Teaching Safety, Compliance, and Critical Thinking in Special Education Classrooms

Abstract

Special educators are tasked with teaching students with disabilities to understand and adhere to social norms for their own safety and acceptance in society. This chapter explores ways special educators can teach critical thinking alongside these social and cultural norms in order to support student agency. One special educator shares her experiences working with students with disabilities in urban public schools as she grapples with teaching her students what they need to know to be safe, while also teaching to challenge oppressive social and behavioral expectations.

Visioning Alternatives to Segregated Education: A Disability Justice and Access-Centered Pedagogy Approach

“…Notably, they highlight this model's sorting functions as an example of Foucauldian biopolitics, placing disabled bodyminds in categories of human worth that map to the hierarchies constructed by white supremacy and settler colonialism. Despite these critiques, today's special education system relies upon the biomedical model in all aspects of the special education process, from eligibility and placement decisions to remedial instruction methods and strategies to 'fix' students who receive services (Bart, 2014;Padía, 2021). The IDEA specifies that in order to receive services, a student must be 'evaluated per § §300.304 through 300.311 as having [one of 13 disability categories], and who, by reason thereof, needs special education and related services' (IDEA, 2018, Sec.…”