A Message From Our Founder

The products and strategies provided by our company are a result of the difficulties, the twists and turns and the strong need I had to survive being a special needs teacher.  These ideas and interventions did not come to me over night, nor are they solely of my own design.  Rather, I have spent several years developing a bag of tricks based on sound educational theories and research based teaching strategies.

I clearly remember my first year of teaching.  I was assigned to a self-contained program at an affluent school in my district.  Although similar programs were not new to the school district, a program such as this had not been based at this particular school for many years.  I was given two boxes of outdated and dinosaur-like teaching materials and the key to my classroom. 

I spent my first year trying to keep my head above the water during the day, and the afternoons crying.  My special education supervisor told me, “Tania, it can never get any worse than this.”  He was right.  There were several misplaced students in my classroom, in addition to the students ranging in disability and grades 1-6.  Further, many students had been relocated to this new program from other schools and parents  were concerned and frustrated by the changes in school placement and the different grade levels of students being placed in the same classroom. 

I am still teaching in the same classroom I started up my first year of teaching.  The number of students has slowly increased each year.  Twelve students used to be considered average, now 16 students are standard. At the writing of this introduction, I will be teaching 18 students.  My “bag of tricks” will be all the more important to me if I hope to run a consistent and orderly classroom so all of my students can learn.

Working with a wide range of disabilities and ages all at the same time forced me to find common characteristics between students and their special needs so I could plan lessons and implement strategies that would reach the widest possible audience.  During this process, I realized that there were numerous similarities among the disabling conditions challenging the students.  The ‘symptoms’ of their disabilities were affecting their learning, communication and/or behavior.

The strategies developed by Positive Supports are not a cure for the disabilities students encounter.  The strategies used do not cure, heal, or otherwise dismantle disabilities.  However, these interventions can be a remedy to minimize the symptoms associated with disabilities that affect a child’s learning.  These strategies are not designed to assist only one type of student or disability.  All students need structure.  All students need consistency and information provided to them in an understandable format.

We hope you find these tools to be as useful and effective in reaching your students as I have.

Tania Tong
Founder, Positive Supports