School systems, individual schools, and individual teachers must be thoroughly familiar with laws related to special or exceptional education. They should be particularly aware of the implications of FAPE and IEP's as proscribed under IDEA. More and more often, exceptional education students are "mainstreamed" into the "general" education population as part of FAPE and the students' IEP's. Sometimes they come with a teaching assistant and sometimes they don't. Either way, teachers are legally bound to serve these students in exact accordance with their IEP. Often times, teachers are wary of these students--they feel they are a distraction, one which might lessen the efficacy of the "general" education student's classroom experience.
Therefore, teachers and support staff must be educated, both as part of their formal collegiate education and as a part of ongoing staff development, as to the ramifications of established law and special education. They should be given both theoretical training in the classroom and "hands-on" education within special education rooms.
Recently, as part of my thesis project, I traded classes for a day with our drama instructor who is a truly gifted professional storyteller. She worked with my students on the art of storytelling and I worked with her students, playing theater games. One of her classes has three mainstreamed exceptional education students who are mildly to moderately mentally impaired. Their teaching assistants also attended the class. I can safely say that playing these games with these children was a truly profound and joyful experience to me--one which all teachers should have as part of an ongoing awareness program within all schools. Teachers should and must become more aware of just who exactly this population is--and how they are a valuable part of the greater school population.
