THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 10, 1995 TAG: 9502090177
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
SUSAN KILLINGSWORTH and Sharon Thomas are exceptional teachers in more than one sense of the word.
Both of them teach exceptional children, or, as educators currently refer to them, children with exceptionalities.
It's a term which includes a lot more youngsters than most people realize. Exceptional children range from those with moderate to severe physical, emotional, behavioral, intellectual and learning disabilities to those whose minds, talents and imaginations are several steps ahead of the rest of us - the ones we call ``gifted.''
Killingsworth is a learning disabilities resource teacher at Princess Anne High School. Her job is to work with classroom teachers to see that the youngsters whose manner of learning differs from the norm get the special methods and attention they need.
Thomas is an itinerant teacher who regularly leaves her office at the special education annex to work with children with emotional disabilities who are being educated in regular classrooms.
Both will be honored for their own exceptionalities at the end of the month when the Jennie Brewer awards are presented at the state convention of the Council for Exceptional Children.
The Brewer award, named in honor of a much-respected Richmond special education teacher, is presented to those teachers who provide exemplary service to exceptional children and who have made a significant difference in the lives of the children they teach.
Although Killingsworth and Thomas are reluctant to talk about the reasons for their selections, listening to them talk about their work yields a couple of good clues.
Enthusiasm and professionalism are the words which come to mind when describing the two women whose work is done in an arena where accomplishments are nonetheless sweet for being measured in very small steps.
``I love being able to work close enough to the children to see how they think,'' Killingsworth said. ``I love fine-tuning how they learn and seeing their faces light up when they (master a task) and say `I did it!' '', she added with the kind of zeal that even the most reluctant student couldn't ignore.
Thomas, who has played a major part in the delicate process of having children with emotional or behavioral disabilities included successfully in regular classrooms, thought for only a moment before offering her goal for those students.
``I can sum it up in three words,'' she said, ``I want them to be able to achieve, contribute and fit in. Oops, that's four words, isn't it?'' she corrected.
Three words or four, the concept is the basis for the work which teachers of children with exceptionalities hope to accomplish: to bring those youngsters as close as possible to the mainstream of American life.
One of the council's proudest accomplishments is the part it played in the passage of Public Law 94-142 some years back. That was the federal law which mandated that public schools would be responsible for the education of all individuals between the ages of 2 and 21 who have disabilities.
Prior to the passage of that law many exceptional children received no schooling at all. Few received any after the age of 16. And although very early intervention is now known to be a key factor in educating these youngsters, even fewer school districts provided special classes for pre-schoolers.
As a result of 94-142, far more exceptional children are being successfully educated and many who would have been middle school dropouts are making it to graduation.
That's the part that makes Killingsworth, Thomas and other council members especially proud.
Tom Gustafson, program coordinator at Princess Anne High School and Thomas' immediate predecessor as president of Chapter 823, perhaps put it best.
``When you see (the exceptional students) walking across the stage on graduation night and you see how proud they and their parents and grandparents are, your heart just starts pounding,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by JO-ANN CLEGG
Susan Killingsworth, left, is a learning disabilities resource
teacher at Princess Anne High. Sharon Thomas regularly leaves her
office at the special education annex to work with children with
emotional disabilities who are being educated in regular
classrooms.
by CNB