You don't know much about Asperger’s or Autism, then, I'd guess. Both are characterized by children who do not learn social skills unless specifically taught them, among many other things. I don't just have a child with disabilities, I've spent much of the past five years becoming a special ed teacher (after the previous five, becoming a social studies teacher), and meeting a lot of special ed kids. And teaching them. Kids do learn from watching other kids, and they do learn from their interactions with those other kids. Some of them just need to have things explained to them more carefully, as they dont’ automatically understand social conventions like most of us do.
“I think I understand where you are coming from, though, and where you are coming from is based on your personal experience. I respect that, I truly do. Your opinion, however, does provide a clue about why so many caring parents have abandoned the government schools. It is because they want their kids to soar to the highest level possible rather than merely acclimate to the lowest common denominator. That is, they don't want to sacrifice their children's education just so their children may be used to serve as examples, or models, for other kids.”
There may be some of that; my own kids are home-schooled, in fact. I'm also teaching in the district we live in. On the other hand, I live in a gang-infested city, and neighborhood, and I don't want my son coming home wearing his pants around his knees, or my daughters getting pregnant earlier than their grandmother did. I had them in a nice private school for a time, until I couldn't afford it anymore. $700 a month got too steep. BUT! My son got most of his special ed services in his early years in this same district. They have some wonderful and dedicated people here, trying their best to help these kids do better in school. There is, btw, no doubt in my mind that kids can learn from their peers. You and I did, for example. Not everything we learned was to the good, but not everything was to the bad, either. For many kids with disabilities, and especially those with Autistic-spectrum disorders, they need the modeling form normal kids, specific instruction and practice, and time.
The school I work at now is a small gem among all the others in the area, in many respects, even though the neighborhood it's in is even worse in many ways than my own. Good, polite, kind, kids, mostly. Very few ruffians. If mine weren’t too old to go there, I'd ask to transfer them in, and drop the homeschooling thing. It's pretty resources intensive, too. The worst-behaved kid in our school is now in an in-residence hospital & counseling setting,finally getting the help he really needs, and the next worst has improved markedly in the past few months, and may not be a problem much longer. If those were the only two I'd worked with, I guess a 50% fail rate isn't all that good, but there are more than a dozen others as well, and all of them are doing better, as well. We did have to take the one kid out of our setting, and get him in a more restrictive setting, but that isn't necessary for most kids.
One other thing I like about special education is that they are finally starting to pay more serious attention to research; good, quality research, in particular. Everything I've seen on kids with disabilites shows that the social thing is very important to helping them get along in the world. I've been building a collection of research articles, and if you're interested, I be happy to share them with you.
This is what I have been trying to suggest is the "fair" thing to do for all concerned. Headbangers, biters, and other maniacs who run around screaming and breaking things need to be extracted. Kids with more benign disabilities like those you described should not be a problem nor a significant distraction to "regular" kids. In fact, the "regular" kids can probably learn important social skills from helping such kids. I think we have been on the same page all along.
Thank you for your many kind responses.
FRegards,
LH