40 Years is a Long, Long Time – 60 is Even Longer

When I was a kid, I could more often than not be seen with reading material in my hands. I was, according to my parents, an “early reader” – like when I was 2 or 3 years old. So, I craved anything to read. When I went to first grade (the first year that we had public school availability), I was bored with the adventures of Sally, Dick, and Jane. My aunt showed me the “extra words” that were in those books, so I spent time reading copyright information. My first-grade teacher, Mrs. Murphy, eventually set me up with a stack of remaindered 3^rd and 4^th grade readers at a table in the back of the room, and just let me have at them.

But that’s not what this is about – it’s about the reading material that came into our home. Of course we had children’s books, and I would read to my younger siblings (though they were quick to read as well). I loved it when we would go to the Bookmobile and I would see my librarian who would offer me new books each time that she knew I would enjoy. Aside from kid-oriented books, my parents had these magazines that came to the house for them to read – Music Educators’ Journal was one. I liked it because sometimes there would be sample records we could listen to. The other one that we got was the most appealing, though – there were kids on the front cover – often about my age, and they looked like they were having fun! It was addressed to my mother, and the name of it was Exceptional Children. Each time it came to the house, my mother would read it, and then I would be allowed to look at it. Inside those pages, though, there were never stories about those children on the front cover! False advertising! There were no pictures at all, though there were graphs and tables. I didn’t get it. But each time one came to the house, I would look at it, hoping that this time there would be a story about those kids on the front cover!

Exceptional Children continued to arrive for my mother for many years afterward. I eventually gave up on finding interesting stories in them, though. When I was in middle or high school I figured out what that journal – and Music Educators’ Journal – were really about. Those were the premiere journals of their professional organizations, MENC (Music Educators’ National Conference) and CEC (Council for Exceptional Children). Both of those journals came to my parents’ house for their entire careers – and even beyond them for a while.

When I was an undergraduate student at Indiana University, and finally settled on becoming a special education teacher, I knew that I would need to join CEC myself. I first joined in 1982, shortly after I left my parents’ house and moved across the country  no longer having easy access to my mother’s journals.

Since 1982, I have never let my membership in CEC lapse. I belonged to many different divisions, depending on my job at the time. When I was eligible for student discounts, I joined even more divisions. I’ve also been active in divisions, notably for CEC-DR (Division for Research) as treasurer, and DLD (Division for Learning Disabilities) as an interim executive director. At the state level I was in the presidential line for NC-TED (Teacher Education Division). Like many university faculty, I was the faculty advisor for SCEC (Student CEC). CEC has been my constant – through work in five states, at elementary, middle, high school, and university levels. I am proud of the work that I have done, but most of all proud when I see my former students become involved in CEC and take various leadership roles.

At the beginning of the pandemic, coincidentally, I retired. I retained my membership in CEC, and in the Divisions of TED and DR. I once asked my mother how she decided to cease her membership in CEC. She said, it was “when I opened the journals and there was nothing in them that I could use.” (She kept working with Cambodian refugees and their various needs after her retirement from public school teaching.) For me, especially with most journals being electronic now, I have to say I haven’t even checked to see if there was anything useful in them to help me with the deer eating my vegetables, or how to keep the grass to a manageable level… but I doubt it. I do still use the APA manual when I have the occasional editing job, but the benefits of membership in a professional organization have ceased to exist for me.

So, after a little over 40 years, I am not renewing my membership in CEC this year. It’s the end of an era. But a very good era! I will miss attending conferences – though if one is nearby to me, I’d love to meet anyone for a drink or dinner. Keep doing the good work, and I’ll observe from the outside from here on.