1. Tell us about yourself: Adam Membrey. I earned a Bachelor of Education in Special Education in 2009.
  2. What are you doing now?: I just finished my 5th year teaching Deaf students with special needs in the Special Needs Department at the Texas School for the Deaf. I have taught Elementary School, Middle School, and will be lead teaching High School-aged kids next year. We really are unlike any other program in the country in the way we serve our kids with the needs they have.
  3. Why did you choose a program in the School of Education at Gonzaga? As a freshmen at Gonzaga, I took a “Children with Exceptionalities” class with Dr. Barretto. The class covered interesting material, but what stuck to me the most was the atmosphere in the Special Education department. It had a different, slightly funky, but ultimately inviting feel to it. When I found myself in a moment of crisis at the end of my sophomore year and needed to move on from my English Major (Sorry English Department! You guys were great!), I knew I would be entering the right program with Special Education. Everything that happened beyond that only reinforced how great a decision it was.
  4. What influenced you the most during your time at Gonzaga? Randy Williams taught me that I could have fun while being a highly-productive, effective teacher. Tim McLaughlin taught me to back up my files multiple times, but to never lose sight of the relationships I build with my students. Kimberly Weber opened my mind, taught me to relax, and gave me life lessons when I needed them. Anjali Barretto taught me to get on my knees and be at the students’ eye-level (and not just because I was tall and she was, um, not-as-tall). I now realize that everything I learned from my Special Education professors had very little to do with instruction itself – that would be the easy part – but with how to survive in Special Ed and what to not lose sight of. I needed to learn how important the intangibles were, and they each gave me masterful examples of that in their own way.One particular memory that sticks out to me is a time I came into Dr. Barretto’s office. I was actually there to whine about something that had nothing to do with class or teaching, and she simply smiled and asked me, repeatedly, “So what’s the problem?” It didn’t matter what I gave her back, she asked the same thing. I shortly after realized that the answer didn’t matter. She simply wanted me to think about it for myself, take stock of the situation, realize it wasn’t a big deal, and to problem-solve from there.It was a great lesson that I learned in my time at GU.
  5. What was your greatest lesson learned at Gonzaga? My junior year at Gonzaga, I took a fantastic class with Dr. Joe Albert, “Leadership and Storytelling.” Throughout the semester, we each had to tell a story about ourselves – something personal, something about our family, and then something about a greater thing we were a part of, be it a group, a department, or a company. The whole class made me realize not only how important stories are, but how we use them to help us explain the many things we see – both fair and unfair – in our daily lives. Dr. Albert also taught me how I could take any situation, no matter how dire or depressing, and reframe the story into something meaningful and propulsive. I can’t tell you how many times I have been in the Special Ed field and a teacher has practically withered as they told me about a student’s heartbreaking situation; I would do my best to help reframe the story so that we had something to build on. I use this storytelling muscle and awareness every single day – with myself, my friends, my family, the world that surrounds me. In my time since graduating Gonzaga, I have been confronted by, and a part of, so many difficult situations, and all of them were made survivable by using storytelling. It truly is one of the greatest tools anyone can learn to use.
  6. What is the most rewarding aspect of working in your field? Most challenging? The most rewarding aspect is when I look at mu students and realize I have created a special place for them where they not only feel comfortable, but welcome. Where they can be who they are, can communicate the way they want, and they can be silly without fearing judgment. So often the kids we work with in Special Ed are constantly looked down upon by people of all ages and stages in life; they can only thrive from a place of comfort, and that’s what we can provide them.The most challenging aspect of our field is not the paperwork (though it sucks) or the parents (they can be our best ally), but the attitudes of the adults around the students. So often I’ve had to get adults to understand just how much the student is capable of; but also to understand their limits and to work with them. What is most heartbreaking of all is when I’m in an IEP meeting in which lawyers and advocates are involved and I see a whole table full of adults arguing for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with a student and everything to do with their own ego preservation. They are not there for what’s best for the child; they’re trying to one-up everyone else. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen as often as it could, but it still happens far too often.
  7. What critical issues do you see that need to be addressed in your field? In Special Education, there needs to be an adjustment of expectations. There are still way too many programs that expect so little of their students and allow them to become too comfortable at their baselines when they are capable of doing much, much more.In Deaf Education, the situation is so much more complex. There are so many factors that affect progress – both in increasing it and shooting it down – but the primary one, to me, is the politics of it. The fact is that 90% of deaf students have hearing parents, and we are still struggling as a whole to figure out how to serve those students and parents best so that the child has an opportunity to lead the best life they can. I love ASL and teaching with it, but I also recognize it is not the best language for every deaf child and certainly every set of parents. We have to roll up our sleeves and be flexible in how best to give a child a language, and to help the parents support that the best way they can. There is so much exciting progress in the field of Deaf Education, but there is still so far to go.
  8. What advice do you have for future education professionals? Learn not to take it personally and keep yourself in the moment. Starting out as a teacher, the hardest thing is to not feel responsible for a program or a student not doing well as you think they should. It’s even harder when that student directs their anger or frustration or whatever it may be at you – you are simply a target, but it feels personal. And that can be agonizing. So my suggestion to future education professionals is to remove your ego and yourself from the situation as much as possible. Know you will often unfairly be a target or used as a scapegoat for others’ issues, but never, ever lose sight of the fact that you can dictate the atmosphere in your classroom and you have control over the relationships you develop with your students. You can make your job as wonderful and as difficult as you want it to be, and it starts with calming the storm within you so that the seas are smoother for everyone around you.Also: never, ever be afraid to ask for help or say you don’t know. Don’t wait for someone to tell you what to do. Pay attention to what you don’t do and do everything you can to fill that gap on your own. You will feel stupid sometimes, and that’s okay. That’s normal anytime you do something new and complex. But don’t ever stop asking for help or talking to people who know more than you do. And then, after that, it becomes that great Maya Angelou quote: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”