Special education teachers, let’s be honest, this is not the great summer of 2020 any of us had envisioned. Though you may not be at work, you can’t escape it. You turn on the television or get on social media and all you hear about is the planning going into reopening schools during a pandemic. When I was teaching, I was always super irritated that the Back to School sales would start about two weeks into my summer vacation. It was like as soon I started to disconnect a huge countdown timer was placed in front of me, reminding me that it would all end soon. This year, it is much worse. There is no escaping the discussion around schools. There is no escaping the myriad of emotions that the discussion brings and there is no escaping the constant thought in your mind, “What will this look like for me and my students? How am I going to do this?”
Let’s end the panic and get to problem solving. If our minds can’t stop working, then let’s at least make that work productive. Next week I am going to start a blog series on how to set up the socially distanced special education self-contained classroom. Spoiler alert: I don’t have all of the answers. I haven’t done this before and neither have you. But we special educators and we conquer our challenges by being collaborative and getting creative. I don’t have all of the answers myself, but I know we can come up with some amazing solutions together. Legendary college basketball coach John Wooden once said, “Don’t let what you can’t do get in the way of what you can do.” Let’s work together on this and show what we can do.
That said, here is your part in this. If you are already starting to set up your classroom, take pictures and send them my way through either Facebook messenger or my email at patrickmulick@gmail.com. If you already have ideas as to how you will run your class or how the room will be set up, send them my way. I have my own thoughts, I know when I combine them with yours we can create some pretty innovative solutions. What you share with me I will share with everyone in the weeks ahead. Give my information to your colleagues, let’s get their minds in this as well. We have been saying the line since March, “We are going to get through this together,” so let’s do it! To give you a head start in your thinking, check out these two links from The Auism Helper and Edutopia.
Please note, this is not a forum to question if schools should open, it is a forum to discuss what this can look like when schools open. I understand that many states and counties are in different places around reopening schools. At some point all schools will open for in person instruction again. When they do, people will need a blueprint of what their classroom can look like. Let’s create it! Keep an eye out on Facebook for my posts. I look forward to hearing from many of you!