June 02, 2008

• Seacrest OUT!
• "I first asked him if he knew the difference between a truth and a lie, and he said he did not. I was able to ask him certain questions and learned that A.M. does actually know the difference between the two." Not true, if he was lying.
• Poor kid. Maybe the teacher did have the best of intentions, but there is so much wrong with how she treated him. a) all children should be respected and treated as equals -- she states that she wants, essentially, to protect the rest of the class from this one child, thus separating him from the others. b) she said she didn't mean he was voted off the island for good, only for that period of time -- but did she consider telling the child that? It doesn't sound that way. And yes, he's autistic and perhaps this would mean he needed a clearer explanation of what was happening. c) he's autistic. His behaviours are not appropriate for normal children. What strategies did this teacher have that were appropriate for an autistic child? He may not have been able to respond to the other children telling him to stop, and the teacher should be aware of that. d) in NZ where funding is available (and admittedly there isn't much which sucks), an autistic child would have a special one-on-one trained adult (a teacher's aid or special needs helper) to manage his learning alongside the teacher. Someone like that would seemingly make a vast difference to this child and this classroom. Thus is my take on a single article which only provides a small part of the whole story. Also, teachers burn out way too early thanks to paperwork requirements, unpaid hours spent doing what they need to do in order to teach the next day, and who knows how much stress outside of school time, especially if they are not equipped to cope with the children they are given. This sounds a lot like burnout combined with "I am not paid enough for this shit".
• Stupid to put the autistic kid in class with the rest of the students. Nice idea to treat them as equals, but reality is, autistic/special needs kids require teaching in a different environment. /has Asperger's Total fail across the board. People are fucking stupid.
• There's undoubtedly more to the story than was provided in the article but it sounds like an example of the predilection of educational organizations for bashing square pegs into round holes. It takes a special kind of teacher look out for the square pegs.
• to look out for, preferably
• I've been in a classroom with an autistic boy mainstreamed (placed with regular kids; it's the norm in NZ unless parents choose to place their special-needs child in a special-needs school). The teacher had awesome strategies for dealing with him, he had specialists come in and work with the teacher to create an IEP (Individualised Education Programme) and he did all the same work as the rest of the kids, with support from funded part-time helpers. He was very successful in that classroom, but it was a hell of a lot of work for the teacher, and for other people in the school. The other children didn't suffer by having an autistic child in the class -- they were aware of his autism and the behaviours associated with it and would actually ignore him if he started making silly noises or kicking his table. The teacher might calmly ask them to move elsewhere while she talked or moved the boy until he settled down. Ideally children with special needs should be offered the same opportunities as "normal" kids -- supposedly gone are the days in which those children are institutionalised and hidden away from the rest.
• An autistic person is never going to integrate into 'normal' society, nor do they desire to.
• I don't think you can speak for all autistic people, Hank. Moreover, even if you don't talk about integration, it may still be beneficial for autistic children to go to classes, and interact daily with children their own age, rather than be cooped up at home, having no human contact except for their parents.
• Where did I suggest they should be cooped up at home? IMHO where they should be is a place surrounded with nature and animals. They need calmness, regularity, a stable environment, and things that make them feel happy, not a stressful, incomprehensible environment that only confuses them. It just doesn't work. You know what one of the core features of autism is? An inability to relate to human beings or function socially. So it doesn't really appear to do much good to put a fundamentally non sociable being into a forced social situation. Unless you take the view that an autistic person should be taught to function socially, so that they can 'fit in' with society. Maybe for some people that works, I don't know. But schools in general are archaic and the whole idea of bunging a bunch of young people into a room and making them absorb information at a steady rate is absurd anyway, imho.
• I read this story a while back. I'm amazed anyone gets an adequate education in a Florida school. Seems to be largely a lack of funding, common sense, and leadership at the state and district levels. Even in New York, where there's a bit more money and teacher support to go around, most classroom teachers receive little, if any, training in sspecial education. Most districts only have one full-time special ed teacher, who has to divide his/her time between all the mainstreamed kids in different classrooms, plus devote X number of class periods a day to the "resource room."
• Monkeyfilter: burnout combined with "I am not paid enough for this shit". Monkeyfilter: Total fail across the board. People are fucking stupid. Monkeyfilter: bashing square pegs into round holes. Monkeyfilter: children are institutionalised and hidden away from the rest. Monkeyfilter: cooped up at home, having no human contact except for their parents. Monkeyfilter: bunging a bunch of young people into a room and making them absorb information at a steady rate. Monkeyfilter: a lack of funding, common sense, and leadership at the state and district levels. Phew!
• I don't remember exactly how long ago - 20 years or so. New Jersey began a program of mainstreaming. Until then the focus was on special classes for children with mental and emotional handicaps. All of a sudden these children were integrated into regular classrooms. Supposedly this was to enrich the lives of these children. It was for their benefit. Just coincidentally it saved the taxpayers millions of dollars in special ed. teachers.
• What kind of teacher lets a group of five year olds vote on how the class should be run? That's a recipe for disaster. ...or cartoon and video game fests with ice cream and candy...I'm not sure which.
• Yeah - I can think of very few reasons outside of moonbattery to pit five-year-olds against each other outside the context of a game, no matter how stressed you are.
• Sounds like the teacher lacked a clear understanding of the nature of autism -- for a neurotypical kid, it might make a difference to hear from your classmates, maybe in a slightly kinder fashion, how your chronic misbehavior is affecting them. But for an autistic child, not so much. On the other hand, this sounds like a really high-functioning kid -- very verbal, making eye contact, talking about his feelings. Wonder if the diagnosis is off? Not that it matters. Still a pretty crappy way to treat a 5-year-old.
• Well done, Capt. The topic of special needs children in a classroom is absurdly complex. I hate hate hate our standardized education. We teach to the mediocre, and both the advanced and the special needs kids get shortchanged badly, while the average kid gets an average education. The whole system sucks. The other day I took a catch job cleaning a bed and breakfast for 18 bucks an hour--low end wages for cleaning around here, but I was helping out a friend who got in over her head and should have known better than to bid it out so low. Hey, it was twice what I made all school year per hour teaching as a para-ed. No wonder our children is learning. But I'm not bitter. I'm amazed anyone gets an adequate education in a Florida school. Well, after all, it could be Texas.
• it might make a difference to hear from your classmates, maybe in a slightly kinder fashion I've never known a five-year-old who was capable of expressing constructive criticism in a kind mmanner. Even when they're not trying to be mean, they're notoriously blunt.
• That, and they know what the business end of a properly sharpened #2 pencil can do when in the hands of an experienced user.
• True, TUM. Guess I was thinking with some very hands-on intermediation from the teacher. And with a considerable amount of forethought. A stretch at best, though.
• This teacher deserves the negative publicity that this story will generate.
• There's a video interview here with the mom and the kid. One classic piece (paraphrasing): Interviewer: What has the school said to you about this? Mom: The last I heard from them was that the teacher doesn't feel she did anything wrong... But there are plenty of people who don't think that what they're doing is wrong. Al Qaeda, for one... Interviewer: Okay, let's not go there...
• No, let's.
• Al Qaeda is officially the new Hitler.
• *starts penning script for Indiana Jones and the Profane Comics*
• Indiana Jones and the Khartoum Cartoon of Cartoned Doom
• Vote the teacher off the island!! Get the Internets on the case!!2!
• Any monkeys from Florida with knowledge of the educational system? I'm wondering what the standard plan for special needs children is there. And would anyone know if this could be considered discrimination?