Interview with Me and Ellen (Part 3)

Ellen: You don't have a right to be mad at them. You have a right to be frustrated. Um, but you have to recognize that they just don't know a lot about you right now. And we need to be patient because I think my kids get mad at their parents and my kids get mad at their teachers and my kids get mad at their peers.

And I, I think this might be my own personal bias, but I don't have a very high tolerance for anger. Like, it's just an emotion that I feel like eats at you and keeps you stagnant. So as a teacher, what I try to do is teach that flexibility and teach that resilience and teach the grit of saying like, this frustration that you have, I don't want to minimize it, will validate it, but you need to be in control of how you respond.

and how long you sit with it. So that's something that I would want my neurodivergent students to really take to heart. And I do this periodically with them already, but like for future students or students, I don't know. Um, everybody's a person, everybody has a story and everybody has struggles, whether it's something that's diagnosable and you have a name for it.

Or you don't.

Jennifer: Yeah, that's, that's definitely a good way of thinking about it. Cause there is a difference between frustration and anger. Sometimes that's hard to realize.

Ellen: Oh, it's so hard. It is so hard for me as a person. Like this morning I got super triggered because I had a friend send me something and it was so the opposite of being an ally to women and especially disabled women.

And I was just kind of like, I know you're sending this to me because you want to hear my opinion, but like, I can't give you like, anything nice because my initial reaction is like, why would you even watch this? Why would you even send this to me? As opposed to sticking through that conversation and saying like, let's Talk later in the day.

Jennifer: Yeah, that makes sense. What kind of environment do you try to have in your classroom for students, you know, both neurodivergent and neurotypical?

Ellen: So you can't see it right now. And neither can the listeners. So let me just describe it. I love my space. I'm really excited about it. It's a big room that has a divider down the middle right now.

And so we pull it apart so that if students need like quiet testing space or independent workspace, they're on one side of the classroom. And then we have our loud active space. So I'm sitting in the back corner right now and there are group work tables. There are two of them as well as, a row of single tables.

that a teacher could pull up and do one on one work with them. Lots of whiteboards so that you can just throw up your ideas and get them organized in ways that make sense. , and then we have our teacher desks spread out everywhere so that everyone is accessible at some point. This back corner, it's in the process of like getting updated, but this is like my sensory corner.

So I've got all my fidgets right along the wall. I have a chair across from me that has the big bouncy ball. So like if you have excessive energy, get it out. But then we also have our coloring books and like our quiet meditation stuff of like, if you need to like de stimulate, you can also do that too.

, So that's in terms of like actual space. I think in terms of like classroom culture, it's one of those. You know, we're all in here for different reasons. We all have an IEP, which is inherently individual. So we hold you to the same standards, but we know that you're going to take your own path to get there.

And everybody has different needs from the teacher. So. I feel really great about that culture. I feel really great that our students respect each and every one of us, right? Because we're a team and we work really collaboratively with the general education staff pushing into those classes, supporting as necessary.

So, every single one of our students can be a teacher, right? For us. But we also recognize that we're not going to know everything either. So there's. A lot of patience and a lot of endurance and a lot of we're going to star it and send you back to your general education teacher for office hours to talk about it because they're an expert in that.

And I'm just an expert in disabilities.

Jennifer: Yeah, that definitely sounds like a good environment and space for your, students to be able to, you know, get rid of energy if they need to, or, you know, stimulate in different ways. Ellen: Yeah.

Jennifer: I like that. Have you had any previous special ed students done better in their education career because you were, you know, there for them.

Ellen: Yes. Yes, absolutely. Um, so like I said I had 14 students graduate. This year, which is huge, right? I think I had 16 seniors and one of them is the student with ADHD that I talked about earlier, who like was in the pit and so needed to take an extra year. She's doing great. I think a lot of my kids would say, I was the difference between them graduating and not graduating.

I also have. several students who are younger, but I think I've made a really important impact for, one of my sophomores lost her mom in January. And so she already has an emotional disability and then was going through the grieving process. And so we worked together to come up with a way for her to do school remotely.

So she could just take her grief period and not, come to school consistently triggered and need to go home like midday. You're kind of like, if you can be consistent at home, then you're going to have a better educational experience. And she passed all of her classes. Even in the wake of this loss, I have another student.

Who, was diagnosed with NLD this year and she struggled so much with her executive function. Incredibly bright as we know that people with NLD typically are. But she really struggled with her executive function and her social skills. And so part of her IEP was for us to do a lot of role plays and social stories of talking about like, why are we fixated on these areas of like wanting a boyfriend, trying to fit in with a popular group of people, what to do when you find someone vaping in the bathroom.

Right. And so her mom and I text very frequently and, I try to be as, as supportive as I can. But like the student didn't, would not have qualified for an IEP, right? NLD is not one of those, specific learning disability categories. It's not an emotional behavioral category. It's not autism. It doesn't fall under IDEA.

But because I knew about the disorder, I knew what interventions I could provide for her, under the categories of other health impairment, and really be able to support her growth as a young woman, , and be the teacher for her that I wish I had had. That I'm sure all of us wish we had had. So that was another really valuable, experience.

I think I've been better. because I know all of my kids too.

Jennifer: Mm-Hmm. .

Ellen: There's a special place in my heart for all of them.

Jennifer: Mm-Hmm. .

Ellen: Yeah. Um, I think I asked you this question before, but you know, I know sometimes that you use, news isn't the right word, that you reveal to your students or your clients that you have NLD as well to kind of help relate to them.

Yes, I self disclose all the time and sometimes I don't go as specific as saying NLD, sometimes I'll say like, Oh, you know, I have a fine motor disability or, Oh, I have a social learning disability or, Oh, I have a right hemispheric deficit or whatever it is that each of my kids kind of struggle with. I'm able to say like, Oh, you have dyscalculia.

That is just like me because I've always struggled with, and I think actually like my struggles with math makes me a stronger math teacher, which is kind of, it's just fun. I had to work so much harder. So I'm, so I remember what I have to know. That's a good point. But, but yes, I think it's really valuable for each of my kids to be able to identify with me because they're able to see like me being a successful adult with a disability like theirs and the strategies that I use have a lot of merit and weight because it's like, oh, Mr.

Spooley's kind of like me.

Jennifer: Mm hmm.

Ellen: Yeah. So, so I don't try to like exploit them or like misrepresent myself. But I think sometimes it's easier to say like, you know, any diagnosis you have is just a name for a collection of symptoms. And if our symptoms match, we can really meet on that same level. So instead of representing it as, I have your disability, I refer to it as the overlapping symptom.

Jennifer: Okay. Yeah, I like the way of doing that. And, you know, I, I'm sure that it helps them out because then they know they're not alone and it, and that they have someone that they can talk to about it, that actually really gets it, you know, as opposed to like, you know, for neurotypical, of course they can imagine what it's like and try to understand it and be aware of it.

But it's hard for them to feel, you know, know exactly what it's like, cause they're not neurodivergent. So I think that's definitely good that you do that when it's, applicable. So for your, Parents, are there any of them that, you know, you try to, you try to give constructive feedback to help like, so that they can help their, their child better? Who is your student?

Ellen: Yeah. So, part of the way that I have to like organize my life in order to be a good teacher is I have a resource library. So all of like the interventions that I use, I've categorized into a Google sheet, with links to each of them so that other members of my team can use those and be consistent with what interventions we're using for our kids.

And part of that is parent resources. So I have a lot of parent resources for like traumatic brain injury, ADHD, emotional disorders. Autism. So I will give parents those when they ask.

Jennifer: Mm-Hmm.

Ellen: I think there are a lot of parents that don't really ask and so it's really hard to feel respectful of them.

Yeah. And also say, this is what you need to do for the benefit of your student. 'cause I just don't have that authority.

Jennifer: Mm-Hmm.

Ellen: outta school as opposed to how I did as a provider for the state.

Jennifer: Mm-Hmm. .

Ellen: So it's a challenge. And a lot of parents seem to think that they know better than me. And, um, so I defer to my supervisor and I say, I'm not taking this.

I'm not touching it. I'm not, I'm not doing this one. Philosophically, I'm not going to work with this.

Jennifer: Yeah, that makes sense. You know, I think I already know the answer to this question. But. Are there like, you know, with the amount of students you have and the amount of parents you have, uh, how many parents do get involved and, you know, don't with helping out?

Ellen: I would say I had about 10 percent of my parents really help out.

I had, yeah, so my caseload was about 33 students and I had like three really like all hands on deck parents that I can think of. And I've talked about each of their kids in this conversation already. I think I had another 10 percent of the parents that were really receptive. So they weren't like talking to me all the time.

Like I wouldn't have like daily conversations with them, but whenever I would send them an email, they were always really good about the content and getting back to me. And they were really supportive at home. And maybe that was more like 20 or 30%. So then there was the other 60 percent that. Or I'd say 50 percent that were pretty uninvolved, didn't really communicate with me outside of the annual case review conference.

And then 10 percent that were belligerent. So there aren't that many, parents that are awful. But there are a lot that are just uninvolved. Yeah. Yeah. That's unfortunate. I mean, I am glad that there are some that are involved because that makes it easier, not only for you, but for their student.

I feel like there should be one more question I was going to ask you about. , Is when you think back on, you know, all the people, all the students and parents that you've interacted with. Is there any one that or maybe a couple of that, like ones that have graduated and you're able to hear about how they're doing college, hopefully.

Like they are still doing really well, even though you're not there. Yeah, so part of, um, a high school students IEP is a transition plan. So really looking at post secondary life. So we're talking with them throughout their entire time in high school about what are your goals for your education, for your employment and your independent living.

, and so for my seniors, Part of the way that we support their transition towards those goals, right? You're no longer in high school. These are the things that you say you want for yourself. So how are we going to get there is by building a transition portfolio, which will allow students to, prepare all the materials they need to get a job after high school, to take a gap year and apply for colleges or to go into college.

So, I worked with each of my seniors on developing this portfolio and, , I know a lot of them have had really wonderful summers. , they're not in school yet, but they know all of their rights as a student with disabilities. They know how the IEP gets transferred into the 504 and how to, set up appointments with their student disability services office.

And so that they have. They're, they're advocate, right? They don't have a case manager like me anymore, but they have an advocate. And I think that that's the most important thing is that my students know they can reach out to me and email me at any time, right? Once my kid, always my kid. But they, they're really ready.

They're really ready for this new phase of life. And so, I will continue working with them. As well as their parents. , if they need me to counsel with, the university or get an IEP sent, I can do that. But every single one of the kids has their most recent IEP as well as their evaluation data in their portfolios.

So they really have everything they need without me.

Jennifer: Well, that's good for them. I mean, being able to have that, and then also You know, have access to you if needed. I wish I had that.

Ellen: I know. Like I said, be the teacher that we wish we had. Yeah.

Jennifer: Right.

Ellen: I'm going to be our executive function to be like, okay, this is how I get organized. And these are all the checkpoints and my timeline. Yeah. I, yeah, I wish I had had that extra help in, in high school. It would have been easier in college if I did.

Jennifer: Well, thank you for being able to have me interview today. It was really fun game to learn more about your teaching.

Ellen: Yeah. Thank you for having me. And I wish you the best of luck with Eric and Ruben. I think they're both going to have really interesting insight. Cause both of them are General education teachers predominantly, but they see a lot of students with disabilities in their spaces.

Right with Eric, you know, being in music, this is the time where students with creativity really shine through. Yeah. And with Ruben having so many students like fail his class and all the support that he puts into helping them. Oh my gosh. They're going to be some phenomenal interviews.

Jennifer: So. Yeah. Thank you for reaching out to your team.

I'm, I'm excited.

Ellen: Yes, let me know how it goes.