Abstract
Dr. Ginger Blalock has been an elementary and secondary special educator, a community college career counselor and instructor, and a professor of special education. Her teaching areas included learning disabilities, instructional methods in special education, career development/transition education, paraprofessional preparation, trends/issues in special education for doctoral students, and strategies to support inclusive education. Her research primarily focused on preparing diverse youth with support needs for adulthood. Publications included chapters on strategies for collaboration, Transition and Students with Learning Disabilities, (lead co-author) Using Community Transition Teams to Improve Transition Services (lead co-author), and the transition module series published by PRO-ED, Inc. She retired after 21 years at the University of New Mexico as professor emerita, where she held numerous roles, including division director of educational specialties, program coordinator (chair) of special education, and coordinator of the Special Education Emphasis in Learning/Behavioral Exceptionalities.
Dr. Blalock’s years at the University of New Mexico included numerous federal, state, and regional grant awards, ranging from paraprofessional training to high incidence disabilities teacher preparation to collaborative strategies to improve postschool outcomes of youth with disabilities or significant risk factors. These grant projects supported evidence-based professional development of cross-disciplinary educators serving multicultural youth; linkages across schools, agencies, and employers; data collection and analysis; and policy mechanisms to facilitate improved outcomes. These endeavors required a great deal of travel to New Mexico’s varied towns, pueblos, and reservations over many years. For her early systems-level work, she received the 1988–1989 New Mexico Vocational Association Special Needs Division’s Educator of the Year Award.
She has been active in the Council for Learning Disabilities (past president, regional development coordinator, regional and national conference co-coordinator) since 1982, receiving their 1995 Professional of the Year Award. She was also very involved in the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Division on Career Development and Transition, including local co-coordination of two national conferences, receiving their 1993 Outstanding Service Award.
What brought you into the field of special education; and specifically as a professor?
I had decided at age 9 to become a teacher, in response to the ads run on television at that time (similar to Uncle Sam pointing, “I want you”) as the government recruited teachers. It made sense since I always loved school and did very well academically. I tested out that idea in junior high/middle school by tutoring classmates in math and English and found that I liked it and felt effective. So becoming an educator remained my target career, and since I loved reading, I chose a path of a secondary English/literature teacher—but it was not as natural a path as I thought. I only applied to a few universities since I was putting myself through college.
When I entered my freshman year at Louisiana State University (the best state college where I lived) with that professed major, I talked to secondary education majors and my freshman English professors and learned that (in the early 1970s, at any rate) secondary educators tended to focus more on their disciplines than on student learning, which didn’t seem right. So I switched to elementary education, but I was disappointed there also as I got into my major courses. My classmates (98% female) seemed to be more interested in finding husbands than in becoming excellent teachers, and the curriculum itself felt boring and stale.
A friend suggested I check out special education, which I did and from Day 1, I was hooked. The curriculum was exciting and innovative; and the 1970s saw the early stages of the field really formalizing itself as an increasingly broad discipline. The students in the program were passionate about learning and about getting to know their students and how to help them advance. The acceptance of and appreciation for diversity was thrilling. I never was bored again.
What was your life before seeking and obtaining a PhD in special education?
I probably was an early teen when I decided I would earn a doctorate in education. In my young mind, females had many limitations in U.S. society, but I was determined to achieve the highest level that made sense for me at the time. Thus, a PhD was my long-range goal, one I expected to earn in my forties or fifties, perhaps after raising a family and establishing my career (not necessarily in that order).
After my freshman year, I moved to Austin, Texas, and enrolled in night classes at the University of Texas while working full time in UT’s purchasing department for 2 years, until I could attend school full time. I earned a major in elementary education with a minor in special education in 1976, specializing in mental retardation (i.e., developmental disabilities). I received grants and scholarships, including continuous work-study assignments. The professors in UT’s special education program from whom I took classes were some of the original giants, such as Charles Cleland (developmental disabilities) and Natalie Barraga (visual disorders). I also learned a great deal from Randall Parker (vocational rehabilitation), James Gilliam (emotional and behavioral disorders), and Steve Larsen (language/learning disorders). But my most fascinating classes were those on adolescents with disabilities, taught by a new professor, J. Lee Wiederholt, during the last year and a half of my undergraduate work. Those courses focused on career development, social/emotional development, differential planning, and teaching strategies—all to support youth with varying needs and issues. I quickly joined Wiederholt’s advisement load, and he remained my advisor throughout my master’s and doctoral degrees as well.
What was it like for a special education teacher at that time?
I completed one semester of student teaching in elementary education and another in special education. In the former, I learned an immense amount about teaching and learning from a stellar fourth grade teacher, Ms. Garbade, and from that energetic, inspiring group of students. In the latter placement, a state residential institution for individuals with multiple and severe developmental disabilities, I learned what NOT to do at many levels. The unimaginative teacher with whom I was placed offered little to emulate, including her attitude about the students we served. The building where the tiny classroom was located seemed like a dark, dirty, ugly holding tank, with little positive happening. Ironically, the only place I could find a summer job after graduating with my BA was the same institution, but in the recreation program, which was a totally different experience. The staff were young, bright, energetic, and supportive of the adolescents and adults whom we took out daily for a variety of outdoor activities. I saw very different behaviors among the residents when they received respect, choice, and an opportunity for fun and practice.
My first year of teaching was with upper elementary students with a range of challenges in Ganado, Texas (not far from the coast), supported by an educational cooperative with some caring consultants. The students were great, and the setting offered great insights into negotiating resistance to “mainstreaming.” The following fall, I was back in Austin, so I looked for special education teaching jobs in the area, but no full-time positions were offered, so I substituted for a semester, getting called almost daily. Long-term substitute assignments were the best for my own learning—every setting from early childhood to high school programs. Those experiences confirmed my greater interest in adolescents!
Finally, I was hired in January as the resource program teacher for seventh through twelfth graders in Dripping Springs, Texas, where I taught for 1½ years. There too I received occasional support from the regional education cooperative. I had epiphany experiences with my seventh and eighth graders and made some mistakes with a few of the oldest students. With guidance from my UT mentors (I had started the Master’s program), I learned to be more engaging in my instruction, but the 24 students (later 36) on my caseload had such different needs that group instruction was rarely indicated. I resigned after that year and a half, as did a large number of the teaching faculty due to conflicts with the administration, completed my master’s degree, and began to pursue the doctoral program full time.
Where did you come from professionally? Who were your mentors?
My mentors in the doctoral program remained Drs. Lee Wiederholt and Steve Larsen, who opened many other doors. Dr. Wiederholt had us propose and present sessions at the Council for Learning Disabilities annual conference and sometimes at the Council for Exceptional Children conference. He and his colleague, chair of the University of New Mexico (UNM) Special Education Department Dr. Deborah D. Smith, arranged yearly for each other’s doctoral students to meet and network, a precipitous opportunity for me! I had at least three part-time jobs throughout the first 2 years of the doctoral program: student teaching supervision, assisting with odd jobs and eventually test item analyses at PRO-ED, as well as typing dissertations and master’s theses. All of those experiences provided important learning for my future goals, but in particular my basic test development work at Pro-Ed allowed me to meet and learn from Drs. Don Hammill and Virginia Brown, who remained important beacons in my professional life. Other formative experiences included an annual UT conference on emotional/behavioral disorders led by Dr. Gilliam for which he recruited all the interested doctoral students in the department to help. This meant the large group of doctoral students with diverse emphases worked closely together and bonded, in addition to having a great professional experience, for a few years in a row. One year some of Wiederholt’s doctoral students worked in San Antonio for the annual Teacher Education Division (TED) conference, which was also fortuitous, since I was able to collaborate with leaders in that field and doctoral students from other universities.
Who are the people in the field of special education who have had the most profound effect on your career?
My major during the master’s and doctoral program was learning disabilities, so Wiederholt’s work in that area around adolescents, reading, and assessment was significant in my career. My minor was community college (CC) leadership with an emphasis on students with disabilities. The educational leadership program at UT had a renowned CC leadership program (established in 1944) directed by Drs. John Roueche and George Baker in the 1970s-80s. Dr. Oscar Mink added this emphasis that appealed to me, plus it provided some tuition assistance. That program was a great eye-opener about the possible roles of community colleges for diverse learners, and my required internship (fortunately at Austin Community College, ACC) involved career counseling with adults with disabilities. That assignment led to my being asked to interview for a job at ACC managing a newly funded federal grant for training paraprofessionals to (a) serve individuals with developmental disabilities in all types of settings, including early childhood, and (b) work in therapeutic recreation programs for people of all ages with a variety of special needs. I was awarded the job for the next 3 years, so I dove into paraprofessional preparation and worked with almost all organizations and schools in the Austin area serving children and adults with a range of support issues. What a terrific learning experience that was!
During my final year of the doctoral program, still working at ACC, Dr. Deb Smith invited me to visit UNM’s special education program to help a small team write a paraprofessional training proposal to the then Bureau of Education for the Handicapped. If funded for the following year, she intended to offer me a part-time coordinator position for the grant project. During my visit, she arranged for me to meet with the dean of education, various faculty, the dean of the UNM Learning Center for struggling students, and a couple of leaders in Albuquerque Public Schools’ Special Education Department. Dr. Glen Van Etten and Carlene Van Etten began mentoring me on how to write effective grant proposals (which they continued for years), and we worked hard on the proposal, which was funded, so I moved to Albuquerque after graduating from UT. My coursework assignment at UNM, in addition to the paraprofessional training courses, focused on learning disabilities, particularly among adolescents. Academic instruction research led me to the research on teaching and learning strategies, and Deb Smith facilitated my earning certification at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning (UK CRL) as a preservice trainer. That body of research, translated into practice, allowed us to offer well-grounded teaching methodologies focused on adolescent and adult learners and to apply them in my own teaching. Early on, with Deb’s help with UNM’s administration, I helped students establish an organization for students with learning disabilities at UNM that remained active for several years. In the same vein, I introduced a few of the KU key learning strategies (e.g., paraphrasing, sentence writing, theme writing) to the UNM learning center for struggling students, which they continued for a number of years. I also worked with and learned much from Dr. Eloy Gonzales via his grant projects preparing teachers and diagnosticians in bilingual/multicultural special education; critical since New Mexico was and is a majority minority state.
As my department chair for 9 years and then from her subsequent positions at Vanderbilt and Claremont universities, Deb Smith continued to support my professional development. This included guidance with grant proposals, occasionally requesting my help training diverse faculty from minority institutions of higher education via the Monarch Center, and facilitating my work on transition-related modules for the IRIS Project.
Why “transition” as an academic focus area?
When the U.S. Department of Education, and thus the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED), began to promote and require transition planning, I was already preparing middle and high school special educators to collaborate with secondary colleagues and adult agencies. For example, after the paraprofessional training project ended, I was applying for and receiving small grants for teacher prep from the Vocational Education Division in concert with the Special Education unit. The PED, coordinated by Carole Brito in special education, began statewide efforts to prepare teachers in transition planning, calling on professors with that expertise (e.g., Bruno D’Alonzo at New Mexico State University, James Alarid at New Mexico Highlands University, and myself at UNM), special services coordinators at 2-year and 4-year colleges, and adult agency partners to join in the collaborative effort. Strongly supported by inspiring and ongoing technical assistance from two national leaders in transition, Drs. Paula Kohler and Ed O’Leary, over many years we formed a cadre of transition specialists who received ongoing preparation and technical assistance for 10 years and who produced great results. We also formed a statewide Transition Coordinating Council that helped resolve barriers to successful transitions for youth with disabilities. My research focused on creating and sustaining community transition teams.
You have been “officially” retired from academe now for a few years. What have you held onto as an educator; and why? And what have you let go; and why? In other words, describe your transition to where you are today.
Interesting questions to reflect on. I retired from UNM in 2005 and from contract and consulting work in the transition-to-adulthood vein in 2011 when we moved to central Mexico. I have volunteered a great deal since moving here, for 6 years serving students with disabilities through Niños Incapacitados, A.C. (a great charity model) by reimbursing their approved medical expenses with cash, in exchange for an official receipt presented by the parent. I’ve also served K–12 students in general for the past 7 plus years by coordinating a growing scholarship program. Examples of what I have held onto (on an as-needed basis) included training the entire faculty and academic support staff of a small Catholic university in Oaxaca City on some of the UK CRL content enhancement strategies and a couple of student learning strategies a few years ago; training all the staff and volunteers at two orphanages for girls in Mexico City on person-centered planning techniques (one of them supported girls with significant visual impairments); and recently training the coordinator and participants of an empowerment program for teen girls here at Lake Chapala on future-focused planning approaches.
My skills acquired from organizing CLD national and regional conferences, one DCDT national conference, 10 years of annual transition planning institutes, and scores of training workshops across New Mexico led me to volunteer to organize a large annual fundraiser here on behalf of students with significant medical support needs for 5 years. In all the cases I mentioned, locating and researching these particular training sessions, tools, and materials happened because a very visible need arose and/or the favor was asked. The requests from the university, the orphanages, and the teen empowerment program made sense to respond to because they were short-term demands, with the organizations capable of learning, using, and expanding upon the training and tools I provided.
I have continued to use the grant-writing skills I accrued, helping various charity organizations here apply for much-needed funds. I remain a lifelong learner, reading a great deal about very diverse topics, and I studied Spanish with an excellent teacher during our first 3 years here in Mexico, building on my high school Spanish.
I have let go of formal research and publishing. I have let go of regular reading of journal articles, although I peruse the table of contents of Intervention and Learning Disability Quarterly to see what’s out there. The Council for Learning Disabilities is the only organization in which I’ve maintained membership; it has been my professional home for 40 years and remains important. My CLD colleagues provided an incredible academic network, with many becoming mentors and friends; the organization itself has been progressive, innovative, and service-oriented, especially helping to develop leaders in learning disabilities and related fields.
Tell us more about your education-focused volunteer work in your new community in Mexico.
I am primarily focused now on one volunteer effort, the SAFE scholarship program. It was started in 2003 by three children (and their mother) who visited extended family here and were appalled to see children working and out of school. They learned a great deal about public school in Mexico, including the fact that it is not free even for the poorest students, so they returned to upper New York and raised enough money through bake sales, community fairs, and school donation drives to fund 16 scholarships the first year! I took over management of the program about 7 years ago, with approximately 35 students; this year we are serving 128 K–12 students with good grades across several towns and villages. Overseen by the original family, our volunteer team meets with applicants to ensure they need the scholarships, collects receipts for school expenses, collects grades each term, communicates with both club (Rotary Clubs here and in the United States) and individual donors regularly, and awards scholarships each August directly to the families. These small scholarships pay for registration fees, monthly classroom costs (e.g., water, soap, toilet paper), uniforms, a pair of dress shoes, a pair of tennis shoes, and the required school supplies. During the covid pandemic, students have been learning at home for almost a year at this point, so their receipts are different: internet service, printing of homework packets, or even purchases of cell phones, tablets, or printers. We also provide information to our juniors and seniors with a career-interest inventory, information on regional higher ed programs, and local scholarship options. We analyze our data every few years to make sure we come close to meeting their expenses. I am fortunate to be able to practice Spanish daily through this program, and these families helped me learn about and become proficient in WhatsApp, the only means of communication that most of them can afford.
Having traveled the path that you’ve shared with us, what is your advice to new special education professionals as they begin their journey, find their specialty area, and contribute to the field?
One piece of advice would be to keep really thorough records of experiences and accomplishments, for a wide variety of professional reasons. One never knows when s/he will be asked to recount events that occurred during one’s career!
My second suggestion would be to acquire general expertise in research methodologies
A third recommendation is to either become part of an existing collaborative effort, or help to create a new one, in your specialty area—if at all possible. The most effective teacher preparation programs I worked with were cross-disciplinary (i.e., general ed, special ed, content area experts) and cross-agency (i.e., public schools, university, parent, or other organizations). A different example was the Statewide Transition Coordinating Council, which provided opportunity for applied research and created real system improvements, and thus better postschool student outcomes, in our state. Having a committed team with whom to work makes a huge difference in sharing the workload, regularly reflecting on achievements, barriers, and differing viewpoints, and seeing initiatives through to positive conclusions.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.