Posted on 02/08/2017 9:56:44 AM PST by T-Bird45
My son slides under the daybed, flattening his sprawling limbs in all directions across the dusty floor, then retracting them with a jerk. “I’m making myself invisible!” he declares. He knows our news is unwelcome.
Don’t let him think it’s because of him, his doctor had coached.
Crouching, I reach my hand to stroke his arm — a gesture I realize is not enough to comfort a boy whose body short circuits with uncertainty. My husband and I tell him:
You can’t start second grade tomorrow.
We’re leaving Singapore. We’re moving to America.
We don’t know when. It will be soon.
We don’t know where. We’ll figure it out.
We don’t have jobs. We’ll get them.
But until then, you can’t go to school.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
An ex-pat snowflake complains that they had to move back to the US, away from living the expat life ($$$$) while valuing multi-culti, diversity, and strange foods. All because they produced a child that couldn't tolerate their choices and life was no longer rainbow skittles and unicorns. Long but worth the read to get to the responses and comments.
Good. Maybe it will help them. I guess that’s what the “progressives” object to.
I had a child that I homeschooled that had some special needs issues. I was trapped using the not very good special therapist in our district instead of the really good one in the next district. I had the means to get him the quality he deserved. Not the union drone the other kids were stuck with.
But the stories she tells are heart wrenching, from the therapists who go through the motions, to the parents who are in denial of the prospects for improvement (please do not take this as being applicable to you).
She gives one example of the high hopes parents may have versus the reality of the child's capabilities. That being of a parent who wants her daughter to write in cursive, while my wife is hoping to teach her how to hold a pencil.
My heart goes out to those who have kids with such needs and it is very difficult to find those therapists who really do care and are not just going through the motions.
I taught a vocational electronics course for 16+ years. When No Child Left Behind started every student could take any class they wanted. Sounds good so far right?
I had two students with cerebal palsy enroll in a class. They each could not communicate, could not control their muscle spasms and had to have a special ed attendant with them 100% of the time. The spec ed attendant did their classwork, took their tests and did the and soldering/assembly. The student got the grade??? Also that took 4 seats away from from someone else.
What good did that do anybody? The spec ed students had no chance of getting hired, the kids that missed the chance who knows??? One of the Spec Ed assistants eventually got a job as an electrical assembler/inspector but she was trained in the military before she became a spec ed assistant. Her student had a 4.0.
Very wrong. Let me present you just a bit of information.Thirty years of study shows us that when ALL students are learning together they ALL do better. This means even students with the most needs do better in their grade-level, when they are given the right support. What is inclusive education? Inclusive education means everyone is included in their grade-level in their neighborhood school. Inclusion means students are given the help they need to be full members of their class. Inclusive education involves districts supporting schools as they include ALL the students who live in their communities. How do teachers meet the needs of all students in an inclusive school?
• Teachers plan their lessons to meet each student’s learning needs.
• Teachers teach in small groups that can change as the students’ needs change.
• Teachers teach the same content in different ways.
• Teachers work with other adults in the school to help meet each student’s needs.Why inclusive education?
Studies show that students with and without disabilities in inclusive schools:
• do better in reading and math
• benefit from the friendships they form
• learn to value differences.
In situations like the you one described, I really can’t think of any benefit to the students in being mainstreamed. Unable to communicate and their special ed assistants were the ones who did the work and took the tests? That falls into the ridiculous column.
I would think that most people understand that not all special needs students have that level of disability and certainly those who can be mainstreamed, should be. But the ones who insist on all special needs students being mainstreamed are not being realistic.
In a recent discussion about this, after I had stated my position that: children who were in the country illegally and who couldn’t speak English, students who were chronic discipline problems, and special needs students who couldn’t be mainstreamed without detriment to the non-disabled students should not be in public school classrooms with regular students, the person pointedly asked if I was talking about segregation. I responded that if she was defining as segregation what I just described, then yes. If she was using the word pejoratively to compare it to what was addressed in Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, then no, she was wrong and it was most definitely not the same thing.
Peach
My oldest daughter was a ‘special needs’ child, and I had the right to place her in a ‘special needs school’ for her to learn the basics of reading, spelling, communicating, and functioning...she later went into public school and graduated with her younger brother in a regular High School in 1984...
I didn’t have to worry about anyone telling me what to do or when or how...and if they would have, I would have went to every television station and radio station and newspaper investigative reporter and brought them down in shame!!!
You are a wonderful mother. Unfortunately I see many on this thread who truly lack compassion and are so short sighted. I can only pray that they learn how wrong they are.
There is no such right. It cannot be a right to compel anyone else to make sacrifices in order to supply what one is claiming as a right.
The attempt to define education as a right is having the predictable result that the impracticality of supplying such a right is revealed. I'm sure the number of "special needs" children will continue to grow until, at the rate of 5,000 dollars per month, there will be no resources remaining to educate ANYONE.
In many areas of the country I believe that we have already passed that point. What passes for "education" in some communities is simply not what it purports to be.
My son is high fx and needed speech therapy ( he said his ourrrrs and lwwwwws )and some OT for spatial issues with writing.
He is fine now. But to have been able to have a choice!
People don’t realize how much better things will be with a choice.
I believe you.
I have known some great OTs.
This is my life - bookmarking for later read.
Very wrong. Let me present you just a bit of information.Thirty years of study shows us that when ALL students are learning together they ALL do better. This means even students with the most needs do better in their grade-level, when they are given the right support. What is inclusive education? Inclusive education means everyone is included in their grade-level in their neighborhood school. Inclusion means students are given the help they need to be full members of their class. Inclusive education involves districts supporting schools as they include ALL the students who live in their communities. How do teachers meet the needs of all students in an inclusive school?
• Teachers plan their lessons to meet each student’s learning needs.
• Teachers teach in small groups that can change as the students’ needs change.
• Teachers teach the same content in different ways.
• Teachers work with other adults in the school to help meet each student’s needs.Why inclusive education?
Studies show that students with and without disabilities in inclusive schools:
• do better in reading and math
• benefit from the friendships they form
• learn to value differences.
_________________________________________________________
Boy that hasn’t been my experience. Disrupted classrooms, poor educational outcomes. lower scores, less all round learning has been my experience.
I would suspect the studies prove what the teacher’s union want them to prove.
The Special Ed attendants got paychecks.
Her student had a 4.0.
Did her student emerge from the class with any capability to wield electronics tools?
Mainstreaming children typically denies their unique needs. It realy is that simple. The most disturbing example of this trend on public education is evidenced by a shocking increase in the incidence of autistic children. It has created a public education nightmare.
While these children are young public schools are able to control their behavior without providing the services that will help them overcome their disability. As they become older and more unruly they can no longer be handled in a public school setting and eventually many become institutionalized.
My daughter and a few other sturdy souls are developing programs for these young children that allow them to become effectively mainstreamed as adolescents. Without intensive and appropriate training early on that is not possible.
Tragically public school systems are possessive of their budgets and are unwilling to place these young children in special settings where they will get the help they need. Not until it is too late to help and the child is irretrievably damaged will the public schools admit their failure and be forced to pay for institutional care.
We welcome Betsy DeVos with the prayer that the real needs of real children will be addressed without the bias of public institutions providing minimal services to keep their budgets fat.
Translation:
"We incredibly cool global citizens don't want to make any personal sacrifices of our very cool awesomeness for our child's unique needs. America is hateful to us, who are special, and deserve better."
Picked up on that tone, too, did you?? GMTA - it was the primary reason I posted the article. I noticed many of the comments on the WaPo page went down this path, too.
MA has many schools geared to special needs kids——they are private schools but the public school department located in the community in which the child resides is the tuition payer.
.
No
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