The teacher responsible for the systematic humiliation of a five-year-old boy in her class has been "reassigned" to desk work while the district conducts an investigation.
That's good. She obviously should not be working anywhere near children. (update to add: Also go read what Marla has to say about all of this; it's a useful post).
Go to the link. Read the comments. You'll find that the commenters essentially break down into two categories (minus the obvious trolls).
Category 1
People who recognize this behavior for what it is. Not the product of sudden anger or overwhelming frustration. Not a spur-of-the-moment flash of impatience. Nope. This was systematic sadism, a brutally administered and ill-intended process of humiliation inflicted on a little boy over a period of many many minutes. It was abuse, and it doesn't matter whether or not the boy was misbehaving, whether or not he was diagnosed with anything, whether or not he should have been in a mainstreamed class. The teacher was the alleged adult in this situation, she's the one who made the "bad decision" (bad, prolonged decision), and she's the one who has to suffer the adult consequences.
Category 2
The people who don't understand anything about child behavior or autism or kindergarten; the people who believe that a paddle would have solved everything (you can almost hear the "Back in the day, I walked five miles in the snow..." in the background of their comments); the people who believe that this child's misbehavior was "wasting" valuable education time for the other children--as though education is only about direct instruction in the three Rs and has nothing to do with interpersonal interaction, communication, understanding, or compassion; people who think that the teacher "just made a mistake" (that was one hell of a prolonged mistake); people who think that the boy got what was coming to him, that this is just "the real world" and that's just how it is, better learn it now; the people who think that not having done this to this child would have been "coddling" him; the people who somehow blame the not-present parents for this situation.
Thank God that the "Real World" bunch has never prevailed in some of the more important trials of human history. Hey, you know what? Slavery was just, like, the real world, you know? They should have just dealt with it. Women couldn't vote, and sorry, baby, but that's just the real world, you know? And don't we always sit around voting people out of the room after a public humiliation here in the Real World?
Category 2 people also have been roundly abusing Alex's mother for going public with this story. Well, guess what? Well-behaved women rarely make history. We're not all born to be big-mouthed, pugnacious, trouble-making bitches. Some of us were brought up right, brought up not to stir things up, not to parade our children around in public, not to make points with any tools at our disposal. And some of us missed out on those "real world" lessons or simply decided to ignore them. Thank God that some of us did. Thanks to Alex's mom--your opinion about her actions notwithstanding--the whole country is becoming more aware of what it means to have autism, what it means to be an autistic child in a classroom, what it means to have an autistic child in your classroom. The debate is on. Here's hoping the Category 1 people prevail.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Autism: Update on Alex Barton
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
It will be interesting what the investigation shows.
I'm in a debate (think argument) with someone who is part of category 2. What I finally realized is that they represent a bad society meme. The, "I suffered, so you should too." Which of course, for any thinking person, this is a ludicrous statement. Just because that's the way it has always been done doesn't make something right. It just makes it stupider. This is no way to build a better society.
Of course, the woman that I'm in the discussion with keeps emphasizing that there are much worse things in the world than one little boy. I answer that by pointing out that if you don't nurture the young of the next generation, then there's no reason why things should ever get any better for anyone on a large scale basis. She doesn't seem to understand that.
yay for category 1 people. i want to cover us with yummyness so that category 2 people want to come on over to our way of seeing things!
Notice that it is also the catagory 2 people that get the promotions.While catagory 1 is working there butts off trying to do the right thing in the world.Poo Poo to catagory 2 ;)
I just have to comment....
The thing that the Category 2 people need to be educated on is that having a child with a disability in their classroom can be a HUGE learning advantage to the rest of the children... the "real world" involves having to deal with people of all idiosyncracies on a daily basis and the ability to do so successfully is a great skill that these kids need to learn. Adults have co-workers in neighboring cubicles with all manner of issues and behaviours and they have no choice but to "deal". Learning to be a successful person working with folks of all abilities is a skill these children will unfortunately not learn.
Post a Comment