“Special Education is just good education”
I work for an organization whose mission it is to provide support for children with diverse learning needs and to help create more accessible programming. We were at a planning meeting and everyone sitting around the table was in some way, involved with education, although we all came to this work with very different backgrounds and experiences. Admittedly, my attention was wandering, until I heard that sentence that makes me cringe.
“Special education is just good education.”
And of course, it was said by the long since retired classroom teacher, who had no degree…
OPEN LETTERS
A Long Overdue Apology
Dear Cookie and Ed,
You don’t know me, but 24 years ago, I broke your platter. I’m really very sorry, but it was an accident. And I didn’t know it was yours when it got broken. And in all fairness, you didn’t even know you had the platter so maybe I shouldn’t even be bringing it up after all this time.
You see, it was on April 13, 1997. My brand new husband and I were doing the goodbye thing at the end of our wedding, and someone put all of the gifts into our car for us. I don’t…
“Why are you crying?” you asked, as I struggled to keep the tears from sliding down my face. “It’s not like this is the first time I’ve left.” And that my sweet daughter, is exactly why I’m crying. Because there have been so many goodbyes over the years, and it gets harder and harder each time.
I remember your first day of preschool. You were excited, your outfit had been picked out and waiting for days to be worn on this special occasion. I can still see you, standing there with your little backpack with its change of clothes on…
Last year, I really struggled with Passover. I usually host a seder for about twenty five family members and friends and my mom would fly up from Florida to join us, just like her mom did for so many years. But last year, we were in Covid quarantine. And even if we weren’t in lockdown, it would have been my first holiday without my mom, who had passed away just a few months earlier.
The last time my brothers and cousins and I were all together was at my mother’s funeral. When we were getting ready to go back to…
Sandy Gold
I’m an educator, an advocate for inclusion an avid reader, and a mother struggling to adjust to being an empty nester.
