and comprehending things the regular kids were and it was pleasing overall. A sense of accomplishment prevailed.

                        Occasionally I heard a whine about this being “above my learning ability,” especially from new students just dropped in from afar and I’d retort, “Not a problem, I have some nice little 3^rd grade math fraction worksheets if you’d prefer.” “Oh no, Mr. Donaldson, please show me how and I’ll do this,” and back to the races we went. The algebra was in my and their opinion far easier than those worthless 3^rd grade worksheets.

                     I don’t think a day ever went by I did not rave over their assignments, sometimes just a few problems, all the same but for the numbers, (repetition is the name of the game… in any field really). “Look at what you guys are accomplishing. Those clowns next door are no further along than you, probably less cause they don’t get to repeat it till they know it like you all.”

They all knew and joked of their LD label. Here the joke was, “You know what LD stands for don’t you? Lazy Dufus.” “Nothing wrong with you a big black boot can’t cure.”

                                I’d pick up papers with all that complex looking algebraic expressions all every which way and down the sides, but correct, (getting them writing neatly was another hassle in it self) and say, “Look at that, same as those punks next door, there’s nothing wrong with you, your just a lazy dufus. A little kick in the tail and look what your doing.”

                   I think back on it now and I can remember almost like it just happened, the times I got complements, atta-boys or awards from parents or superiors. The few I got made a solid impression on me. Had I gotten more, I know it would have caused me to mature and become ‘accomplished’ much earlier in life.

                    Reflecting back on the looks in their eyes as I said such things, I know it was affecting their souls. “There’s nothing wrong with me, its the same work as the others, I can do this.”

                    They all heard the fact that every body is lazy to a large or small extent. Thats why DI’s are always having to re-polish their boots. Their always kicking the laziness out of their recruits. Nobody changes from that basic lazy pattern unless embarrassed to do it, forced to do it, or motivated by some pressing goal to accomplish that change, be it physical, mental, financial, career or family. “I’m here to break that lazy mold, and with it will go that LD label.”

 Next post: The fight.

Although the visits tended to the positive as a whole, no kid wants a teacher showing up on their porch with a packet of incomplete assignments and detailed instructions as to how their parents could ‘help’ get the child to complete them.

I mentioned earlier the focused quiet attention I had, as long as I was close by, in the ‘inclusion’ classes. Disorderly conduct of any kind resulted in immediate removal to my class room. That removal did not result in their being relieved of that classes activities for more than 10 minutes. They returned with me as soon as the 10 sentences or 10 push ups were completed, then were ‘assisted’ in catching up on what was missed.

By now, only a major fight could elicit a referral from me. I hate expelling as a punishment with a passion. It is not a deterrent, and it disrupts a kids education, and throws them to the street corruption with no safety, oversight or option but to participate.

I mentioned the 13 year olds 20 year old boy friend. I have heard kids bragging about the alcohol, drugs and sex they saw and partook of while on suspension. How modern academia has come to think the paddle, exercise, work or embarrassment is worse than throwing them out on the streets is another study in flaky research and goofy doctoral thesis that go against just plain common sense that kids need basic, immediate discipline, then a quick return to normalcy.

But that is all another discussion I’m sure we will get to in future posts as it was raised in lively exchanges with those ‘out of touch’ education professors I encountered during the 4 years I worked on that masters educational degree, studying all sorts of research.  

So, what began to happen under these somewhat rigorous oversight, pressure, marginally painful consequences and parental interaction? By the sheer weight of completed assignments, my group of ‘learning disabled’ students began to rise beyond the midrange grade wise in the regular ed inclusion classes.

The regular ed teachers had added them to their grade books and all their papers were turned in and graded without regard to their LD status. I clearly remember the stunned reflective looks of some of their faces when reviewing report cards and realizing they were attaining passing grades in ‘normal’ classes, with no special preferences given.

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Instead of writing referrals, I began making home calls and eventually found all my kids homes and some of their hangouts. This got their attention, as I showed up with a whole file of unfinished assignments, each with precise instructions to the parent as to how to help their child complete each. It worked. I actually got those kids returning a good bit of that work fully completed and with a different, much more compliant attitude.

Here their needs to be discussion on how these home visits were conducted. Hardly any discussion of the kids troublesome actions was held. Much time was spent complementing the parents on all the good things their kids were doing and the work they were accomplishing, even if I had to strain a mountain of mud to find those few pieces of gold to talk about.

Their IEPs (Individual Education Plans) were replete with all the parental contacts made, disciplinary plans written and signed for, and suspensions going back years, so why should I bother with the usual. They full well knew what a brat they had on their hand and didn’t have a clue as to how to deal with them outside of another cussing out and assurances that, “you’ll never amount to anything,” rant anyway.

To say the parents were taken aback would be an understatement. Nobody had ever said anything good about their kid. Humbled looks of surprise appeared as they looked at their kids, meekly repeating my comments with things like, “you-all keep up the good work, OK.”

The change in the kids was equally remarkable. One boy who had gotten into a desk scattering fight with another girl while totally disrupting my class just sat there in stunned silence in his house as his mom looked at him approvingly. I never mentioned the fight, which she was fully aware of as he was still under suspension when I visited the home with his make up work. Same reaction of another unruly boy as his dad made softly approving comments the kid had likely never heard before, stunned silence.

The potty mouth blond, came up beside her dad when I visited and actually thanked me for coming by. In the school, these students became very compliant, for me anyway. They sometimes flared at each other, or were just plain ornery, but issues and words directly addressed against me evaporated and they, for the most part, became obedient, and thus some what studious. It began to reflect in not only their grades, but their subject matter comprehension.

I ran across this girl my 1^st year of 7^th grade LD students. She was defiantly a wild child, and loud about it. A pretty little blond girl with freckles, but with a potty mouth that would make a bar bouncer blush. She could loudly cuss the paint off the door and loudly refused to obey any directives which of course made the rest of the class tend to want to ‘raise’ to her level. She was quite sexually active with a 20 year old boy friend and would loudly and vividly try to describe their latest positions, with physical demonstrations. She was often and quickly sent out of the room to the dean, who had few options beyond expulsion.

I was suppose to teach this wild bunch of 6-9 students, depending on who was expelled at the moment, math, reading, science, and history in a one room setting. This was before the days of ‘inclusion’ being the norm. Needless to say, it was a wild 1^st few weeks.

None of these had any track record of serious learning and were used to being pushed along grade to grade regardless of whether they learned anything or turned any work assignments in because they were ‘learning disabled’ and knew the routine quite well. They were quite taken aback that I was not taking no for an answer, or paying any particular attention to their class room antics. They loudly complained other teachers had not required such real work. I don’t know whether that was true but they definitely whined that excuse about every assignment that was not blown off easily.

Not having the resources to teach history or science properly, I went and conferred with the regular ed teachers of both those classes and got their tentative permission to shuffle my small bunch to the back of their classrooms. Thus, with little to-do, inclusion was initiated.

I kept them all together initially as this allowed me to both aid their class work directly…meaning press them to do it, and squelch any attempt to distract the rest of the class, as was part of my agreement with the regular ed teacher. Any trouble, talking, misbehavior of any kind was immediately dealt with by an embarrassing removal from the large classroom, so they all became quite settled and focused… at least while I was standing beside them, which was always as I did not want to attempt to teach the mass of those subjects to 7 or so rambunctious whiners.

It was precisely the mass of preparation time that goes into properly preparing for just 1 class subject, much less 4 or 5, that lent some credibility to their repeated whines that not much in the way of real assignments or projects had ever really been required of them. Had I attempted to teach all the subject areas assigned, each would have been watered down as well due to lack of time and resources.

With my inclusion arrangement, the regular ed teacher taught, maintained his own class discipline, gave out daily class work, homework and projects. My task was to insure every one of mine paid silent attention and turned in 100% of everything assigned. I did attempt to aid others in the class when mine seemed to be performing, but I found their performance was very dependent on my presence.

The further away I got, the less performance and louder it became. It was found, especially for kids with disabilities, but also for many regular ed students that age, their ability to perform any work, and especially quality work requiring focus, searching terms in textbooks, filling in map projects and writing papers was not so much dependent on their level of learning disability, but on the level of external, direct attention or oversight (literally standing over them, either to help with the work or ensure it was being done).

It was precisely this type of pressure to perform and direct oversight in its accomplishment, that none of these students, nor a lot of the struggling regular ed students had at home, or had had at school. Here, they either performed the work, for which they had no end of aid in every detail and complimentary support (meaning lots of praise for accomplishment of that work), or they faced certain very predictable and somewhat painful, if you could call writing sentences or push-ups that, consequences from that same aid and mentor, Mr. Donaldson.

Next post: Control is established

About all it’s done is raise the drop out rates and push the highly successful vocational programs that were getting kids skilled jobs, out of High School to make room for the extra math and science classes. But that’s another story, and now 9 years past. It was a whine for me at 1^st, but I’ve had more success, making a notable difference in some of these LD kids lives and direction than was ever noticed with the large vo-tech classes I had. So that is the tone and focus of this blog. Situations encountered, successes and failures experienced, and my own “After Action Reviews” (AARs) of these and the things I am implementing this year, fall 2009 with my class roster of youth, with Learning Disabilities.

I’ll also periodically post reviews of books, products and software I am reading, using or experimenting with. There seems to be a lot of effective tools and research out there that could help LD students… regular ed for that matter. But little of it seems to actually make it to the class room and pressed into the service of those students. Stay tuned if you have a child, or interest in this field. Eventually, there will be a treasure of useful knowledge, experienced techniques and useful products reviewed.