Commander Troy's secret weapons for IEP Team Building

We may not think of teaching as changing. We may not think of learning as changing at first, but potentially learning is the basis of change. As you learn more and more about the laws, the rights and the needs of youngsters, you will probably find yourself changing and you may also become an agent for change.

Inclusion changed special education. Now, the likelihood of a teacher having a student with identified special needs is very high. During your teaching career, whether you are certified to work in special ed or not, you will be working with this population. [Notice, Troy made a point of the word, identified. Every student you ever teach will have special needs -- some strengths and some weaknesses. You may or may not find out about them, but we all have them and great educators find these things that make a student unique and special, then help students build on them or find ways around them.]

So, what are the secret weapons?

The greatest change agent is relationship. Relationship is powerful and it is precious! It embodies some of the things that make us most human, most humane. When two people can link at any level, it is a gift. Part of what makes teaching such a dedication is the willingness of an adult - a stranger, really, to take on a group of callow youth and spend a year with them. During that time this "teacher" will be preparing them to be successful in life, to be more fully human, educated, socially prepared to become fully optimized or actualized. What a gift to bestow on any child - and the teacher offers to do this with a whole class of youngsters.

Of course, some people don't fully become teachers. They wear the trappings, but never the "mantle" of teaching. They are a little like wolves in sheep's clothing. They not only waste a student's learning opportunities, but some do emotional and social damage in the process of "getting through" a year.

Teaching is about learning, and teaching is also about relationship -- and knowing how to build and maintain solid relationships enhances and expedites learning. After all, this journey you embark on at the beginning of the year - the journey together across space and time - is a little like a Star Trek episode. True, the teacher is the Captain -- the person in charge, but a captain who is testy and cranky and only knows how to get his or her way by bullying or kicking people off the ship is doomed to failure.

The Star Ship Enterprise was glued together with relationship. . . and so must your classroom be -- the more so if you will be embarking on the mission to develop IEPs.

How do people learn to build relationship? How does someone find a way to get along with and like all the people in a classroom - most of the teachers in the school - the diverse people and parts of the community represented by parents of students?

Hard question -- Big Job! Most of us will be working on relationship all of our lives. We learn how to get along with our family - or not, our school mates, room mates, teachers - or we have difficulty and struggle with the interconnectedness.

As adults in a school setting, strong relationship skills are called for. Fortunately, from puppyhood, Commander Troy learned to get along well with others and he is willing to share the following lessons with you. He found them illuminating!

He hopes you will, too. Of course, as he notes, he spent his life finding and developing the Tipper Troy Leadership Files [Commander Troy's Leadership Files to those who do not love him]. You may access them at will. He [and your professor expect you to review the ones that are highlighted in red].

When you have reviewed these files, please complete Assignment 2.

Go on to Assignment 2.
or
Go back to Linear Lou

E-mail J'Anne Ellsworth at Janne.Ellsworth@nau.edu

Course developed by J'Anne Ellsworth

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