Whether they face timid first graders or rambunctious teenagers, the young teachers too often encounter several boys and girls who can't concentrate, can't remember verbal instructions, or can't follow complex written directions. A generation ago, the students would have been dismissed as lazy, slow, or worse, and left to flounder. The students with these problems happen to be in Boston city schools, but their disabilities also surface at the toniest suburban schools and private academies across the country. And that's the point. Northeastern and other graduate schools of education must prepare the next generation of teachers for classrooms that are far more complex than those of the past.
Educators disagree about why.
Now that federal law insists that students with special needs be taught whenever possible in regular classrooms, school districts expect all teachers to work with all kinds of learners. Sometimes engagement is a simple matter of seeing things through a child's eyes. Northeastern grad student Kimberly Frazier-Booth was confounded by teenagers who were constantly distracted during quizzes in class. A special-ed teacher pointed out that the students often got confused by marks in photocopies that bled through from the other side. Anyone considering a master's degree in teaching needs to fully understand what it means that special education is no longer left to specialists.