How I Earned My Master's Degree in Special Education
This occurred in the mid 1970s just after the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed. This law required public schools to provide a free and appropriate public education to all children regardless of disability. At that time, there was an enormous national need to prepare enough teachers to provide educational services to the influx of students that were now allowed and required to attend school. Thus, tuition scholarships were offered by state departments of education to begin to address the national need for teachers in all areas of special education.
Starting a master's degree program at KU was kind of complicated since I lived and was teaching school in the southeastern most corner of Kansas and the University of Kansas campuses offering courses were two to three hours away. The first round of coursework began during the summer with nine hours of courses and a practicum. This load required a full day of lectures and working under supervision with students four days a week.
In order to stay on track with my fellow students so I was prepared to be a supervisor of first-year students the next summer, I had to take six hours of coursework each semester starting in the fall. This was really where the rub came in. I taught school during the day and when it was over at 3:30, I would drive to one of the campuses for night classes. This happened two nights a week.
My classes would be over around 9:00 p.m. and I would go to the library on campus to gather required readings to take home to prepare for the next class. Typically I would leave campus around 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. and begin the trek back home. Depending on the weather, I arrived home around 1:00 to 2:00 a.m. My evenings in-between class nights were spent preparing for teaching and to go back to KU for courses.
The second summer of coursework was similar to the first with the exception that I was the supervisor of a practicum site helping first-year students understand how to apply the concepts they had learned in their preliminary courses. This made me start to think about how to help new graduate students apply the different teaching strategies we had been learning about in courses. Some of the challenges the young students with learning disabilities were dealing with included issues related to: auditory and visual sequential short term and long term memory, attention to task, attending to detail, visual and auditory discrimination and processing.
These brain-related learning challenges were very new to me as they were only addressed in one course during my undergraduate program - Introduction to Exceptional Children. The majority of the courses in undergraduate school focused on teaching methods for reading, math, science, etc. They did not focus on how to teach when a student was not learning via the typical methods. This is not a criticism. After being faculty at the University of Missouri in the Department of Special Education, I realized there are not enough hours in an undergraduate training program to teach everything a teacher needs to know. Master's degree programs begin the journey into developing a depth of knowledge about learning and doctoral programs take the journey even deeper.
When I was 22 and throwing my motorboard into the air rejoicing about my freedom, I would never have thought that today I would hold a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and have become a lifelong learner.
Related Articles
Autism: Curriculum Adaptations for Preschool Children
Inglorious Bastards: Using Tarantino's Movie for a Teaching Case Study of Antisocial Personality
Teaching Reading Comprehension Skills to Children: Reading for Meaning
IEP Teams Can Diagnose Dyslexia
Dyslexia and Special Education
Published by Mary Starr Johnson-Gerard, Ph.D.
I am a Ph.D. Educational Psychologist with over 35 years of experience in the fields of human development, behavior, and learning. I have hands on experiences as well consultative experiences in all areas. I... View profile
- California Special Education Students Left in the Dark About GraduationSpecial Education students in California still don't know if they will be allowed to graduate this June. Politicians are slow in passing legislation to help them.
Understanding Learning DisabilitiesLearning disabilities affect many Americans today. The question is what types are there? How many people are affected?...This article can answer those questions.
How to Spot Learning Disabilities in WritingMuch of the time teachers and parents only think about reading as the primary focus for learning difficulties. On the other hand, examining written language can be very helpful...- Are Learning Disabilities Used as Excuses?While I would never argue that a learning disability is not real, I have seen evidence that when too much emphasis is put on the learning disability, the student is given an excuse to do poorly.
- Challenges in the Future of Special EducationWith ongoing moans of "teaching to the test" and meeting state and national standards, what will become of students with special needs?
- What to Expect in a Group Job Interview
- An Insider's Guide to The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas
- University of Kansas Natural History Museum
- John Calipari: University of Kentucky's Wildcats Basketball New Coach
- Special Education: Defining Roles of Parent and Educator
- Special Education: How to Be an Effective Push In Teacher
- A Brief History of Special Education
- This article describes my journey toward earning a Master's degree in Special Education.