How Teachers Can Persuade the School to Support Their Students
Educators are often torn between meeting the needs of their students and being loyal, responsible, and responsive school employees. Rick Lavoie wrote Fighting the Good Fight: How to Advocate for Your Students Without Losing Your Job for general and special education teachers, reading specialists, and other staff who work in a particular school.
Lavoie tells you how to gain the trust of your principal — an indispensable ally — and your colleagues who also have critical roles to play. Here are some of Lavoie's suggestions on how to "win the game" in the hallways, teachers' lounge, and administration suite:
- If you are a new teacher, find a respected, successful teacher in your building and become his or her protégé.
- Build partnerships with colleagues in all departments and at all levels. You will need all the teachers, secretaries, custodians, and ancillary staff to assist your advocacy.
- Promote the concept of universal design, which asserts that special education strategies are effective with all students.
- Be positive and upbeat about your special education students. If you talk about how difficult, complex, and challenging these kids can be, your colleagues will be less willing to work with them. Give these kids a good reputation… and staff will be more likely to want to work with them.
- Deal with conflict effectively. Try to listen and be open to other people's perspectives; there may be something you can learn from them.
- When you bring your principal a problem, also bring several possible solutions.
Fighting the Good Fight includes the ten most common objections you'll confront while advocating for special needs students. It also provides the five steps of persuasion, which will help you learn how to overcome these objections.
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A Student's Perspective on Writing
"It's almost impossible to concentrate on how to spell words when I'm busy trying to think about the story. It's so hard to remember what I am writing about…" says Eli, a boy with dysgraphia, who is featured in A Student's Perspective on Writing. His mother, Regina G. Richards, proposes strategies to help. She suggests students use the keyword POWER:
P — prepare, list all of your ideas
O — organize, assemble the ideas
W — write the draft
E — edit, look for and correct errors
R — revise, write the final draft
Inspire Your Child to Overcome Their Dyslexia
Show them the story of Ben, a boy with dyslexia who received tutoring and "special classes" to learn to read. From the success of that extra help, he went on to write a book, "My Year with Harry Potter."
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