My Turn
Beating the Odds

Working with special needs students showed this teacher how education enriches the lives of all students.

By trudee schur

During my 30 years as an educator, I have learned a great deal from my students. When I coached athletics, I learned about the competitive spirit in each one of my students. When I taught method classes full time at the university, I learned about the drive each student had to complete his or her degree.

But I have learned the most during the past 22 years I have spent assisting special needs students.

Are special needs students too needy to attend postsecondary education? I think not! In my current position as the special populations coordinator at Southeast Technical Institute, I work with students who have average and above average IQs, students who have a diagnosed disability that sometimes blocks their academic success.

I have seen students succeed who could barely speak, read, see, or write because of a disability. They have outstanding academic aptitudes. I honor these students for their tremendous motivation to succeed and their incredible determination to overcome unbelievable obstacles.

I understand there is a fine line between letting classroom accommodations go too far and maintaining a true picture of what students actually can do according to industry standards. But we are the educational institution preparing these students for their chosen careers. Will they all be able to meet all the industry standards? Probably not. And of course employers will demand the same work standards from them as everyone else on the job who receives the same pay.

I know we must maintain the integrity of the degree program and the standards of the educational institution and not lose sight of those focal points. However, if we alter the delivery of instruction so students can obtain the same lecture content or laboratory skills with some accommodations, then we as educators have done our job to prepare these students for the workforce.

Will all of these students make it in the workforce or even to the workforce? Maybe not. But I choose to think that as quality educators we should assist all individuals with lifelong learning, and I do mean lifelong. People often change their minds about accommodation and modification issues after their daughter has a brain injury, or a nephew becomes a quadriplegic, or a brother loses his sight, or a granddaughter is born deaf. Sometimes going to school is all these individuals can look forward to in their lives. If we can keep the gears turning in their brains, if we can keep those fingers, arms, and legs moving, and if we can pinpoint learning disabilities and enable students to advocate for themselves, we have done a good thing!

My students have given me such pleasure and have taught me so much. Fourteen years ago, when I met my first deaf adult student, I realized how na?ve I was. I had no idea about anything! He was an outstanding electronics student, and he taught me about deaf culture. By using interpreters, flashing lights on the meter readers, and other adaptive equipment, he was a successful student--and so was I.

Another true success involved one of my quadriplegic students, an outstanding computer programming major. This young man needed a scribe, plus his speech was difficult to understand. He didn't like to use printing devices because he felt they limited people's efforts to try to understand him. This student has since graduated and I have seen him in the community many times. He is such a loving, happy, spirited person--I would take a dozen students just like him. He said many times that I taught him the ropes at school, but in reality he taught me the ropes for compassion and life.

If I have not said that I love my job, maybe you can feel it through this article. When a new student walks through my door I wonder, "How are we going to do this?" How can I have a deaf student work on heavy duty equipment or in surgical technology? How can I have a bipolar student take a 7 a.m. class? How can I have a person with neurological damage who can't read go into any program?

Then I remember how much I hate to turn any student away and how much I love to see these students beat the odds. If they have the motivation and desire to do this, we keep on climbing together.

All students need the opportunity to enrich their skills and meet their goals. Would I give this up? Never!

Trudee Schur is the special populations coordinator at Southeast Technical Institute in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She also is vice president of the Sioux Falls Education Association.

Editor's Note

This is the final issue of NEA Today for the school year. Now is an especially good time for you to send us your story ideas so we can follow up on them as we plan next year's issues.

Our planning process actually started earlier this year than in the past, beginning with a February all-day session with our local editor advisory panel--eight NEA members who edit their own local newsletters.

In a full day of discussions, the panel of teachers and ESP (see page two for their names and locations) shared their thoughts about what they feel works and what doesn't in NEA Today, as well as what they'd like to see covered in future issues.

This kind of feedback coupled with the panelists' monthly critique of each issue helps us to stay abreast of our members' interests and concerns.

Our planning continues with a series of meetings involving the NEA Today staff as well as staff who work in other NEA program areas.

We'll also be doing a readership survey, something we've done each year since NEA Today began 20 years ago. The survey results help us to verify basic information about our readers. For example, the survey asks how much time members spend reading each issue and what they do with the issue after they read it.

As our planning sessions end, we wind up with a list of cover story and feature topics for the upcoming year, along with topics for other parts of the magazine, such as the debate and dilemma questions.

Although the next issue of NEA Today doesn't go on press until August, we have to put together most of the September and October issues in May and June. Even parts of the November issue are finished by the time the staff leaves for NEA's Annual Meeting (in Dallas this year) in late June.

So, if you have a story idea you want us to consider, send it to neatoday@nea.org.