Teacher with A Blog

For ten years, I have worked with students with hearing loss and other disabilities. My students have ranged in their grades from Pre-Kindergarten to Twelfth Grade. I have worked in three different counties in the state of Florida.

Across the United States, the terminology for working with students with disabilities ranges.

Special needs.

Disabilities.

Exceptional.

Oddly enough, the acceptable terms to be used are not always agreed upon. 

Since my college days, the terms special needs and Exceptional Student Education (ESE) have always been used. Some people have argued that the use of special or exceptional is negative. Special or exceptional meaning different, weird, or even insulting. 

A teacher from another state once said to me today's world still treated students with disabilities badly just by using the word "special" and the use of the word "exceptional" was just as bad.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “exceptional” as:

1    forming an exception: RARE (Example: an exceptional number of rain days)

2    better than average: SUPERIOR (Example: an exceptional skill)

3    deviating from the normal such as having above or below average intelligence and physically disabled

When you look in a thesaurus, some of the synonyms for exceptional are

*Extraordinary

*Odd

*Phenomenal

*Remarkable

Personally, I prefer to use the synonyms when using the word exceptional to describe my students. The students I work with are extraordinary, phenomenal, and remarkable. They are all these things and not just because they all mean the same thing. No two students are alike. They have their strengths and weaknesses, their interests and hobbies, their attitude towards school, and their hopes for the future.

At the end of the day, they are All Exceptional to Me.