1/28/07 Update
We did start our special ed. labs, and this already helped to clear up a lot of the questions I had. For example, special education students will have an IEP, so I will obviously know about their situation and what my job is as the student's teacher. We were given a handout that explained IDEA, so now I understand the legal aspect much better as well. (Actually, before I had never really considered this as a prospective legal issue.) We also read an article about inclusion and discussed benefits and drawbacks as a class, which gave me a better view of the feelings I had before about my experience with inclusion. One of our assignments is to do some observations of a particular student in the classroom we do our field work in, so I talked to my mentor teacher about this as well. She said she really doesn't have many special ed. students, but there is a student who is mildly autistic in one of the classes I observe. If there was any question about my lack of experience here, I had no idea this student was in special ed. My mentor is looking into school policy about what she can disclose as far as his case, so I will be able to find out a little more soon, but it will be interesting to begin my observations and field teaching with this in mind.