For those of us dedicated to the study of how neuroscience informs everyday life, the relationship between emotions and memory is particularly fascinating. For example, we know that learning which is accompanied by emotional content will form longer-lasting memories than learning that does not contain this emotional component. This is especially true if the emotions are not so personally intense that they interfere with one’s deeper understanding of the events and information at hand.

Accordingly, as a practitioner, there are some clinical memories which have stayed with me a long time, in part because of their more painful emotional context. One such event occurred over a decade ago when a new patient whom I will call Rachel (not her real name) came to see me.

Rachel had just transferred from a school serving only students with learning differences to her neighborhood school. She was receiving pull-out services and was participating in regular, mainstream classes. Rachel told me that one day while walking between classes in the hall after coming out of the learning resource room with a classmate, some other students walked past and called out to her and her friend the word, “Speds.”
My patient hadn’t heard the term before, but her classmate knew all too well its meaning. Rachel’s friend explained that “Speds” meant, “stupid kids who can’t learn the regular way and need extra help.” Rachel was devastated. She cried as she told me about her anger and hurt. Finally, she blurted out, “So, Dr. Lipton, what is so special about special education?”

What is so special about special education? I still to this day reflect on Rachel’s complex question, thinking about the irony of the arrangement of the words expressed in her thoughts and the meaning conveyed both by those on the sending and those on the receiving end of this expression.

Forty years ago, I began as a special educator, and I’ve closely watched our educational system ever since. I told Rachel that I really believed that all education should be special. What I meant was that each child is special and has an individual learning style. Some children learn better visually, some are more amenable to auditory input. Some students do their best learning using words and sentences, with auditory and visual inputs mixed together. I told Rachel that no matter how smart a person is in traditional IQ terms, each of us has a pattern of learning characterized by strengths and weaknesses.

Over the past four decades, we’ve developed an understanding of brain-based processing constraints that may predispose children to have difficulties with academic pursuits; i.e., learning to read, solving math problems, producing written expression, etc. Special education classes give children the specific educational interventions they need to be successful in each of these (and many more) academic undertakings. Furthermore, literally hundreds of thousands of American children to date have benefited from these efforts to differentiate the learning environment and context.
In addition, during the last decade a greater understanding of children’s brain-based, social-emotional difficulties has led to an increase in recognizing children who have what is currently called Autism Spectrum Disorders. Research and exploration of brain-based teaching and learning programs are also increasing our knowledge regarding the best ways for many of these children to take part in education programs. Whether it is in special or regular education classes, again and again, I’ve seen great teachers create classrooms in which each child gets what they need to make the greatest possible academic and social-emotional progress.

Rachel, her family, and I spoke candidly about these issues of strengths and weaknesses to ensure that she had a deep understanding of her own significant capabilities as well as her learning needs. We also talked about the educational system’s strengths and weaknesses and how we could work together to help her get the support she needed in a way that best fit her unique learning style and needs.

By the way, this story has quite a happy ending. After finishing high school, Rachel went on to college and has recently completed her master’s degree in special education. This fall, some lucky students will have her for a teacher.

How do we create and support other great teachers? We train and mentor them well; we give them the resources they need; and we pay them a competitive salary. On all fronts possible, we value them. Teachers reach hundreds of children in their professional lifetime. It is the teacher’s critical job to take knowledge from current brain-based discoveries in learning and translate this information into daily classroom successes for students. Rachel’s experience exemplifies how special this type of special education can be. And teachers like the ones Rachel had can make a real difference in the lives of our children.