Special Education

A Master’s degree in special education will properly prepare you for a rewarding career as an administrator, special education teacher or as a school counselor. This Master’s degree program will focus on teaching contemporary trends and issues for special needs students, teaching those with behavioral issues or disabilities, introducing the psychological foundations of learning as well as the effective development of curriculum for these unconventional classrooms.

Special education is the branch of education devoted to helping students who find learning in conventional classroom settings quite demanding. A special needs student may be challenged with a physical or mental impairment which directly impacts his or her overall ability to learn at a pace typically kept in a normal-functioning classroom. These teachers will often face challenging behavioral issues from their students as they often suffer from autism or attention deficit disorder (ADD).

A Master’s degree in this arena will provide a foundation of modern education that includes the necessary foundation, ethics and values educators will need to succeed. These building blocks are used to examine the topical issues of special education inclusion principles as they relate to creating the least restrictive learning environment.

A special education professional will often work in any level within the education system. This includes elementary schools through high schools. The task of identifying a special needs child should be accomplished as early as possible in his or her school career; however, the special needs will follow him or her continuously.

Special education teachers are principally prepared to amend curricula, even that which has been designed for special education students. This usually includes the development of an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for every student in the classroom. A student’s IEP addresses the specific student’s goals while considering his or her specific special needs. The diverse situations that a special education teacher will encounter will often mandate him or her to be armed and prepared for a variety of situations.

Earning a Master’s degree for teaching special needs will provide one with all the essential skills and appropriate knowledge required to succeed in this rewarding career. Additionally, a student will often be required to complete a professional portfolio as well. The program typically covers several domains of study as well as an internship that includes supervised teaching in a classroom setting.

Your internship will include supervision by a licensed teacher who will observe and then document your classroom skills as a way to offer feedback to you, the student as well as continuous data for your graduate degree. You will be observed several times per week which will allow the host teacher and the school to monitor your progress. The host teacher will be responsible for completing your midterm and final evaluations based on professional standards accepted by the education community.

Students working to get a Masters degree in special education are devoting themselves to understanding about student disabilities and the ways they can positively get along with their families, schools and other students. For those who are already teachers, it may be possible to earn an online Masters in this area of study. A special education teacher works to improve the quality of life during his or her students’ education experiences which will hopefully impact their lives in the best way possible.

Is it possible to educate your special needs child at home without sending them to a special education class in school? Yes, many parents end up doing this, and use homeschooling as a method along with finding support groups online. You see they often disagree with school districts as to what is the appropriate education for their child, and some seek legal advice, and others forgo the concept of suing the local school district, and simply educate their own child.

Of course, it’s a lot harder than it looks, and many professional psychologists for the mentally disabled and special education teachers don’t recommend it. Indeed, I would say I don’t either, but I can certainly understand a parent’s need to make that choice on their own. Nevertheless, let’s go ahead and discuss this for a moment if we will.

Now then, there was a very interesting article in our local paper; the Desert Sun which was titled “Program Lessons Kids’ Isolation – One-On-One Time Helps Autistic Children, Learn And Make Friends” by Sherry Barkas published on May 9, 2010. The article stated; “talk to parents of children with special needs about their lives, and one sad word arises – isolated.”

Consider if you will be number of increased cases of kids diagnosed within the autistic spectrum. Some insist that it is only recently that we’ve come to understand what autism is, and that there were always lots of Autistic cases. Others, are pretty sure it’s not the case, that autism really is on the rise.

In many places such as in and around Silicon Valley, and states like New Jersey, the autistic rate is exceptionally high, and it puts a real stress on school districts, and school budgets, at a time, right now, when the schools need all the money they can get, and they need to be able to keep the money they have.

Now then, getting back to the article and the point I’d like to make, if you educate your special education level child at home, they will be missing out on what most psychologists, and other parents with special needs kids say is the biggest problem, the problem of isolation, and being alone. If these kids are going to a regular school within a special-needs class, they will be constantly interacting with other kids, and that is very positive for their mental development.

Indeed, I hope you will weigh all of the issues addressed in this article, and talk to a professional psychologist about the choices you might end up making, and the ramifications of those choices. Please consider all this and think on it.

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes writing 23,500 articles by mid-day on June 23, 2011 is going to be difficult because all the letters on his keyboard are now worn off.