Collaboration between Special Education Teachers and Teacher-Librarians

Justice, Ashley

Canter, L., Voytecki, K., Zambone, A., & Jones, J. (2011). School librarians: The forgotten partners. Teaching Exceptional Children, 43(3), 14-20.

Summary: Collaboration between special education teachers and teacher librarians is encouraged because of the similarities between the standards each group is responsible for teaching in a school year. Special educators’ responsibilities can be organized into three groups: managing educational environments, teaching and learning, and program administration. For each of the standards within these three broad categories, teacher librarians are responsible for a similar standard, but because of a lack of collaboration, these two groups are generally not aware of this overlap. To begin this relationship, special educators should work to create a foundation for mutual respect and understanding. Then, a focused purpose for collaboration should be decided upon, with a written plan to follow. Collaborative activities of mutual responsibility should then take place. The final step of a successfully collaborative relationship between a special education teacher and a teacher librarian is to record, document, and celebrate the collaboration.

Evaluation/Opinion: This action plan is beneficial for all teachers, not just special education teachers. I also think the teacher librarian could be the professional to initiate the relationship.

It’s hard to break old habits and work with someone who does things differently than you, but the current educational trend definitely stresses collaboration based on the benefits related to student success. My school is currently trying to develop collaborative relationships between content classes, and this article will be helpful in evaluating where we may have fallen short this year.