Special Education Labels: Necessary or Negative?
My students knew why they were in my class. They knew they were "special education" students. They also knew that they didn't learn as fast or as well as their peers did, they knew that they needed extra help with social skills, life skills, and job skills. The problem is; because of their label, the other kids in school knew it to. This often resulted in my students getting teased because they were in "that dumb class for bad kids", which always resulted in me having to assure them that they were not dumb and they were not bad kids. All because of a little label called "special education".
The question that I was always left with was this: Are special education labels negative or necessary? What I have come to learn is that the labels are both of the above. As a teacher, I can clearly see both sides of the labeling issue. I also saw how the labeling affected my students and it wasn't always a positive thing.
Special education students need to be labeled. It is important to the state they are in, the schools they attend, and to the teacher they are educated with. Why is it important to have a label on a student? Well, to start with every special education student in every state needs something called an IEP, which is an Individualized Education Plan. The IEP is what the teachers, the social workers, the counselor, anyone who works with the student must follow when educating that child. Each child's IEP is different from other children on an IEP. It is important to categorize a child as a special education student for this very reason…the IEP. This paperwork is crucial to a special education child receiving the most appropriate and beneficial educational experience possible. It is reviewed monthly by the teacher and sent home to the parents or caregiver. A new IEP is written yearly for the student, with parents and everyone who works with that student present. IEP's are essential to special education students.
Another important reason that students must be labeled as special education is money. The district will receive more money from the state for a child who is in special education. The school district needs these extra funds to help with the child's educational process. If the child isn't labeled as special needs, then the district won't get the extra money that student would need for education. Therefore, without the label, no extra money, and that money is important.
Teachers, often like knowing the labels of each special education student, because it can help them plan on how to best educate that child. If a teacher, especially a general education teacher, knows that they are going to have a learning disabled student in their classroom for a period, then they feel more prepared to help that child. If that child wasn't labeled, and just came to them as a general population student, the teacher would not be able to best serve that student in the his or her classroom. It would be doing a huge disservice to the student to not have a label telling his or her teacher just what disability they have.
Knowing these things always made me feel a bit better about having my students labeled. It also helped me better explain to them why the labels were important, and what the purpose of having them was. It still didn't make it any easier for my students, when the other students saw them in my classroom, getting a lot of extra help. The other students knew what my classroom was all about and what kind of a teacher I was.
It is a double-edged sword to the children who walk the halls of schools with a special education label attached to their back. They need the label for the school and for the teachers to help them. But, do they need the labels advertised for the entire school to see? Is there a way to label these kids without the school population figuring out why they go into such and such a class for help? That is another question I always found running through my mind. How do we stop that label of special education from being negative and just have it be deemed as necessary?
I am not sure now, looking back, that there is an easy way to stop the negativity that goes along with the labeling of special education students. Most people teaching agree that it is necessary. What isn't necessary is the special education student feeling crummy and being teased just because they carry that label and go into a special class. How do we find a comfortable balance between the necessity of labeling and the negatives that go along with it?
I wish I knew. The problem is, even though no teacher goes along announcing that a child is staffed special ed or what type of disability that child has, the word still gets out. Kids are smart. They see kids going in and out of a classroom that they aren't in, they can see that these kids may look a bit different, or perhaps they can hear some of the behaviors that are exhibited in that classroom. The kids figure it out, they tell a friend who tells a friend and that is it. From then on, the kids in the special education room are known as different, just because of the label they carry and the disability they exhibit.
I am really not sure of a way to avoid this negative connotation that comes with labeling a child as a special education student. I am not sure that school districts will ever figure it out. All that I know is that the labels are important. But the students who are labeled are even more important. We need labels that much I am sure of. What we also need are students who are much more accepting of other students who are different than them. Unfortunately, that acceptance is becoming less and less, and our special education population is becoming greater and greater. There is no easy answer, and that is unfortunate indeed.
Published by Kaye Siders
I am currently a full time mom to my two young sons. I also have a wonderful husband. In another life I was a special education teacher for almost ten years. Writing has always been something I enjoyed. View profile
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8 Comments
Post a CommentThank's for this article! It really helped me put a name to the idea I had for my Senior Project. My topic was whether Sped programs could be harming students who aren't dramatically different from the general student population, but I couldn't figure out how to phrase it. Because of this article, I was able to refocus and identify my topic as whether labeling is helpful or harmful. Thank you!
I've seen first hand what labels can do to kids involved in Sped programs. One of my friends was mentally average so far as I could tell. She was a bit of a ditz, but not stupid. She was placed in Sped because she was adopted from Russia as a child and she was having trouble learning English. She was maybe 6 at the time, and 12 years later she spoke English like a native- but was still in Sped. Her opinion of herself was horrible. She had no confidence in her academic abilty. She was convinced she was stupid and couldn't do any schoolwork without assistance. It made my hear
I totally disagree about the use of labels for students with disabilities. Even reading some of the comments below, they are NOT Sped students they are students first, who happen to have a disability. Does it really matter what the disability is? I say no! As a school psychologist who dealt with RtI and the idea of non-categorical identification, we followed the requirements of the law that states we had to determine whether the child had an impairment anbd then whether the child had a need for special education services. It's about the services not the label! If an IEP is truly and IEP, no two IEPs should look alike. Teachers will need to actually READ the IEP in order to see how each student learns best. In doing non-categorical IEP evaluations, teachers would ask what "label" was the child so they would know "where to begin to instruct the child." My response was that the teacher needed to read the IEP to know where to begin. My vote is for no labels, just better services a
i am a freshmen majoring in sped. and i was tasked to give my opinion. the question goes like this. "if i were a sped teacher, is it proper and ethical to use labels in teaching? " :) so labels aren't a positive thing? what do you think will be the best alternative way of labeling sped children in a manner that they wouldn't be discriminated?
Children need to be thought to be considerate of other peoples differences, and for the most part children are. But I also believe that the reaction most children display about special needs for children come from ignorance of the subject. Instead of trying to hide the fact that students need special instructions, can we not educate students and parents alike? Until we find an answer that everybody can live with, there is going to be confusion and frustration. It is all part of change, but change we must.
As a high school reading teacher, I have seen first hand what the label learning disabled can and usually does result in for LD stuents in secondary education classrooms. Most of the students that I service display a pattern of lack of motivation, poor self image, and poor work habits. This is a crime. What appeared to be a simple problem in reading for many has turned into a permanent learning disability. In light of what is known about brain plasticity--even children who have had the left side of the brain removed can learn to read; even children who have had the right side of the brain removed can do math. I do not think we should be labeling young children as learning disabled. We should acknowledge difficulties through intervention without labeling. The IDEA needs to be changed.
It all has to do with the parents. How many adults are not tolerant of others' differences? That mentality gets passed to our children. I'm terrified of this. I have a special needs preschooler that I'm pushing to be labeled to continue to get the help he needs. I know his being labeled in kindergarten is going to present a whole new set of issues with other kids. As it is now, we get a lot of looks for his behaviors in public, from adults and kids, and I know this is only going to get worse. Parents of "typical" kids need to see that our special needs kids are not "retarded" (using it as an insult), and that they are children who just learn differently, or need different things to learn. Schools should be teaching kids to be considerate of others' differences, and general ed students should have to point out their issues to show that no one is perfect, and we all learn a little different.
The schools should have a no tolerance policy for unkind and mean behavior. Children in a special ed. classroom are regularly instructed and reminded of appropriate social behavior. General Ed. Children that label and discriminate need to be reminded of appropriate social behavior for the good of our community.
I work as a school psychologist, and have worked with children with disabilities (at all age levels, K-12) for a number of years as well. I have noticed some of the same things that you have mentioned. Perhaps because I have always worked in "at risk/Title One/bilingual" schools, the "label" itself does not seem to be as prevalent because there are so many students coming in and out for services such as ESL, Title One/Reading Recovery, counseling groups, etc. In the time that I have been working under the "special ed umbrella" I have seen trends go back and forth between pull-out models and inclusion models of instruction. It seems like we are moving back toward inclusion models again (especially with No Child Left Behind) so maybe this will help some with the things that you mentioned in your article as students will not stand out as much.