Halloween come and gone, Primera dressed as The Scream.

Got Michelle Dunn's book at the conference I went to, which was I suppose overkill since we're fortunate enough to have the program (and Michelle Dunn) in district. I lent it out, but it looks good, if a little thin in the front re the instructional theory. More neuroscience!!

[Random thought] So I'm getting teacher certification, and it occurs to me this morning as I'm half-waking that we NEVER have anything devoted to special education or special needs instruction. In fact, in New York State, you can get certified without taking a course, though you need courses in multicultural education. Which I think is valuable also, but in practice you may not end up in a very multicultural school, esp. if you teach in the 'burbs, but you most assuredly will be teaching special needs kids during your teaching career.

All in all, I've been thinking about what a shit job we do marketing this issue and its concerns where it matters, namely in the training of teachers (I've also been thinking about this after watching a very slickly produced video last night for a kidney disease foundation. The event I went to probably raised half a million dollars, and this was at a suburban event attended by extremely small-time politicians and only the moderately well-heeled. Why isn't some autism foundation doing more in this area? The Walk Far is nice, but what did we raise this year? Maybe 4-5 million when all is said and done? That's such small potatoes). You can walk into a classroom not knowing what an IEP is, not knowing how to conduct yourself at a CSE. I have yet to hear ANYTHING mentioned about parents and working with the family as a partnership. That just never comes up.