Tag Archives: Special Education Teachers

What strategies did “miracle-worker” Annie Sullivan use to teach Helen Keller?

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Helen Keller, left, with her teacher, Annie Sullivan Macy, right. Photo Credit: Public Domain 

Anne Sullivan: This teacher’s name is synonymous with Miracle Worker. Anne is the remarkable teacher who worked with Helen Keller, an extremely intelligent blind and deaf child from Tuscumbia, Alabama. The relationship between the teacher and the student is explored in the play The Miracle Worker by William Gibson, an iconic piece of American literature that is frequently taught in public schools. This award-winning play depicts the exact moment at which, due to Anne’s expert instructional efforts, Helen was able to grasp the concept of language. This knowledge unlocked a world of isolation for the little girl, allowing her to connect with her fellow human beings, and making it possible for her to earn a university degree at a time when educating women was rare. The scene is sweet. But what strategies, exactly, did the miracle-working teacher use in order to achieve this breakthrough? After extensive reading on the subject, I think I may be able to identify a few of them.

First of all, Anne read every bit of published material available in her day about the education of handicapped students. Knowledge of pedagogy is the first step to effective practice. In addition to this, Anne had the “advantage” of personal experience, as she herself had wrestled with severe vision impairment as a result of trachoma. I’m sure at one time or another, we’ve all met an educator who is particularly effective at working with students who are facing the same challenges the teacher himself faced as a youngster.

Second, Anne was a keen observer, and she made it a point to watch the normal processes of language acquisition. She then replicated those processes as best she could to fit the particular circumstances and needs of her student. Today, we would probably call this strategy recognizing brain-based learning, and coordinating teaching strategies to fit the way the brain naturally learns.

Also, experts generally agree that much of Anne’s success in teaching Helen language was attributed to the fact that the teacher always communicated to her student with complete sentences. Concrete nouns such as water or spoon, verbs such was pump or run, or adjectives such as hot or smooth,  may be easy to convey. But abstract ideas such as beauty or truth, or certain parts of speech such as pronouns and some prepositions are much more difficult to impart to an individual unable to see or hear. Yet Annie always used these words in her everyday communication with Helen anyway.

Fourth, Anne was especially adept at incorporating experiential learning into her lesson plans. The effectiveness of “learning by doing” has been well documented, but in a day and age when most instruction consisted of rote memorization without necessarily comprehending, Anne’s insistence on teaching through constructed experience was truly innovative. Wading through the creek water, climbing the tree, holding the chick as it hatched from the egg—experiences like these were the staples of Anne’s instructional program.

To learn more about Anne Sullivan Macy, I have included an abbreviated but concise biography of this amazing teacher in my book, Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Teachers who Educated America’s Disenfranchised Students, which can also be found at amazon.com at the following link: Chalkboard Champions.

Taylar Flaming earns 2024 Horizon Award from Kansas State Dept. of Education

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Elementary school teacher Taylar Flaming has earned a 2024 Kansas Horizon Award from the Kansas State Department of Education. She is pictured here at center, with Superintendent Cory Gibson  at left and Starside Elementary School Principal Jan Hicks at right. Photo Credit: Starside Elementary School

I always enjoy sharing news about outstanding teachers who have earned recognition for their work in the classroom. Today, I shine a spotlight on Taylar Flaming, an elementary school teacher from Kansas. She is one of 32 teachers who has been recognized with a 2024 Kansas Horizon Award from the Kansas State Department of Education.

Taylar teaches third grade at Starside Elementary School in De Soto. “Taylar is a great team player at Starside,” declared Jan Hicks, the school’s principal. “She seems to have an old soul and be so knowledgeable beyond her years. She is fantastic with students, parents and staff members,” Hicks continued. “She has a minor is special education from Pitt State. Because of this, I made her a SPED classroom. She has done a remarkable job working with the equipment necessary for her students and helping them be successful,” Hicks concluded.

Taylar earned her Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Pittsburg State University.

The Horizon Award is a program developed by the Kansas State Department of Education that honors and recognizes exemplary first-year teachers. Four elementary and four secondary classroom teachers may be selected for the award from each of four regions for a total of 32 teachers throughout the state of Kansas.

Congratulations, Taylar!

Deaf Education teacher Dana Miles named Washington State’s 2023 Teacher of the Year

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Deaf Education teacher Dana Miles has been named Washington State’s 2023 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: League of Education Voters Foundation

It is always a pleasure to share the story of an exceptional educator who has earned recognition for her work in the classroom. One of these is Dana Miles, a secondary teacher who has been named the 2023 Washington State Teacher of the Year.

As an educator, Dana is a “jack of all trades.” She teaches English, Applied Bi-lingual Language Arts (BLA), Work Experience, Special Education, Consumer Math, and Homeroom Advisory to grades 9 –12 at the Washington School for the Deaf (WSD) in Vancouver, Washington. In her classroom, Dana works on helping her students become bi-lingual in American Sign Language and English, and to become career proficient and life ready. When developing curriculum, Dana employs real-world scenarios—such as resume writing, finding independent housing, and navigating transportation system—to help her students become confident adults and achieve work success so they can live independently. She works tirelessly to equip her students for the real world by teaching them to advocate for themselves, and she strives to build a more inclusive society by expanding community partnerships and work opportunities.

In addition to her work in the classroom, Dana is also a member of a statewide transition committee with the outreach team of the Washington Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Youth. The team develops learning materials for deaf and hard of hearing students across the state. Dana says she was inspired to become a teacher in the program as a result of her own experiences as a second-generation deaf educator. Her parents were both deaf educators, and they were careful to provide her with a language-rich environment in American Sign Language and English.

Dana is, herself, a former student of the high school where she now teaches. She graduated from WSD in 1993. After her high school graduation, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education and English from Gallaudet University in 1998. She earned her Master’s degree in Deaf Education from the same university in 2000. Gallaudet University, founded in 1864, is a private, federally-chartered university located in Washington, DC. The institution provides quality education for deaf and hard of hearing students.

 

Pennsylvania’s Helena Devereux was a trailblazer in Special Education

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Helena Devereux of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was a trailblazer in the field of teaching special education students. Photo credit: Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health Pennsylvania

Exceptional teachers often become trailblazers in the field of teaching. One of these is Helena Devereux, a pioneering special education teacher from Pennsylvania.

Helena was born on Feb. 2, 1885, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a. young girl, she graduated from Philadelphia High School for Girls in 1904, and then from Philadelphia Normal School in 1906.

After her college graduation, Helena accepted her first position as a teacher at George Washington Elementary School in the Philadelphia Public School System. As a novice elementary teacher working in an underprivileged area of the city, Helena immediately became interested in the children who experienced difficulty in learning through traditional methods. The public school system of her day had no means of providing individualized programs for children with special needs. Rather than helping these students, such children were repeatedly held back, ostracized by their peers, and written off as hopeless. Some were actually sent to mental institutions. Helena showed unique patience and attention to these special needs children. Several such children who had been held back and failed in other classes began to thrive under Helena’s expert care and innovative teaching methods.

Helena began using an individualized approach to the teaching of the developmentally challenged. She believed that each child in her care came complete with his or her own set of innate abilities, distinctive potential, and unique needs. She made it her purpose to aid them in the discovery that each one could be a contributing and valued member of their community and of a larger society. Her methods were groundbreaking, and they pre-dated many of the practices in the field of special education that are typically in use today.

In 1911, the Philadelphia Board of Education offered this remarkable teacher the job of Director of Special Education, a new position designed to supervise the creation of a special education department for the city’s schools. Despite being offered a handsome salary for the time, she turned it down, believing that she could have a greater impact on her own. That same year, Helena received national attention following a visit to her classroom from a reporter who published an article detailing her innovative instructional methods. Following the publication of this article, Helena was contacted by a parent in South Carolina who was interested in entrusting her challenged son to Helena’s care. Helena agreed to assume responsibility for the boy during the summer, and that child became Helena’s first private student. When Helena received offers from other parents of children with special needs, she responded to these requests by renting a six-bedroom home in Avalon, New Jersey, which she converted to a private school designed to teach and care for eight children.

In 1924, the gifted teacher Helena married James Fentress, the widower of one of her friends. The couple were married for 21 years, but during all that time, Helena remained dedicated to the students she served. This Chalkboard Champion passed away on Nov. 17, 1975, at her home in Devon, Pennsylvania, at the age of 90.

NYC honors SpEd teacher Andre Clark with a Big Apple Award

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Special Education teacher and Assistant Basketball Coach Andre Clark has garnered a 2023-2024 Big Apple Award. Photo credit: Andre Clark

New York City is very proud of their public school teachers. In fact, city leaders regularly recognize exceptional educators with their annual Big Apple Award. For the 2023-2024 school year, one of the educators honored was Special Education teacher Andre Clark.

For the past three years, Andre has taught at Frederick Douglass Academy, a co-educational public school for grades 6-12 located in West Harlem, New York City. In fact, the school is Andre’s own alma mater. He graduated from the institution in 2011. In addition to his work in the classroom, Andre has worked for the past seven years as an Assistant Coach of the Varsity Boys’ Basketball Team. In this role, he  has been able to use his experience as a former captain and excellent player at Fredrick Douglas Academy to help guide his scholar athletes.
And as if this were not enough, the honored educator has also served as an instructor of the Special Olympics for 15 years. He has worked as a mentor at LaVelle’s School of the Blind in the Bronx, where he combats bullying. And he has been a Big Brother for the past 11 years.
Andre earned his Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from the University of Saint Mary, a Catholic University located in Leavenworth, Kansas, in 2016. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Special Education and Teaching from the City College of New York in 2023.
This year, the Big Apple Award was presented to 49 exceptional New York City teachers. Each one was nominated by their principal for work in the profession that inspires students, models great teaching, and enriches school communities. The recipients were chosen through a rigorous selection process that included community nominations, principal recommendations, classroom visits, an interview, and a review by a board of judges. To learn more about the program and this year’s recipients, click on this link to Big Apple Awards.