Feeling Special and Feeling Lousy

Abstract

My teaching stories are, to borrow from Grumet (1991), “not extraordinary.” I tell them at the risk of offending scholarly sensibilities but these are the stories I know and carry with me. As Grumet points out, when these stories “are omitted from our scholarship, when we look elsewhere, anywhere, for our sources, our reasons and motives, we perpetuate and exaggerate our exile. We deny…and in that denial we cut the ground right out from under us” (pp. 83–84). Tanja had come to my class 4 months ago. Before her arrival, I had met with the principal, the special education teacher, and the district psychologist. They all had read the great tomes of information about Tanja and her previous experiences with the public education system and social services. The meeting was set to discuss her placement at the little school of one hundred K-8 students. I knew ahead of time that they wanted her placed in my grade 1-2 class even though she was 9 years old because I was the only classroom teacher asked to the meeting. I had listened to their reasons and then expressed my concerns and arranged for the necessary classroom support. She would arrive in a week.