The Special Education System

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Through my advocacy work, I have found that teachers are not providing students with disabilities individualized attention as outlined in a student’s Individual Education plan. Teachers continue to follow instructions from administrators to place the burden of education on the student causing students anxiety and frustrating despite knowing such treatment is wrong and inhumane. The treatment often results in elevated high school dropout rates of students with disabilities.

It is hard to understand why a teacher may treat a student, who is obviously willing to learn, in such a manner. The Asch Conformity Experiment is a good example; making it

easier to understand the behavior or a group of educators. In the experiment, a participant believes he or she has been asked to be a member in panel that will be given a vision test. The experiment begins with the instructor at the front of the room showing the subjects matching lines from a group of three segments. The other participants begin given answers that the test subject can see are wrong but when it is his or her turn to provide an answer, the participant gives the wrong answer along with the rest of the panel. He or she is conforming to the rest of the group (Cherry K. 2012).

The participants did not want to be ridiculed by selecting and answer different from their peers had chosen. This is called normative conformity (Asch Conformity Experiment, 2012). Teachers do not want to be rejected by their peers and seen as the only person who did not go along with what was happening. For example, while working with a student who was struggling academically, a sibling of the student saw one of student’s special education teachers out in the community. The teacher recommended ...

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..., K. (2012). Hierarchy of Needs. The Five Levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Retrieved 03 04, 2012, from http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/hierarchyneeds.htm

Cherry, K. (2012). The Asch Conformity Experiments . 03 13, 2012, from About.com Psychology: http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/p/conformity.htm

Education, U. D. (2004). Individuals with Disabilities Act. Washington, D.C. Retrieved from http://idea.ed.gov/explore/view/p/%2Croot%2Cregs%2C300%2CE%2C300%252E501%2Cb%2C

Education, U. D. (2007). Special Education and Rehabilitation Services. Retrieved March 12, 2012, from Twenty-Five Years of Progress in Educating Children with Disabilities Through IDEA: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/leg/idea/history.html

Statistics, B. o. (2012). THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION —FEBRUARY 2012. Washington D.C.: US Federal Government.

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