DISABILITY IS NATURAL!

The places I go and the people I meet as a public speaker show me life outside my world. I am able to temporarily enter the worlds of educators, human service professionals, parents, and others, like a mythical time traveler. And these experiences reveal a giant disconnect between “the way things are supposed to be” according to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and “the ways things are.”

At one conference, an instructor of special ed at a large, respected state university argued about the information on some of my overheads—verbatim quotes from IDEA. “That’s against the law in our state!” she insisted. “This is the law—the federal law,” I replied. “Well, I’ve never heard of that before,” she said. When I asked if she had read IDEA herself—remember, she’s an instructor of special ed at a university—she gave the answer I feared: “No, actually I haven’t.”​ Click here to continue.

I.D.E.A. - The Law vs. Reality

A student's Individualized Education Program (IEP) is the implementation of the law. So how can educators implement the law, e.g., sit on the IEP team and help write the IEP, when they don't know what the law says?

Kathie Snow

Disability Is Natural Books and Media

New Ways of Thinking and Revolutionary Common Sense