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Dear Fellow Brothers & Sisters:
I am writing this letter in response to the sad & painful story of Malky Klein. We as a community are facing a BIG problem! After hearing her father speak about Malky, i looked at my husband & cried, if i had grown up in NY then i would have been like Malky. You see growing up out of town, the schools worked to accommodate all the students as best as they can, no child is turned away for having a learning disability. I am a special education teacher & i have taken about 6 years of college courses now in special ed. Many of the methods that i have learned about in school, our Yeshiva & Bais Yaakov schools don’t use. Why aren’t we using the new methods like RTI-Response To Intervention? The public schools & many day schools have found ways to help students with learning disabilities in the mainstream classroom. It is time for the Bais Yaakov’s & Yeshiva’s to wake up & realize that they need teachers who are ready to help each student. They need teachers with more training in teaching methods, it does not matter if they are English or Hebrew teachers these methods apply to every teacher.Children have all different strength’s & weaknesses. Some children learn well auditorily & so a teacher who lectures is fine, BUT some kids who need visual aides to learn then if they have a teacher who only teaches through lecturing, they aren’t learning as well as they could be. We say we believe in חנוך לנער על פי דרכו , well this is what it means, we need to reach each student. It is a huge responsibility for teachers to reach each student, but we have to stop sticking our heads into the sand & pretending it is not a problem. These are all out kids & by not helping them we are hurting them, We MUST educate ourselves in the methods to help reach each of these kids NOW before more of our sweet children suffer.
signed
A concerned MorahWho said these modem special ed techniques are effective and/or appropriate?
We need the ancient special ed techniques.
Who said these modem special ed techniques are effective and/or appropriate?
Why shouldn’t they be appropriate? To defend inaction because proposed techniques are inappropriate needs to be backed up with a reason to believe them wrong for whatever reason.
As to their effectiveness, there are two points: (a) They are worth a try, because the current system is failing far too many kids. (b) The people developing these techniques are those who are noticing the issues in the first place – aka, the people who care.
Why do you have reason to doubt their effectiveness? Me thinks the key word in your post is ‘modern’. And the rest of your point loses it’s touch, I’m afraid.
Highly relevant point from Professor Umbridge:
The Ministry for Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the wizarding community must be passed down the generations lest we lose them for ever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching. Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress’s sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation because some changes will be for the better, while others will come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as errors of judgement. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited.
Yekke, I only asked a question. I didn’t issue a statement.
There’s a lot of ineffective treatment in the modern world of psychology that enjoys widespread medical acceptance and usage.
Joseph:
Your facts are obsolete, if they were ever accurate.
Today’s world of psychology is based on empirical data. For the overwhelming percentage of recognized and accepted practice, there are volumes, even reams of research that support its efficacy. We are long past the times when theories became popular and entered mainstream practice. Special ed has the luxury of being even more founded on scientifically proven techniques. There are several reasons for this. One notable one is that the success or failure of a technique is more easily quantified and observed.
Psychology has always been a science. It is a softer science than engineering, and thus subject to refutation and newer discoveries. This happens in the hard sciences as well, as perfection is not common among humans. But you overplay the minimal amount of inaccuracy or lack of efficacy. Sounds like you have an agenda.
The OP’s point is that our mainstream yeshivos can easily be more inclusive by providing a wider array of services. Some of this requires additional staff with specialized training. Other ideas might be better training of the regular staff/faculty. Both of these are likely to meet up with considerable resistance. So even to the degree that we may agree with the OP, remaining skeptical that these ideas will fly is predictable.
The trouble with special education is that it’s often presented as an alternative to mainstream education as if “normal” children are mainstream, and there if a child would benefit from special education, that means there is something wrong with them. And when children are provided with special education, it is often with the goal of “mainstreaming” them, as if mainstream were ideal.
With all that college education, Concerned Morah should know that plurals don’t have apostrophes.
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