Scared of Working with Students with Disabilities?
I would not say that I am scared of people with disabilities; I am a Special Olympic coach! But, since I have worked in different areas in higher education for the last several years, I am afraid of doing the "wrong" thing with students who are using accommodations. I want to be in compliance at all costs and sometimes that means just having someone from Disability Services help them.
Has anyone else had this experience or am I the only one?
After this module, I feel a bit more empowered in working with students with disabilities. After all, they are students first and I can always work with a student. That's my job!
I too find it stressfull when I have students with learning disabilities in my classes - I am always fearful of the line that I should be walking, being helpful and accommodating without being too much so or alienating the rest of the class. But with that being said, I have also had some students without disabilities (and with very poor senses of empathy) express dissatisfaction with me as the instructor because they don't feel that ANY of the students in the class deserve extra accommodation. Truly, students with disabilities are almost never as much trouble as fully-abled students with bad attitudes.
I think its important to just notice when your time spent with the disabled is affecting other students. Once this occurs you need to tone it back a bit.
-Jeff
