[srmorton]

This is the result of the ridiculous, politically correct policy of “mainstreaming” special needs children into regular classrooms.

[toldyou]

“This is the result of the ridiculous, politically correct policy of “mainstreaming” special needs children into regular classrooms.”

You are absolutely right! For the sake of one child, 20 other students in a class suffer. And the schools have to accept these children because the parents want a “normal/average” atmosphere for their special needs child.

[Ramius]

This is the result of the ridiculous, politically correct policy of “mainstreaming” special needs children into regular classrooms.

You're absolutely right about that. *Especially* at that age.

My mom was a special ed teacher, and she developed a reference standard curriculum for "special needs" students in my state. I lived through her many experiences with special students of many different sorts. She would never have been for "mainstreaming" kids into regular classrooms until they were fully prepared to do so. Sometimes they can, but many times they cannot.

Until then any "mainstreaming" attempt will merely be a failure. It will only disrupt the regular classroom and will fail to serve the special needs kid.

In fact, my mom may well have been totally against any mainstreaming. As I recall she was of the opinion that the special needs kid needs to work out a way to function in society ~given~ the fact that they're just not ever going to compete on an even level with everybody else. Mental retardation or severe autism are not conditions that somebody ever just "gets over". They're not going to be "cured". What they need is to develop the basic life skills to manage some level of independence, and THAT is something that they can do. She had many illumni of her program to show just that.

Of the many of them I've met, they are some of the happiest people I know.

It takes a special person to deal with the regular outbursts, the impossible attitudes, the cultivated dependence that happens with these kids. It is not for everybody. It is obviously not for the "teacher" in this story.

My .02

[4yearlurker]

You are correct. My special needs daughter was mainstreamed. She liked school before mainstreaming. After that she refused to go. The school dissolved her special needs class and let the teachers go. I’m glad she’s 23 now and out of that school system. We tried Catholic,Christian and private schools and none of these had classes for kids like her.

[Aingeal]

Rubbish...some autistic children do well with a mixture of services at school, particularly ones who have learned to function with typical children and all the frustrations that entail by virtue of having siblings. The problem is some schools have a ‘one size fits all’ attitude, the same complaint homeschoolers have about the school systems in general.