Due to the Thanksgiving holiday and the busy time of year, I haven't had time to blog or write to Barack Obama.  I am working on a template for evaluating teacher performance.  It's an important topic to me.

 

 

This is my 6th e-mail to Obama at change.gov about educational reforms needed in the US.  Here is what I sent today.

 

November 24, 2008

 

Dear Mr. Obama:

 

I am a special educator in Oregon, and I have ideas and concerns about education in America.  One of my ideas is that the “labels” for the categories of special education need to be examined since some of them are demoralizing and demeaning, like Emotional Disturbance.  A better term might be Emotional Dysregulation. 

 

In a perfect educational world—my “dream world”—every student would have an individual education plan.  Not just students with “special needs” but all students including those who are advanced beyond their peers to those who assimilate information at a slower pace and those who are in the middle of the pack.  This wouldn’t need to be a formal document with annual meetings and three-year evaluations, but something that is formulated with a student, parents and a teacher at a short conference at the beginning of the school year and reviewed one or twice during the school year. 

 

Students with unique learning styles or special needs would continue to need a more formalized education plan with specially designed instruction, but they would not feel so excluded if all students had an education plan.  At the least, the thirteen categories for eligibility into special education need to be re-examined and given more positive labels.  (I don’t like any labeling of people, and yet, it seems inevitable, with our limited construct of language.) 

 

Here are some suggestions:

 

Specific Learning Disability  - change to Specific Learning Style

Visual Impaired  -  change to Visually Modified Learning 

Hearing Impaired – change to Auditory Modified Learning

Emotional Disturbance – change to Emotional Dysregulation

 

This is my 6^th e-mail to you about educational topics.  I missed a few days last week because I was at a training conference.  I know that the economy, the wars, and health care are big topics right now, but education is important, too, and I trust that you will work on educational reform as time permits. 

 

Sincerely,

 

Bonnie Becraft, M.A.

Special Educator at Levi Anderson Learning Center

Northwest Regional ESD, Oregon

This is my 5th day of e-mailing Obama at change.gov.

 

I'm still waiting for a personal reply.

 

Here is what I sent today:

 

November 18, 2008

 

President-elect Obama – as I said on the first day (this is now my 5^th day of writing to you) I am a special education teacher near Portland, Oregon, and my students and I are so excited that you are our next president!  I teach 9^th grade boys in a residential treatment center and for months they’ve been following your steady road to success.  My students are inspired by you!

 

On the first day I suggested that education in the United States needs major reforms, similar to the reforms of the Meiji Reformation in Japan.  Here are some specific ideas that I have seen implemented in other countries that I think would help our schools.

 

1)      In Japan, schools are set up with six years of elementary school, three years of middle school, and three years of high school.  At the end of middle school, students split into various tracks with an emphasis on a trade or on academics (college-bound).  I think we need to offer more trade school options and also have students work-ready at the end of high school. 

2)      In some Scandinavian countries, students who go to college are given a free education and a stipend for attending college.  They can travel in the summer and learn through personal experiences.  When they finish college, they are debt-free and have had many interesting experiences.

3)      I believe children learn languages best at a young age and we should teach language immersion courses from first grade.  For example, science or health could be taught in Spanish from the first grade so that students learn both a language and a core subject.  As you know from your own personal experience, this is not a hardship on children.

4)      In Japan, there are no janitors in the elementary schools.  Students clean the floors, bathrooms, take out the trash and do everything to take care of their school.  They also take off their shoes before entering the building, as you know, I’m sure.  But think of all the money that would be saved by not having janitors in public schools!  And think how much cleaner the schools would be and how entitlement would decrease if students were responsible for their own space and surroundings.

 

I think there are many things we can offer other countries about our educational system, but I also think there is so much we can learn from other countries.  I would be thrilled to be involved with a team of professionals who are researching educational reform by looking at what is happening in other countries.

 

Thank you for having an open forum and for “LISTENING.” 

 

Bonnie Becraft, M.A., Special Educator

Levi Anderson Learning Center

Northwest Regional ESD

Hillsboro, Oregon

 

It's Monday and this is the 4th day I've sent an e-mail to Obama.  I'm still waiting for something better than an auto-reply.

 

Here's what I sent today:

 

Monday, November 17, 2008

 

Dear President-elect Obama – I am a special educator near Portland, Oregon, and many of my students are in the juvenile justice system.  Most are also in foster care.  I am concerned about the services, or lack thereof, for children in these two systems.

 

Here are two examples.

 

One of my students asked me how he could research information about getting cheap orthodontic braces in the Portland area.  I asked him why he couldn’t get.  He said he wasn’t sure why, but since he is placed here through Oregon Youth Authority (OYA--the juvenile justice program) and is not eligible for that level of dental care.  One of his peers, however, is placed at this treatment center through the Department of Human Services and has braces—a dental benefit covered for children in DHS. 

 

I don’t understand how there can be different levels of care given to students living in the same treatment center and who are both under the care of the state or Oregon. 

 

Another concern of a totally different nature is that in my years of teaching here, I’ve sometimes felt that students are pawns in the system and their personal concerns are often less important than the dollars and cents they bring to a program.  An example is a student who arrived in the middle of last school year.  He came with a history of severe abuse and complex mental health issues.  He was not an easy child to have in school, and was even more difficult in the residence, but he made leaps in progress—going from not being able to be safe in the classroom for more than 10 minutes at a time, to spending the entire school day in the academic environment.  All of a sudden, even though he had not completed his treatment, he was pulled out of the program.  I heard from his DHS case worker that the treatment center sent her a letter stating that they could no longer serve his needs.  I was shocked.  How can these children be pulled, pushed, and jerked around like this? 

 

Given the reaction of desperate parents to the recent Safe Haven law in Nebraska, we know that, as a nation, we are failing many of our children.  They need help, and we are not able to help them or their families.  The system is flawed, as are the humans that operate the system.  But we can do better than this!  We are smarter than this.  We need to have consistent, fair policies that meet the needs of all children. 

 

As I said in my e-mail the first day, major reforms are needed in the educational system, and in all of the programs that care for developing children in this country.  At a bare minimum, they should all be able to get orthodontic braces if they need them, and if they are improving in their treatment program, they should not be moved and have to adjust to another whole set of people who claim to be their caregivers. 

 

  Thank you for having an open forum and for “LISTENING.” 

 

Bonnie Becraft, M.A., Special Educator

Levi Anderson Learning Center, operated by Northwest Regional ESD on the campus of St. Mary’s Home for Boys

 

 

DAY 3 of my Obama e-mails.  It's Friday, and I sent him the e-mail below about the importance of a social lieracy curriculum in public schools. 

 

On Day 1 I didn't get any response.  The e-mail I sent on Day 2, I got an auto-reply thanking me for sending it to change.gov.  I haven't checked Day 3 yet.  I'm still waiting for a "personal" response from somone.  My goal is to get something other than an auto-reply from the Obama transition team.  My dream is that I would be asked to be on a team of advisors for educational reform for the Obama administration.

 

November 14, 2008

 

President-elect Obama – I am a special education teacher near Portland, Oregon and I believe that we need a Social Literacy component of education that could begin in first grade and continue through high school. 

 

Somehow, in our attempt to clearly separate church and state (which I firmly believe in!), we have lost a moral or ethical anchor to our culture.  I believe that in schools we could teach how to be a person of integrity in the world (like you are). 

 

One way that I suggest for doing this is to incorporate a curriculum based on the Rules for Being Human- inserted below.

 

 

The Rules for Being Human*

 

Insights and practical ideas for human life:  gives meaning to life and improves goodness toward ourselves and others.

 

Rule 1) 

 

            You will receive a body .  Some of us like what we’re given; some of us hate parts of it or most of it—but it will be ours for as long as we live.  How we take care of it or fail to take care of it can make a big difference in the quality of our life.

 

            Accept your body…and move forward with life.

 

Rule 2)

 

            You will learn lessons.  We are enrolled in a full-time school called life.  Each day, we are given opportunities to learn what we need to know.  The lessons are often completely different from those we “think” we need to learn.

 

            Accept your lessons…and move on…to the next challenge.

 

Rule 3)

 

            There are no mistakes, only lessons.  Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation.  We learn as much from failure as we from success--Maybe more.

 

            Embrace failure / mistakes…don’t run from the lessons within them.

 

Rule 4) 

 

            A lesson is repeated until it is learned.  A lesson will be presented to us in various forms until we have learned it.  When we have learned it (and we will know when we recognize a change in attitude and then behavior), then we can go on to the next lesson.

 

            The lessons keep coming…so hold on and enjoy the ride.

 

Rule 5) 

 

            Learning lessons does not end.  There is no stage of life that does not contain some lessons.  As long as we live there will be something more to learn.

 

            The lessons never end…Accept that and move on.

 

Rule 6)

 

            There is no escape.  Some people think, when I get “there,” things will be better.  When “there” becomes “here and now,” we always encounter another “there” that will again look better than what we have now.  Don’t be fooled into believing the something out there is better than what you have now.

 

            Accept what you have now…it doesn’t get any better than this—not today, anyway.

 

Rule 7)

 

            Others are merely mirrors of you.  We cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something we love or hate about ourselves.

 

            Ouch…I can’t get away from my life, can I?

 

Rule 8) 

 

            What we make of our life is up to us.  We have all the tools and resources we need.  What we create with those tools and resources is up to us.

 

 

            I have the tools…and I know how to use them.

 

Rule 9) 

 

            The answers lie inside you.  The solutions to all of life’s problems lie within your reach.  All you need to do is ask, look, listen, and trust yourself.

 

            Trust yourself.

           

 

Rule 10)

 

            “You will forget all this.”  You will forget all the above rules unless you regularly practice some means of staying focused and grounded in the present.  Your ego will continually try to trick you in blaming your past or becoming fearful about the realities of life.

 

            Don’t talk yourself out of what you know you can do---effort and endurance pay off in the end.

 

 

*sources:  From the book "If Life is a Game, These are the Rules" by Cherie Carter-Scott and adapted from The Rules by Albert Ellis, Ph.D. from THE READER and taken from the website:   springcreek/education_program/non_traditional_education/science_of_success/

 

 

 

Thank you for having an open forum and for “LISTENING.” 

 

Bonnie Becraft, M.A., Special Educator

Levi Anderson Learning Center