Mr.

Stephens #Top10: Age - Appropriate

Teaching for Teens With Disabilities
SO OFTEN we see Special Education Programs in the high school setting
that could be easily mistaken as elementary school classrooms! Not only
can this be offensive and/or embarrassing to many of the teens who have
to deal with it each day --but it is also restrictive on so many levels!
Teens with disabilities are TEENS who will soon become ADULTS!.
Here are my #TOP10 tips for Age Appropriate Teaching for teens with
disabilities! Lets

Get it Poppin!

You can find this #Top10 list on www.MrStephenOfficial.weebly.com

1. Functional Skills versus Childs Play: Obviously, students with learning differences dont

learn at a typical pace. It is our responsibility as teachers, parents, friends and peers to support
these students in gaining the skills that will be most meaningful to them in the future. Quite often, we
determine that teenagers with learning differences should work on functional skills that will allow
them to achieve key goals in the future, such as finding a job, and living and traveling independently.
These skills often include reading time, counting and using bills and coins, communicating wants
and needs, using a calendar, etc. Many of these skills are often thought of as elementary skills or,
as some refer to it, baby work. While it is necessary to prepare students for independence as
adults, we must do this in a way that also preserves their dignity in the eyes of the general public.

2. Remove ALL teddy bears and toddlers! It is no secret that Special Education teachers are

not provided with curriculum in many districts across America, which means that it is up to each
individual teacher to design a program tailored to the needs of the students in that program, and to
then FIND or CREATE curriculum to support their learning and growth. If you are a high school
teacher who is EITHER finding OR creating worksheets, assignments and projects for your
students, make sure that the work does not LOOK like work that was designed for children. Many of
the telling time, basic math, sentence writing, and calendar materials online were designed for
students who are much younger than the teenagers in a high school or adult program. They are
often decorated with images of cute cartoons and young children. If you decide to use any of these
materials, do the best you can to hide anything that might give other people (or the students
themselves) the impression that these teenagers are still children.

www.MrStephenOfficial.weebly.com

Stephen Torres-Esquer, 2016

3. Utilize your psychic ability

. In my PERSONAL opinion, one of the MOST important

things that we should be thinking about in terms of our children who are more impacted by their
disabilities is THE FUTURE! It is SO majorly important to acknowledge that, while students
without disabilities can follow a uniform plan for success in the future, students who have learning
differences truly do need individualized goals, plans and support. Whether the student is in a
Special Education classroom or an Inclusion program, there needs to be someone on his or her
team who can look into this persons future to (1) see the potential, and (2) find ways to prepare this
person to reach their full potential and become as independent as possible as an adult.
4. Different is NOT so different, after all! For most of us, high school was all about making
connections with peers, knowing what was in, and figuring out what we wanted our lives to be like
as adults. There is no reason to believe that students with disabilities do not want the same thing.
This may not look, sound or feel the same way that it does for typically developing students, but we
need to assume that, in their own way, they can and should be doing all three of these things. We
can help students to make connections with peers by incorporating things like pop culture, world
news and social media into our teaching, thus providing them with access to what is in as well as
preparing them for the future by promoting knowledge acquisition, the use of technology and content
comprehension. We, as typically developing people, were able to do most things almost
independently as teenagers, but the same is not true for all people! It is up to us, many times, to
help students who are different to achieve a true and age-appropriate teen experience.
5. Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex!!!!! Dont you remember being a teenager/young adult --when you
could barely control your mind from drifting into fantasy land anytime you saw that one kid who sat
two seats in front of you during math class? Or the PE teacher with the tight shorts? For many of us,
this resulted in a quick trip to the bathroom stall, or a LONG day followed by a power walk home,
right before locking ourselves up in private to do that thing we learned from television, magazines,
books or peers. We knew better,

though, than to do it in public! For many of us, it is still hard to

even say the word masturbation in our 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond! Students who are greatly
impacted by their disabilities dont understand TV, print or peers in the same way that many of us
did. IMAGINE THIS: what would YOUR life have been like if you had to look at that kid in math
class and/or the hot teacher --but you didnt know how to masturbate?!! I would literally die! WHAT

ABOUT THIS: how would your peers have treated you if they caught you touching yourself at
school?

Im sure theyd be super understanding, right? OR THIS: what do you think you would

have done if you were horny AF (as the kids say) with no way to relieve yourself, and a teacher,
uncle, aunt, older cousin, or some creep off of the street came and used his/her hands to show you
a magical way to make it better?! Would you protest? Would you tell? What if you could not
communicate verbally and you couldnt tell someone even if you wanted to?
TEACH SEX ED TO TEENS AND ADULTS WITH SPECIAL
NEEDS! They should know who should and should not touch them
and where they should and should not be touched! They should
know how and WHERE to masturbate! MOST IMPORTANTLY,
they should NOT feel dirty or bad for having these feelings!

www.MrStephenOfficial.weebly.com

Stephen Torres-Esquer, 2016

6. Social Media as a tool for learning: Social media is the FUTURE! Its where most people

these days build and maintain connections with others, promote projects, read the news, etc. Social
media is also a hot topic for conversation amongst teens and young adults. When I incorporate
social media into my lessons, I let my students know that I am not telling them to go home and
create an account, but that I want them to, at the very least, understand what it is if they ever find
themselves in a social conversation around the topic. In my classroom, we define social media as
websites to share words and pictures with friends. This definition is simple enough that we can
break it down piece by piece to ensure understanding at a very basic level, but broad enough that
we can expand with limitless boundaries. I create writing worksheets that are designed to mimic the
social media format and this allows students to practice the type of writing that many of them will be
doing in the future. ANOTHER REASON TO TEACH SOCIAL MEDIA is this: Many students with
special needs will eventually have the skills to create profiles on their own, or to convince friends to
help them to do this --providing them limitless access to the www, and a platform to be as tame or
CRAZY as they want to be! WE have to teach them what is socially appropriate in terms of
in-person behavior --but ALSO ONLINE! Its easy for ANYONE to be taken advantage of on the
internet.

7. Train your staff --they are the backbone of your operation! As usual, Im going to

stress the importance of training and RESPECTING your staff! It seems like the #1 thing that
Special Education teachers LOVE to complain about is their staff! GUYS: STOP!...literally!
Paraprofessionals in California are paid PENNIES to do the work that they do! They receive zero
training other than the training that YOU give them, as a Special Education teacher (if youre not a
Special Education teacher, forgive my rant)! Be understanding of this! Most of the time, paras are
willing to do what they need to do, but if youre not going to explicitly state your expectations, and if
youre not going to enforce anything --why would they be motivated to react? As long as your staff
feels unappreciated and free to slack off, they will slack off! Help them to understand why all of this
is so important! Help them to see why these teens should not be holding hands with adults through
campus (unless its necessary), reading Sesame Street books in front of their General Education
peers, or ignoring their sexual frustration.
And guess what! They may not remember after
the first, second or third time that you tell them!
Remember: we have gone to school for
YEARS to do this and some of us are STILL
struggling to do the job well! Think of paras in
the same way that you think of Britney Spears!
Theyre singing to you! Do you hear it? Show
me how you want it to be! Tell me, baby, cause
I need to know now! So give them a sign and
hit them with it one more time!

www.MrStephenOfficial.weebly.com

Stephen Torres-Esquer, 2016

8. Engage with the General Education population! Whether youre a Special Day Class

teacher or a Resource/Inclusion teacher, you NEED to engage with the General Education teachers
AND students if you want to get anywhere in this game! YOU are the face! YOU are the voice! YOU
need to be SO cool that people want to be around you, because this will obviously lead to people
engaging with your squad and realizing that they are ALSO cool!

9. SUPPORT your GenEd teachers! DO NOT SEND YOUR STUDENTS INTO GENERAL

EDUCATION WITHOUT SUPPORT! This is LITERALLY what gives Special Education a bad name!
Make connections with the Gen Ed Teachers so that they know they are supported by you! If they
feel like they dont know what to do with your shared students, they will likely do nothing and/or
become angry and resentful towards you. If youre nowhere to be found, then this anger will be
taken out on the student and NOT on you. So get your life together, read some self-help
organization books and do what you need to do!
10. Monkey see, monkey do! Modeling is SO powerful! If you are doing what you should be
doing, and modeling the behaviors that you want to see in paraprofessionals, teachers, and
students with and without disabilities, I GUARANTEE that you will see a shift in attitude in the
people around you! To do this successfully, though, you TRULY need to be PRESENT. NO sitting
behind your desk all day long! NO obsessing over emails or IEPs unless its during your prep period.
Actively engage with and respect all people, and you will be respected. Be the change that you want
to see in the world! Its simple. Im not a rocket scientist.
Thanks so much for reading!
For more information, feel free to contact me online!
Stephen.SpEd@gmail.com
Twitter.com/RemoveTheDis
Facebook.com/RemoveTheDis

www.MrStephenOfficial.weebly.com

Stephen Torres-Esquer, 2016