A Teacher's Epiphany: Caught up in a world that does not look for the strengths they do have...

Washington Post's The Answer Sheet:
Special ed arts teacher walks in students' shoes


Pamela Michaels has worked for 28 years with at-risk special education students in four schools. She developed two art programs in schools for students with learning disabilities and taught numerous subjects, including Spanish and music. After years working with learning disabled students, Michaels suffered her own disability--severe hearing loss--that helped her gain a new understanding of the challenges her students had faced throughout the years. Here is her story.

By Pamela Michaels

...So much is written about the academic difficulties that students with learning differences have; not enough is shared about their creative strengths, nor the significant courage they exhibit by just showing up to school every day...

Five years later, I went deaf in one ear and started to develop some serious communication issues of my own and, simultaneously, I began to see, hear and feel things through the eyes of my students...


...I would like to ask readers to remember some of my points when you read about "at-risk" youth or "lazy" kids. Most are not lazy. They are caught up in a world that does not look for the strengths they do have...