What does teaching everyone mean?

Grand understanding came from the material in my special education course at Carson Newman University. One of the things I discovered and profoundly applaud is that the supreme court concluded that “in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place.” Mel Levine, a professor at a University and a medical doctor, said that to treat every child equally is to treat them unfairly. To be honest, before this semester I did not put any thought to this. I just figured people learn the same way and that is why we teach the same way; that the extra stuff was just for fun. I also was under the assumption that all kids who acted disrespectfully and crazy at inappropriate times either thought that was cool, or was just disobedient and their parents did a terrible job teaching them to honor and obey their elders. While sometimes that may be true, a lot of the times the child cannot help it and their parents are embarrassed when their child acts out in public.

As quoted above, if every child was treated equally, meaning they are given the same curriculum, the same tests, and the same standards for learning, that is when the child is being treated unfairly. That child is no longer getting the best education he can get and he is being restricted. And it goes both ways: there is a child who is gifted and automatically understands everything you teach him. Eventually class will get very boring for him and he will tune out or act out, therefore being a distraction to everyone. Or a child has a learning disability and cannot keep up with the pace of the class. Eventually he will give up on ever learning anything, accepting the assumption that he is dumb, and will either tune out or act out – or both.

Teaching everyone means investing in the individual child and his or her needs. This includes relating to them, getting on their level. Finding out what amazing person they are and what their interests are. From there you can determine what mode of learning best suits them; what draws them in and what curriculum will work best.

Teaching everyone means being prepared to go beyond any previously set boundaries for yourself. This includes researching the best game to teach a concept in math that the kids are struggling with; practicing many different ways to teach how to solve equations; taking your lunch time to talk with a student who is having an off day due to being exhausted from yesterday's chemo therapy; or staying late after school to sit with the kid with fetal alcohol syndrome whose parent was late picking her up due to another hangover.

It means taking into consideration all of the students' strengths in your classroom, and figuring out a way for them to grow in those strengths. Going the extra mile to include the kid with Asperger's syndrome who desperately wants to have friends.

Let us start thinking about the children. Let us think less about drilling them for tests and more about sparking in them the joy of learning. For a lot of them, tests will be over when that high school diploma gets handed to them. The love for learning will stick with them for the rest of their life and may even push them to further their education, making our world better and more productive.