Today I was reflecting on how thankful I am for so many things. Timely of course since Thanksgiving is heading our way faster than I can keep up. I am thankful for my family and friends. I am thankful that I have the opportunity to sometimes work beside my pool and the beautiful weather that comes in fall and winter in Florida. I am thankful for all of the opportunities I have had to work with some amazing people. And I am thankful for all that you, the readers, followers and buyers, do. I am of course thankful for your support and
that you find the time to read my ramblings. But mostly I’m thankful to you for your commitment to your students and/or your children. If you are an educator working with students in special education, your job is not an easy one. Thank you for coming back each and every day to do that job. Even on those days that did not go as planned, you made a difference just by being there, by celebrating the little successes when big successes are limited, and by your support for the child and their families.
When I ran a program for children with ASD with very complex challenging behaviors, we had a consultant come in for a program evaluation. In the debriefing, he made the statement that we had created a wonderful environment for our students in which they were respected and cared about. I took this quality as such a given necessity of an educational environment, that my cynical thought was that he was really reaching for something nice to say so he could balance our the negative feedback. He explained that wasn’t the case. However, I don’t think I really believed him until a few years ago when I said it to a group of educators in a program. And I wasn’t reaching either.
Most of us take this quality of a good program for granted, but after seeing many, many programs over the years, I can tell you that this is not a throw away comment. This is one of the most important elements of effective programming. Yes, you have to be using evidence-based intervention and individualizing programming and using data to make decisions and all of that is important. But you could have all of that without the caring and respect for the students and your impact will not be so significant.
So, above all, I am thankful to all the professionals out there who care about and respect the realities and the potential of our students with special needs. I would like to buy you all a beverage of your choice, but unfortunately that’s not really possible. However, below is a free activity for your students. If you were a Facebook fan last Thanksgiving you may have downloaded it then, but the Facebook Fan Gateway has gone away so I wanted to offer it here to all of you. It’s a simple matching task focused on Thanksgiving foods and then a sorting tasks for putting the foods in the right food group. It will work well for our early learners and our students who are working on basic skills in instruction or in independent work.
In addition, if you download the preview of my Thanksgiving Menu Math product on TPT, there is a free sample in the preview of task cards for determining how much Thanksgiving dinner items cost from a restaurant menu.
What are you thankful for?
Until next time,
