In this epiosde we get an insider's perspective of the world of special education from someone who sees it from both sides. 

Eleanor Janek is a dedicated special education teacher and a mother two two children with disabilties. 

Her insight is both eye opening and incredibly useful for virtually anyone who is a teacher or a parent.

The Odyssey: Parenting. Caregiving. Disability. 

The Center for Family Involvement at VCU School of Education's Partnership for People with Disabilities provides informational and emotional support to people with disabilities and their families. All of our services are free. We just want to help. We know how hard this can be because we're in it with you. 

 

SHOW NOTES:

Here's a link to the Virginia Department of Education's Critical Decision Points resource that Eleanor talked about. 

 

 

 

 

 

01:00:07 :14 - 01:00:37 :23

Erin Croyle

Welcome to The Odyssey. Parenting, Caregiving, Disability. I'm Erin Croyle, the creator and host. The Odyssey podcast explores the unique journey where sent on when a loved one has a disability. I started down this path in 2010 when my first child was born with Down's Syndrome. My journey weaved its way here, working with the Center for Family Involvement at VCU's, Partnership for People with Disabilities.

 

01:00:38 :00 - 01:01:05 :17

Erin Croyle

This podcast does a deep dive into the joys and hardships we face. We celebrate how amazing the odyssey of parenting, caregiving and disability is, but we don't shy away from the tough stuff. For many of us, advocating for and navigating special education services is one of those hard things. But we often don't realize that it's no walk in the park for educators either.

 

01:01:05 :19 - 01:01:21 :16

Erin Croyle

That's why I made it my mission to talk to a special education teacher who is also a parent whose children also have disabilities. Which brings me to today's guest, Eleanor Janek.

 

01:01:21 :18 - 01:01:25 :04

Erin Croyle

Eleanor, thank you so much for joining me.

 

01:01:25 :06 - 01:01:26 :20

Eleanor Janek

Thank you.

 

01:01:26 :22 - 01:01:33 :12

Erin Croyle

Eleanor, can we start by you giving us a little bit of a background about who you are and what you do?

 

01:01:33 :14 - 01:02:07 :17

Eleanor Janek

So I am a special education teacher in Virginia. This is my 16th year as a teacher, but my 25th year in education and I am 44 and I've been married for almost 19 years with two children. One is 16. She is deaf with cochlear implants and she has autism. And then I also have a seven year old who has ADHD and currently undergoing evaluations for autism as well.

 

01:02:07 :19 - 01:02:15 :19

Erin Croyle

so you have quite the perspective. I'm curious what drew you to education and special education.

 

01:02:15 :21 - 01:02:46 :04

Eleanor Janek

As a middle school student? I worked with students who had disabilities because mainly they were isolated from the general education students. So then I started working as an instructional assistant. When I was fresh out of high school. I was 19 when I started. So I was still, you know, pretty much a kid myself as an instructional assistant. But I had a career or established, you know, working with the school system, they say, is pretty much the best thing that you can do.

 

01:02:46 :06 - 01:03:10 :14

Eleanor Janek

You get paid. You have your summers off. It's great, right? But then I quickly realized that without a college education, you did not get much respect from the educational community. So I pursued my degree in Psychology first and then my master's in education. So I've been doing I've been teaching special education for the last six years at a middle school.

 

01:03:10 :16 - 01:03:38 :05

Erin Croyle

Eleanor, I'm really curious. You know, you mentioned to me before we were recording, you and I are very similar ages, and I think we have very similar experiences growing up in schools where even though special education existed, we never saw our peers who were disabled. We never really saw special education teachers. What was your experience growing up? Can you tell me what a typical classroom look like and then tell me what classes look like today?

 

01:03:38 :10 - 01:04:09 :20

Eleanor Janek

Exactly like you just said. You know, our students with disabilities, the ones who had the more physical disabilities where you could kind of tell that they were different. One room all day long. Probably a special education teacher or an instructional assistant within that room with them. In my experience, as far as high school or middle school, you never saw students with disabilities or visible disabilities as they're now known in the mainstream setting.

 

01:04:09 :22 - 01:04:35 :11

Eleanor Janek

I had a teacher who was my homeroom teacher who was a special education teacher. But other than seeing him in my home base, I never saw him out in the school anywhere. Whereas today, you know, when we introduce ourselves at the beginning of the year, we always introduce ourselves as teachers, myself and my general education partner. And we always tell the kids, you know, you're lucky.

 

01:04:35 :11 - 01:05:00 :11

Eleanor Janek

You get two teachers in here, you're the bonus teacher represented in that way. But at the same time, now you see two teachers in a lot of classrooms where 20 years ago or almost 30 years ago when I was in school, you didn't see that it was just one teacher in the classroom. And our students with disabilities were pulled out into what they call a resource classroom.

 

01:05:00 :13 - 01:05:16 :14

Erin Croyle

I mean, we still see a lot of students pulled out into self-contained and resource classroom today, but it's very different. So are you in a room then with co teaching and are you you're working together with the general ed teacher to adapt and modify curriculum then?

 

01:05:16 :16 - 01:05:59 :19

Eleanor Janek

I am so I am primarily science. I do sixth, seventh and eighth grade science collaborative. More pull out happens at the elementary level and I'm at the middle school level, so I do work collaboratively with my teaching partners. For the past couple of years, I've been doing a schedule that's been kind of crazy and hectic as far as my teaching goes because I've been split into 45 minute chunks during the block and may only have one two at most three classes where I'm actually in the classroom for a full 90 minutes so I can have as many as ten classes in a two day period.

 

01:05:59 :21 - 01:06:31 :05

Eleanor Janek

That's mainly because of the teacher shortage in Virginia and all states that are going on right now. I would love to have my full 90 minute classes back so I can work with my teachers for a full 90 minutes and my students for a full 90 minutes instead of doing 45 minute chunks or even 20 minute chunks, because that's what I ended up doing in two of my classes this year was working in one class for 20 minutes, going to another class for 20 minutes, going back to another class for 20 minutes.

 

01:06:31 :07 - 01:06:34 :03

Eleanor Janek

It can get really crazy sometimes.

 

01:06:34 :05 - 01:06:36 :14

Erin Croyle

That sounds like a lot.

 

01:06:36 :16 - 01:06:38 :07

Eleanor Janek

And yes.

 

01:06:38 :09 - 01:07:08 :02

Erin Croyle

Yeah. My understanding is to one of the one of the hurdles that special education teachers experience is a lack of planning time to really meaningfully do the work they need to accommodate these students. I'm curi