What Happened When I Started Letting My Students Track My Goals, Too
I see a lot of special education teachers talk about how difficult it can be to track IEP goals consistently, collect meaningful data, and keep students motivated... Read more.
How PBIS Affected My Internalized Echolalia and Social Status Long-Term
I was the kid who won. Constantly. I was the kid who loved the reward system, figured out exactly how it worked, and became incredibly successful within it. If there... Read more.
What My Students Taught Me About Disability
When people find out that I am an autistic ADHD special education teacher, one of the first assumptions I hear is that I must automatically understand all my autistic... Read more.
What Happens After the Restraint? The Part We Rarely Talk About
I have spent a lot of time thinking about what happens before a restraint. What happened in the minutes leading up to it? What did the student signal? What changed... Read more.
What Happens Before the Restraint? The 10 Minutes We Keep Ignoring
When a student is placed in a restraint or secluded, the incident report often begins at the moment the crisis becomes impossible for adults to ignore. The student... Read more.
Behavior Is Not the Brain: Why My Childhood Made Me Question Behaviorism
When people hear me criticize behaviorism, they often assume I've never taken the time to understand it. They tell me to read B.F. Skinner. They recommend Israel... Read more.
My Students Understand. Why Don’t Some Adults Get It?
Of those things people recognize me by at this point, yesterday one of my 4th graders pointed at it and asked, “What do ALL those words mean?” Not just one—every... Read more.
Autism Acceptance Month Is Not a Celebration—It’s a Reckoning
Every April, the world turns its attention to autism. The posts go up, the slogans circulate, and suddenly everyone is talking about “awareness” again. But if... Read more.
What Happened Before That Moment?
Sometimes a small sign says a lot about how we think about children. Today I walked past a table with a sign that said: “All emotions are okay, but not all child... Read more.
An Invisible Storm: Why Extreme Weather Is Quietly Overloading Our Kids’ Nervous Systems
If you’ve ever stood in a classroom on a day when a massive storm is brewing, you know the feeling. There’s a kind of static in the air. Kids are vibrating at... Read more.