I am a 30-year veteran special educator who has worked primarily with high school students in a rural setting. Like everyone else, my own personal history has at least partially shaped my perspective and approaches. Most pertinent to Transition is my non-traditional background to becoming a special education teacher. I have an undergraduate degree in civil engineering which, it turns out, is not all that far out of sync, as I have received significant training in creative problem solving and backwards planning—both critical pre-requisites, in my mind, to success with Transition.

My first job in Maine in special education was performing pre-vocational assessments for students with special needs at the regional vocational center. The very nature of the job demanded focus on students’ dreams and aspirations. By helping a student identify vocational goals, we could then work backwards to identify skills, behaviors and attitudes necessary for achievement of those goals. It sounds like common sense, but with Learning Results, and graduation standards and requirements, it is difficult to keep perspective. Whether using DREAMS/S.N.O.W./Action Plan, ongoing backward planning is essential.

In the classroom, the same emphasis on dreams and aspirations causes each student’s individualized program to develop naturally. Each choice and decision is guided by the student’s current life roadmap. It follows that there is a reason and a relevance to all learning experiences: elevating motivation, emphasis on quality of instruction and performance that leads then to increased success. While that’s certainly an oversimplified recipe for high school programming, here’s a vignette:

Joe (not the student’s real name), a people oriented, independent-minded freshman with some physical and learning challenges—and a very protective mother—thinks he wants to be a policeman, but isn’t really sure.

A critical early need appears to be career exploration. A lot of the language arts skills can be tied into these career development activities, making phone calls to set up job shadows, writing thank you letters, writing summary reports, etc. Since these are real activities related to Joe’s interests, the motivation is higher and it’s easier to demand a higher quality product. (“You never know if you will be asking this person for a job or a recommendation in 4 years.”)

Joe also needs some independent living training and experiences in cooking, self-care and cleaning.

When a person cooks, he or she has to shop and think about nutrition and work with a budget—all following naturally. After instruction and practice in the old home economics classroom, the class rents an apartment for a half a day, every other day for a more realistic, more motivating experience. They pay for it the apartment using the proceeds of the student-run company, which sells snacks to the staff.

Later on, Joe attends the local Tech Center’s law enforcement-training program, and narrows his goals to dispatching, more in line with his physical capabilities. He connects with the Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) transition counselor and does a situational assessment.

Joe has a driving evaluation from Alpha One. He will need a driver’s license, so he uses the Maine State Department of Motor Vehicles manual as a piece of his language arts program to help him prepare for his permit.

In math, the focus is on a life skills simulation with budgeting, bill paying etc., which follows nicely in conjunction with the apartment experience. Most everybody feels that Joe is now almost ready for graduation. He has an apartment and a baby due in June. VR is helping Joe set up driver education through a local company. He has received assistance with SSI through the school. There are services for the baby and mother…

Obviously there are a lot of connections between Joe and various agencies. And this is only one of 28 students on my caseload. It just so happens that Joe was one of three students I worked with that have been involved in Youth Leadership activities. His participation made him more familiar with the programs, people, and opportunities available to him—simple networking. Having a “voice at the table” increased Joe’s confidence and improved his assertiveness, a critical skill to successfully obtaining services. Obviously, the same networking connections make it easier for me to make linkages and connections for the students with whom I work.