Accomplishing the TO DO List

It’s been a long while since I’ve written – classes, bike rides and the hecticness of life put the blog on the back burner for a while. Once there, it was hard to move it to the front burner. So I did what we suggest for individuals with organizational issues and for all students with special needs – make a list, break down each task into small and “doable” parts, and check items off when you accomplish them.

And now, I’m back to writing – OK, I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a wimp and the fall temperatures have gotten a bit too cool for my bike. However, it is the list I keep going back to, and it’s what seems to keep me moving ahead on the things I need to do. Without it, what I call the “mundane stuff of life” takes precidence and I forget about the bigger and probably more important things, which then never get accomplished.

So my “TO DO LIST” is long and colorful (I group the areas of work by colors). My rainbow list now has lots of bold Xs on it, a testament to my perseverance and the ultimate success of the strategy I’ve used with so many of my students – write tasks down, break the tasks into small component parts, do it, and X it off the list.

That’s what works for me. What works for you??

Structure in Ritual and Special Education

I've been thinking about how teachers handle behavior issues because this semester I’ll be teaching “Behavior Management for the Inclusive Classroom,” at Hebrew College. While I've taught this course before, each time I start to prepare the class, it's a new beginning. I may take out previous notes and PowerPoint presentations, but then there's new research to read, information to add, and ideas to consider. This semester I am adding a focus on Jewish ritual, considering what lessons we can learn from that perspective regarding improving behaviors in the classroom.

Behaviors play an important role in leading a Jewish life and in being a special educator. Looking at life through each of these lenses, we can learn from our Jewish heritage about the importance of structure and routines.

Structure provides security and safety. It is commonly accepted that structure offers a person a set of boundaries within which it is possible to function; without prescribed boundaries a person may be at a loss to know what behaviors are expected and accepted. Judaism provides many opportunities for structure. Judaism provides many ways for structuring our environment. Our Jewish laws and practice suggest (at times fairly strongly) what should and should not be done; often laws outline consequences for non-compliance. These laws and practices provide a structure for how and when to pray, eat, and treat others. While we see differences in practice based on denomination, the basic structure for living a Jewish life remains similar across denominations. Special educators can draw on this perspective in emphasizing the role of structure in providing a safe and secure classroom environment where students can learn.

Judaism also offers routines for people to implement. Preparations for Shabbat and holidays involve cleaning, cooking, lighting candles, washing hands, offering blessings and singing. These routines are examples of specific behaviors that get repeated week after week, year after year. The consistency and repetition of these actions help reinforce the behaviors and support their implementation. There is a midrash (story) that when the angels appear at a Jewish home just prior to Shabbat and see a home clean and ready for Shabbat, the angels say, “it should be just the same next week.” And when they see the next home but it is in disarray, they repeat the same comment. This story holds an important lesson for special educators about how behaviors easily become repeated and habitualized.

Random Acts of Kindness that Change Your Life

Life has a way of winding down the road with sharp turns and forks, smooth new pavement and bumps of well worn trails. It is often the seemingly random acts and comments of others that play through our head that make us take the turn we didn't anticipate we'd ever make.


Such was the serious conversation with the father of my best friend from elementary school - except that this comment took place while I was in college and had pretty much lost contact with my friend. He was a principal of a school, although I don't think I ever knew which one, I just knew he was a highly intelligent and caring man whose house I had wandered in and out of throughout my younger years. He asked about what I was planning after graduation, and I told him that I always wanted to be an elementary school teacher, but that since I was single and NY required a master's degree within five years of graduation, I was considering going directly on for the degree. I guess we spoke for a while, but all I remember is that he suggested I look into special education and told me that the government was giving money for graduate students to enter this new field.


So I did what any good college student does on the trail of money to pursue a higher degree - research. Of course, it was the days of having to do research in a library with real books, but I'd come to love sitting at those tables surrounded by volumes of books I had yet to read. And special education was something I'd never really heard of despite all my education classes. Well, sure enough he was right - federal grants to cover tuition and provide a stipend as well. I began the application process. I learned about the newest area of special education, labeled emotional disturbance. Once awakened to this field I saw evidence around me of how helpful this field might prove.


I made a fork in the road. thinking it was a just a circle that would lead me back to the same road - I would become an elementary school teacher, now armed with new information that would help me be a better teacher, more appreciative of the myriad of issues that prevented some children from learning. But I fell in love with the field, with the dedicated special educators and classroom teachers working hard to include students with special needs, with the parents I met who advocated long and hard for their children's best interests, and with the future special educators I helped prepare. Once traveling down this new road I discovered it was taking me new places and was not just a circle leading back to my original destination of the elementary classroom.


Until the day I was visiting a school and was introduced to a young man I didn't recognize. But he knew who I was - I was the one, he said, responsible for his being in the classroom, having responded thoughtfully to his email in which he sought information about how to proceed professionally. Perhaps it was a circle after all!