Important Role of Special Education Teachers

Special education teachers are a vital part of a system which needs to be tailored to the requirements of all children who pass through it and not just those who have exceptional ability and normal good health.

Whereas mainstream schooling may be the right answer for the majority of children, including many of those with special needs, there will always be some who will not be able to get what they need without a specially tailored plan and a different environment. The system needs to be able to identify these special cases, and then find the right learning environment for them.

For the regular high school teacher, special education is not part of their daily routine, but they should still be able to identify situations where special needs may be present. Many children are not properly diagnosed until several years of their education has passed, and by this time it will be more difficult to change the negative environment into a positive one and get the child’s education back on track. Teachers at all levels need to be trained to spot potential problem signs of not just special educational needs, but anything else which could demand special attention.

Studying how to be a special education teacher is, of course, a whole new level. You will actually be learning how to impart knowledge into those who normally have difficulty absorbing it, whether through a recognized condition such as autism or simply an attention problem. There are never any hard and fast rules about what will work best with children who have special learning needs, as so much depends on the individual. Even when an accurate diagnosis can be made by a medical professional, there is still the problem of how bad the condition is and how much the child is affected.

A special education teacher may be called on to work within a standard classroom in which children are normally taught, or in a completely different type of environment. Many children have a learning disability which prevents them from learning at the same pace as other children, even though they are capable of absorbing information and retaining it. These children are best taught in the usual classroom, if possible with other children in a similar situation. The fact that they can study in a normal environment will be a positive benefit to these children.

People wondering what is a special education teacher and studying the subject for the first time will tend to think in terms of autistic children or children with needs which are more severe. These are the children which cannot practically be taught within the mainstream learning system. Not only will they learn nothing or very little, they may even be a disturbance to other children who are trying to learn in the same environment. Children will only be referred for this type of learning when mainstream learning has proved to be beyond them.

Becoming a special education teacher is not an easy task, either in preparation for the career or actually carrying out the job when you have arrived. There is a formal education requirement for working as a teacher in the public education system, in that you must be educated to at least bachelor’s degree level. You will also need a license to be able to work in a public school. There are no such requirements for other schools, but it is obvious that the owners will want to see evidence of capability, of they usually ask for the same qualification standard as public schools.

When you become a special education teacher you will have a job of high responsibility and great importance, although the salary may not necessarily reflect this. There is a limit on the amount of money which can be paid to public employees no matter how useful their service is to the people they serve. If you have greater ambitions to go beyond a teaching role, the degree you have will get into other jobs which are considered to be at a higher level, where you will have less hands on time with pupils but more office based duties.

The role of special education teacher is coming more into the public eye as there is greater awareness as the conditions which cause learning difficulties become better known. If you want to find out more about the conditions which special education teachers deal with, there are now ample resources on the Internet. Every known and named condition will have a portal set up by someone who suffers from the condition, or by their parents or those responsible for them. Finding out more about how these conditions are managed by the teachers in charge of pupils with special needs is also easy to do. There are also resources for those seeking to become a special education teacher.