Portrait of the Teacher as a Normal Curve

Abstract

The weight of most of the effort and most of the criticism of working with the learning disabled child falls on the public school teacher. Those professionals in the LD field who help formulate legislation that affects the public schools and who write the articles that criticize the public school teacher are those persons who are least likely to have worked directly with large groups of LD children. The author asks that other professionals in the LD field have a better understanding of the constraints, both personal and institutional, under which the public school teacher must attempt to meet the many demands placed on her or him. Programs of consistent high quality can only follow realistic legislation and field tested programs implemented by teachers who have been selected and trained in institutions that are more dedicated to training competent educators than to merely filling their classrooms.