Friday, May 18, 2012  The Men Who Stare at Coat Hooks  Today,
the teachers in my school had to turn in student portfolios for
review. In the grand tradition of education, there's been a lot
of fuss about binders, plastic sleeves, and tab dividers; some
fairly vague expectations about what sort of data we should have
in there laid out that have been changed several times over the
school year; and no examples provided.   Now, most teachers
worth their salt can come up with a system to track the progress
of their students in a way that makes sense to teachers,
parents, and the kids. Special ed teachers face a bit more of a
hurtle due to the small steps their students need to take to
master something.   That can be hard to do with a child who has
been working on a skill for several years - like identifying
letters. A lot of that stuff is hard to put on paper: For
example, a kid can trace or copy the letter C until the cows
come home, produce some sort of worksheet with a big lteer C on
it and place pictures of a