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Spanking Children: Don't Do It, Ever!

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  "We really need to avoid physical punishment because we know that can be harmful," said Dr. Jennifer Shu, a pediatrician. Twenty years after urging caution among parents who choose to discipline their children with spankings, the American Academy of Pediatrics has updated its stance. Now, its overwhelming consensus for parents: Do not do it. In a new policy statement issued earlier this month, the group warns that "Aversive disciplinary strategies, including all forms of corporal punishment and yelling at or shaming children, are minimally effective in the short-term and not effective in the long-term. With new evidence, researchers link corporal punishment to an increased risk of negative behavioral, cognitive, psychosocial, and emotional outcomes for children." The advisory for parents and adults "to avoid physical punishment and verbal abuse of children" comes at a time when support of such discipline is on the decline. As the AAP detailed in its pol
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Collaboration Between General and Special Education Teachers

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INTRODUCTION  Historically, teachers have worked in isolation--one teacher to a classroom. As children with disabilities entered the public schools in the 1970s, they were taught in separate classrooms with their own teachers. Over the past 25 years, these students have slowly moved into the flow of the regular classroom, thus the use of the term "mainstreaming." However, students were mainstreamed for selected subjects or parts of the day; they were not considered part of the typical class. Now the philosophy is to include all students in the same class, which has brought about teams of general education and special education teachers working collaboratively or cooperatively to combine their professional knowledge, perspectives, and skills. The biggest change for educators is in deciding to share the role that has traditionally been individual: to share the goals, decisions, classroom instruction, responsibility for students, assessment of student learning, problem so
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