Month: June 2019

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Teaching Literacy to Students with Significant Disabilities: Strategies for the K-12 Inclusive Classroom (Book Review)

Jason Simon

Teaching Literacy to Students with Significant Disabilities: Strategies for the K-12 Inclusive Classroom by June E. Downing My rating: 4 of 5 stars I read this recently for a continuing education course I had to take to renew my state teaching license. I have no particular expertise in working with students with disabilities nor any training, prior to taking this course, in learning support or special education. But, it’s now a requirement (and a reasonable one, I think) in the state I’m licensed in that all teachers must take a special education course to renew their licenses, so here I … Continue reading Teaching Literacy to Students with Significant Disabilities: Strategies for the K-12 Inclusive Classroom (Book Review)

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On Jumping into Duck Lake

Jason Simon

The following is a more-or-less faithful version of the commencement speech I gave to Western Academy of Beijing’s class of 2019 during their graduation ceremony at Confucius Temple on Saturday, June 1st 2019. The title of this speech is “On Jumping into Duck Lake”. Its subtitle is “A Fairly-Obvious Metaphor”. Before I begin, though, a few legal disclaimers: the speaker is not responsible for injuries suffered jumping from an elevated surface into a body of standing water nor for loss of personality property ensuing from…you know what? I’ll just have you all sign this later. It’s a standard waiver of … Continue reading On Jumping into Duck Lake