Posted on 04/30/2010 6:46:44 PM PDT by Abathar
INDIANAPOLIS -- A teacher and an aide at Perry Meridian Middle School have been charged with neglect after police said they strapped a student with autism to a chair and left him on the floor.
Veteran teacher Catherine Littleton, 52, and Jeffery Stokes, 27, were charged with battery, criminal confinement and neglect of a dependent in connection with a Feb. 18 incident in a classroom, 6News' Jack Rinehart reported.
According to the probable cause affidavit, Stokes taped socks over the hands of a non-verbal 12-year-old student, strapped the boy's arms to his chest and belted him to a chair. The boy was then tipped over backward in the chair and left on the floor, police said.
"It happened several times over the year, and even though there may be no signs of physical harm, there's concern over the mental anguish he may have gone through," said Sgt. Matt Mount.
Another teacher's aide reported the incident to school administrators, who contacted Child Protective Services, which prompted a police investigation.
(Excerpt) Read more at theindychannel.com ...
My daughter is Down Syndrome and Autistic. In grade school she had great teachers, a very caring principle. In junior high it was a nightmare. I pulled her and home schooled. My main point is this: the working theory of Autism is that these kids feel too much, so they act out or withdraw. My daughter chattered all the time until she was three, then she stopped speaking. Imagine spending your life (she’s 22 now) not being able to communicate. I believe these children spend most of their lives in their private hell. My daughter was raised with both a mother and a father.
Let me guess = English is not the subject you teach.
(I hope)
I really hate it. I was a Freeper for years before I was a teacher. Our country is in the mess it's in because conservatives abandoned the education field to the liberals, who are steadily brainwashing generation after generation. Then they sit back and sneer at the result. I wish more of them would get off their butts and get into the fight instead of throwing rocks from the sidelines and not caring who they hit.
brytlea,
being a homeschooler, I normally have problems or disagreements with schools and teachers in general. But the one thing that I really sympathize with them about is the mainstreaming of autistic children. I know from experience that they can disrupt a classroom, cause harm to themselves or others, and even cause other children to miss out on education because the teacher has to devote so much time to the autistic child alone.
I understand that one of the greatest fears of the parents of these children is that they won’t be able to assimilate, so they want them mainstreamed thinking their child will learn how to react in various social situations.
Unfortunately, that is a very large part of the problem many of the children have. Some can’t learn from children how to behave with others. They may have very fine minds in other areas but when it comes to relational matters, some are quite clueless and not just about what to do. They are also clueless about how or where to pick up on the clues about dealing with others. Some, like those who don’t recognize other people at all, can be extremely difficult especially in a classroom setting.
The teachers don’t always have the training or the time to help the autistic children and twenty or thirty other normal children. Some of the autistic children have not even been trained to learn coping methods. A few of the other children in the class may see the autistic child as weirdly different and may intentionally do things to provoke poor responses. The things they do may not even be something that anyone would ever have a problem with such as asking the autistic child to pass a toy or a supply.
I don’t feel the teacher and aide should have restrained him as they did, but I wonder if they asked for help and none was forthcoming. With as little as is known about the multitude types of autism in the spectrum, is there anyone out there who would know what to do or how to handle this child? Was that person made available to help that classroom? Or as I have seen, is it just the system telling the teacher to deal with it?
I believe there really does need to be a change in the way autistic children are educated. Perhaps before they go into the mainstream classroom, the autistic child should be taught various coping methods and should be exposed in a controlled setting to various social situations before they are allowed in a regular classroom. Perhaps there should be a level of behavior that the teacher can expect from the child and the teachers should be given enough training to feel comfortable dealing with an autistic child at the level to be placed in their class. If the teacher has difficulty with the child a specialized assistant trained to assist autistic children should be made available to come into the class until the child has learned enough social skills to no longer be disruptive or until the teacher has learned enough from the assistant to know how to handle the child alone.
There was a time in this nation that we had the good sense to understand that not all children can be educated. Some children are so mentally damaged and/or handicapped that confinement in an institution is the only rational option.
Good point! If the police and Child Protective Services would be knocking on the door of a parent or other ordinary citizen, then teachers and principals should be held to the EXACT same standards, and the punishments should be the same.
I’m grateful that my son is in the school that he’s in and I’m indebted to my fellow taxpayers.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It would be better if these educational expenses could be covered by an insurance policy.
Parents, and those who hope to be parents, should be able to buy an insurance policy that would cover the expenses of caring for and educating an extremely disabled child.
I remember reading some years ago in the Wall Street Journal that some towns actually do this. Some districts buy insurance to cover the cost of educating a severely handicapped child should one be born into, move into, or become disabled due to an accident or illness. The town or district then sends the child to a private school that specializes in the disability. I am sorry but I have never been able to find a link to it on the Internet.
I think a plan like this would give a parent a lot more choice in finding a good placement for their child. They would not be stuck with what the district offers whether it be good or bad.
You must be a retard.
Something very similar happened in Martinsville Indiana just a few weeks ago. Two police were called to a daycare to restrain a 10 year old who was acting out.
They ended up tazing him to get him immobilized. The liberals in the community had a fit. "How can they do that to a child?!" they asked. Investigations followed and the cops are on trial or something.
My thoughts are that the cops did exactly what they are trained to do. If the day care operator didn't want the kid restrained that way he should not have called the cops. You can't blame people for doing their job. (This would be analogous to calling a professional hunter to get your cat out of the tree. BOOM, splat. "OK. he's out")
Did the teachers in the story do wrong? possibly, possibly not.
Hmm lets see...
An opinion that a child who cant speak probably feels no discomfort from being tied up in a chair and having it tipped back? Therefore one assumes no harm was done?
Yep, I am for zotting someone like that.
You must be a retard.
You have made and supported statements like the one this guy is making in the past, so it is no surprize that you do so now.
I must address your statement because it implies that government schools can somehow be reformed. If we could go back to some magical era when government schools were not babysitters and propaganda machines, that somehow government education could be reformed.
Please think about the following:
Socialist-funded, single payer, government schools are the very essence and definition of socialism. Socialism can NOT NOT NOT be reformed. It must be SHUT DOWN and replaced with private alternatives.
Simply by attending, children learn that the government has the power to take money from a neighbor that the parents want for tuition-free! And...Worse!..The teachers teach the child that it is his **right**! Do this for 13 or more years and the child soon becomes comfortable with taking his neighbor's money. If the government can give the child schooling, why not a thousand other socialist wants and needs?
Socialist-funded and modeled programs **always** move to more and more government control, centralization, inefficiency, and ***always** attract those with Marxist tendencies and beliefs. ALWAYS! This is why socialist, single payer government schools must be shut down and replaced with private schools.
Our socialist-funded and socialist-modeled government schools have **always** been in the control of the Utopian progressives. This was true from the day the first government schools opened in the mid-1800s to early 1900s.
Socialist-funded, socialist-modeled, Prussian-style government schools were the wet dream of the Utopian progressives of the 1800s. Utopian progressives have **always** controlled teacher development and curriculum. Utopian progressives started with a watered down Christianity and the move has **always** been toward more and more secularism and atheism.
None of the above can be fixed. It is impossible to fix it because it is intrinsic to the system. It must be ABOLISHED!
1 to 3 generations of socialist schooling made Woodrow Wilson, the League of Nations, feminism, unions, the IRS, and the direct election of senators, INEVITABLE!!!
Socialist schooling made Franklin D. Roosevelt, INEVITALBE!
Socialist schooling made Lyndon B. Johnson and his Great Society and failed Vietnam War policies INEVITABLE! ( As well as Durranty and Cronkite.)
Socialist government schools made OBAMA INEVITABLE!!!!
I’m with you on that one Wintertime.
I mostly contemplate the road ahead but occasionally I’ll review the actions I’ve taken in the past to see if I’m doing the right things for my family.
I would like the idea of bundling in catastrophic health insurance in the cost of a child birth. I tried Binging that but didn’t come up with much. The problem though is that it’s like the current health insurance bill, forcing everyone to buy a policy. It would take some intense actuary work to get the pricing right on that.
But I like the idea.
I would rather rely on charity than my fellow property tax payers and I work hard on an Autism charity that provides services to children and adults. However, the IDEA law passed in the 70’s, forces an unfunded mandate on local school districts. It doesn’t make sense for charity to go into tuition given that.
But that’s what makes me a FReeper since I yearn for smaller government with fewer unfunded mandates.
The following is a general description of all government schools. It applies to all the government schools in this nation and is NOT NOT NOT directed at any specific person.
Regarding government schools, the following is evil:
1) It is impossible to have a religiously, politically, and culturally neutral school. Therefore...When government owns and operates government schools, the government will **establish** the religious worldview of the political bully, and ( at the same time) undermine the most precious religious, cultural, and political beliefs of the politically weak.
It is evil for government to do that, and force taxpayers to pay for this abomination. It is evil for either Marxists ( liberals) or conservatives to force their religious, political, or cultural worldview on others and force them to pay for it. It is evil for Marxists ( liberals) or conservatives to agree to work for, establish, and uphold government schools that would promote religious, cultural, and political non-neutrality on captive children, their parents, and the taxpayer.
The above can **not** be fixed because it is intrinsic to the socialist-funded, socialist-model, single payer government school.
2) Government schools **are** the very essence and definition of socialism. Simply by attending ( regardless of the curriculum) the child learns to be comfortable with socialism. The child learns that the government can take from their neighbor to pay for a service that their parents want for tuition-free. Worse! Their teachers teach them that this is their right! Well!...If the government can take money from their neighbor to give to children tuition-free, why not a thousand other socialist wants and needs.
It is evil to teach children to be socialists. Simply by attending children learn to be socialists. This is true whether it is a Marxist-liberal doing the teaching on a conservative.
This can NOT be fixed because it is intrinsic to the system of socialist-funded, socialist-modeled, single-payer, government schools.
3) At the moment all government schools in the nation are atheistic in their worldview. It is evil to teach children to think atheistically. All teachers who agree to teach for the government schools agree to teach everything from a godless point of view.
If a teacher attempts to sneak in a little Christianity into their classes is merely teaching the children that Christians are sneaky and too timid to be forthright. It is evil to teach children to think godlessly or to believe that Christians are sneaky, timid, or lukewarm.
The above can not be fixed by either Marxist-liberal or conservative teachers because it is intrinsic to the government school system.
4) Government treats its children in its government schools like prisoners. They are literally incarcerated, yet they have committed no crime, except that of being born. The government strips children ( and indirectly their parents) of their right to speak freely, publish freely, assemble freely, and express their religion freely. The government tells them when they are permitted to speak, publish, with whom they will or will not assemble, when to eat, rest, use the rest room, exercise, and subjects them to a non-stop atheistic indoctrination.
If a child rationally rebels against being treated like a prisoner, he is punished by have armed police haul him before courts and judges and he sentenced to real hard time prison ( juvenile detention).
In other words government schools teach children to be good little prisoners of the state.
It is evil for government to do this. It is evil for either a Marxist-liberal or conservative teacher to assist the state in doing this to children.
The above is intrinsic to our compulsory, socialist-funded, socialist-modeled, single payer, government schools. It can not be fixed by either conservatives or Marxist-liberals.
5)Yes, parents can ransom their children from compulsory attendance at government schools. Yes, they still have the option to pay ransom in the form of extra private tuition or homeschool expenses ( in addition to paying for the government system.)
It is evil to force parents to pay ransom or jizya so that they can enjoy freedom from the non-neutral government political, cultural, and religious worldview that would be imposed on their child if they attended.
The above is evil. It can not be fixed. It is intrinsic to the system of socialist-funded, socialist-modeled, single payer, government schools.
5) All government schools are a First Amendment and freedom of conscience nightmare. They are evil. It does not matter who is opening the doors to, implementing, and establishing this evil whether they be conservative or Marxist-liberal teachers.
( Not proof read. I am in a hurry this evening.)
Well, your point of view is interesting but it still leaves millions of kids at the mercy of leftists because conservatives are too pristine to sully their hands with it. So unless you’re going to fight it from within, you can expect to watch this country descend into socialism within the next decade.
I am going to ask an outrageous question. Hopefully it will help you see the fallacy of trying to reform a fundamentally corrupt system “from within”.
Do you think conservatives should have worked in the Nazi concentration camps as a means of trying to reform the extermination camps from within?
You are a fool to make that comparison. It’s a lousy excuse to simply sit back and not fight for this country.
Those who are fighting for this country's very survival are those who are doing all they can to SHUT DOWN our government's temples of atheistic indoctrination. ( mis-named “public” schools)
Gas and starvation killed the bodies of Jews and others in Nazi concentration camps. Would a conservative work within the concentration camp system in an attempt to “reform” it?
Teaching a child to think atheistically can starve and kill his eternal soul. Should a conservative work within a system that is utterly godless, socialist, and corrupt at its very foundation in an attempt to reform it? I don't think so. They should instead fight to shut it down.
You will never shut down the public schools; it would leave millions of children with no one to even teach them how to read. However, the more you rant the more I am glad that you aren’t a teacher, because you have no firm grasp on reality. You can respond if you want to, but I’m done with you. My point still stands: this country is on the brink of socialism now because conservatives let liberals handle the educating of this country’s children. It’s true whether you can understand it or not. Good night.
Seemingly large and intractable institutions have lost their legitimacy seemingly overnight. Examples: The American Revolution and monarchy, The Catholic Church and the Reformation, worldwide emancipation and slavery, Martin Luther King and Jim Crow.
Government schooling has lost its legitimacy already. If it hadn't we would not see heartbreakingly long waiting lists for charter and voucher schools. Hopefully, the government school system disintegrates fast enough for conservatives to save the nation.
it would leave millions of children with no one to even teach them how to read.
If you know a child who can read thank his **PARENTS**!
Government schools already leave **MILLIONS** of children illiterate and innumerate. If the government schools were to close tomorrow, the same children who are getting an education today would get one tomorrow. Why?
The only thing a government school does is send home a curriculum. It is the parents and the child who are doing the hard work **at home**! They are **afterschooling**!
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