What comes to mind when you hear the words special education? For many people, it's a misunderstood part of our education system—filled with assumptions, stereotypes, and misconceptions. But behind every IEP, accommodation, and support plan are students with incredible potential and educators working tirelessly to ensure every child has the opportunity to succeed. In this episode of Teaching in Color, Brandon Jenkins sits down with Los Angeles special education teacher Leopoldo Guzman for an honest conversation about inclusion, advocacy, and what people often get wrong about special education. Together, they explore the realities of teaching in underserved communities, the importance of collaboration between general and special education teachers, and why meeting students where they are isn't lowering expectations—it's creating opportunities for success. Whether you're an educator, parent, or simply someone who wants to better understand the experiences of students with disabilities, this conversation offers an honest look at one of the most important—and often misunderstood—roles in education. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Leopoldo Guzman is a special education teacher in Los Angeles, California, with nearly a decade of experience serving students in public schools. Throughout his career, he has worked as a behavior interventionist, substitute teacher, and special education teacher across grades TK–5. Beyond the classroom, Leopoldo is a content creator known for sharing authentic perspectives on teaching, special education, and the realities of working in low socioeconomic communities. He's also a hat designer, sneaker enthusiast, and self-proclaimed foodie. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 What people get wrong about special education 🏫 What inclusion should actually look like 🤝 How general and special education teachers can work together 🌆 Teaching in low socioeconomic communities 🧠 Why every student deserves individualized support ❤️ The biggest lessons special education has taught Leopoldo ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Teaching in Color is a conversation podcast exploring the intersection of education, culture, and community. Hosted by Brandon Jenkins, each episode features authentic conversations with educators, authors, creators, researchers, advocates, and changemakers who are shaping the future of education. 🎙️ New episodes every Thursday. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📸 Instagram:https://instagram.com/allabout.brandon 🎵 TikTok:https://tiktok.com/@allabout.brandon ▶️ YouTube:https://youtube.com/@allabout.brandon ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📸 Instagram:https://instagram.com/teachingincolor.podcast
