His Story
David Lazerson, known to students and colleagues as “Dr. Laz,” began teaching special education in Buffalo, New York, in the late 1970s. He holds a bachelor’s degree in American studies (1973) and a master’s in special education (1977), and earned a Ph.D. in educational research and evaluation from the University at Buffalo (1986). He was named Buffalo’s Teacher of the Year in 1981 and later directed special education programs at New York schools, including an alternative high school for at-risk students, and taught at the college level at Buffalo State and Staten Island College.
Since 2002 he has been an exceptional student education teacher and music therapist at the Quest Center, a Broward County school in Hollywood, Florida, that serves more than 150 students with profound special needs, many of whom are non-verbal and use wheelchairs. He also taught research methods and program evaluation at Florida International University from 2001 to 2005.
He was named the 2007 Broward County Arts Teacher of the Year, a Best Buy National Teach Award winner (2005) and a National Teachers Hall of Fame semifinalist in 2004. He has also received distinguished alumni awards from both the University at Buffalo and Buffalo State College (2007).
Beyond the Classroom
In 1991, shortly after the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, race riots, Lazerson founded Project CURE, a racial harmony and conflict resolution group, and his band “Dr. Laz and the CURE” has played and toured since. The project won awards including the CBS “Fulfilling the Dream” award (1997) and the John Lindsay Prize for race and ethnic relations (1993), and his story was made into a Showtime film, Crown Heights, in which Howie Mandel plays him.
Lazerson is the grant liaison at the Quest Center. He has written or won more than a dozen grants in four years, bringing in about $60,000 in one year, for computers, adaptive technology, an outdoor music center and a butterfly garden. He also started a school recycling program led by his students, has published a journal study and several books, is writing Singing for Angels about his program, and speaks at conferences including the 2008 Assistive Technology Industry Association conference. His choir practices on Sundays at his own home so that parents and Quest graduates can attend.
Philosophy Into Practice
Lazerson calls himself an “awakener.” His dark music room is full of lights, hands-on percussion and buttons that students press or trigger with head, knee or foot switches to run lights, sound, bubble machines and slideshows. More than 50 slideshows match songs to the school’s monthly themes, and students with profound disabilities run them with a click of their own switch, learning cause and effect.
Out of these students he built the “Sing & Sign” choir, in which students with autism, Down syndrome and cerebral palsy sign American Sign Language as they sing and play. The choir has performed for schools, community groups and senior centers across South Florida, and for 700 people at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. He measures progress with pre- and post-assessments, parent interviews and surveys, and by tiny steps: a smile, a nod, a switch tapped. He says that if a child is not performing, “it’s not the student’s fault but rather the educator’s inability” to reach him or her.
“Labeling is disabling.”— Dr. David Lazerson
“I try not to pay any attention to their disabilities, but rather to find their abilities and help them in any way I can to rise above their challenges.”— Dr. David Lazerson
In Her Own Words
“I think of my job as a teacher as an awakener, to open that door.”— Dr. David Lazerson
“I think that special education is really nothing but good education.”— Dr. David Lazerson
“Success is what keeps me going but I am humbled by it as I realize it’s all part of a lifelong process.”— Dr. David Lazerson
“My students never cease to amaze me.”— Dr. David Lazerson
“It was the teachers who went above and beyond the “regular” mold that always touched me somehow and inspired me.”— Dr. David Lazerson
What Others Said
“He’s a remarkable innovator, leader, mentor, researcher, musician, mediator, special education advocate, conflict resolution specialist, awakener.”— Zahava Krevsky, nominator, colleague and keyboardist
“He has a passion and caring for students that gets results despite the limitations of our students’ skills.”— Raquel Cobb, Principal, The Quest Center
“Dr. Laz is a remarkable educator, human being, and innovator.”— Steven Glassman, Arts Education and Community Development Program Manager, Broward County Cultural Division
“Dr. Laz does not see obstacles, only opportunities.”— Zahava Krevsky, keyboard player and music therapy assistant
“The world could use more real teachers like him.”— David J. Coleman, documentary producer
“You won’t find any of his former students more thankful than me.”— Sam Wachtel, former student, Toronto