If you live long enough, you can see it all—if you’re looking.
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal in the Personal Journal section, ‘Never too Awkward to Ask: Have You Washed Your Hands?’ Apparently only 50% of doctors do—and it’s dangerous to patients that so many don’t. Who knew? I thought they had solved that one…
For me, I’ll have to change my presentations! In speaking of the professionalism of teachers–that we need to honor–I used to say that they are like doctors. We should not ask them ‘little’ things like have you washed your hands–or have you seated students where they will learn best (called ‘preferential seating’). We should assume they are doing what they are supposed to do–. Well, apparently not so fast. Fascinating.
About Miriam
Miriam Kurtzig Freedman, JD, MA—an expert in public education, focused on special education law— is a lawyer, author, speaker, consultant, and reformer.
For more than 35 years, Miriam worked with educators, parents, policy makers, and citizens to translate complex legalese into plain English and focus on good practices for children.
Now, she focuses her passion on reforming special education, with her new book, Special Education 2.0—Breaking Taboos to Build a NEW Education Law. Presentations include those at the AASA Conference, Orange County (CA), Boston College (MA), CADRE (OR), and the Fordham Institute (DC). Her writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Education Week, Education Next, Hoover Digest, The University of Chicago Law Review on line, DianeRavitch.net, and The Atlantic Monthly on line.
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