I don’t have a wide experience to draw on but I have one very vivid direct experience of this.
Years ago I was shadowing a teacher for a day when I was considering teaching as a career. In one class there was a kid who had a gonzo remark to make for everything the teacher said. The whole class laughed at his every word. It was really disruptive. He made a clown of himself and the teacher did nothing. Even stranger, his girlfriend was practically sitting in his lap, stroking his wrist, and kissing his neck the entire time, and the teacher also did nothing. The whole flow of the class was destroyed and I remember nothing else from that hour. It blew my mind that the teacher just let it happen.
Later, I realized that my interpretation of what I’d seen was all wrong. The kid wasn’t a smartass. He was differently abled. He wasn’t trying to be disruptive, but he couldn’t control himself well and kept reacting out loud to the lecture, saying things like “oh shit they shot the archduke?” It did create a funny effect, but the class was mostly laughing along with him. Perhaps he had Tourette’s? And it wasn’t his girlfriend kissing him, it was his dedicated teacher sitting with him, whispering in his ear to try to coach him and get his disruptions under control.
I was across the room from him with an obstructed view and the dedicated teacher was very young which all helped me misread it at first.
But still. The level of disruption was totally undeniable. In addition to consuming an entire teacher of his own, the kid took over the rest of the class and impacted everyone.
I couldn’t have designed a costlier setup with worse results for everyone if I’d tried.
I couldn’t have designed a costlier setup with worse results for everyone if I’d tried
You severely underestimate the costs of effective special education schools. In general, dedicated special education is more expensive than embedding care in general schools. What you saw was a cost cutting measure, and the student and teachers in that class paid the price.
What is cheaper is basically warehousing disabled students until they turn 18 without making any effort to teach them anything. That’s undoubtedly going to be the next step.
A dedicated teacher per disabled pupil seems pretty far from warehousing them. One teacher for the other 45… that’s closer to “warehousing” in my opinion.
If you’re to dedicate a single teacher to every disabled student, that’s pretty extraordinary resourcing by public school standards. But dropping that into an already crowded classroom and expecting the kid to consume the same curriculum in the same way… that’s just madness born of some zeal for equality.
I’m not sure what you saw exactly, or how it’s formally arranged in your country. Over here we’re transitioning from dedicated facilities to regular classrooms. The pupils get additional support, but a) that’s not a teacher, there are no formal qualifications required and b) the support generally not full time. The amount of support depends on the needs, but unless there are serious physical issues it’s hard to get more than 12 hours per week.
But dropping that into an already crowded classroom and expecting the kid to consume the same curriculum in the same way… that’s just madness born of some zeal for equality.
The zeal for equality is the marketing line. Believe it or not, the bean counters did the math and figured out it was cheaper, at least in the short term, to ruin 34 other people’s education than to give that man a place in an environment where he can thrive.
The zeal for equality is the marketing line. Believe it or not, the bean counters did the math and figured out it was cheaper, at least in the short term
That’d be less bad if this particular educational structure wasn’t getting mandated as a “legal right to equal education”, with any alternate structure being fought at every step by an array of institutional forces.
I have to ask how big was this school. One one of the schools I went to had only one deaf kid in the whole student body. So the school couldn’t just put in special classes by himself and hire a whole new set a teachers for him. Now given deafness and what ever that kid had are very different and need different accommodation.
Yeah that’s a good counterexamples. Especially if your example was in a rural area I could see how there is no better alternative. My example was in a school of 1000 kids in a densely populated area.
There will be different solutions in different settings, for sure. And even for different kids in the same setting. I don’t like any plan that proscribes one solution for all.
There is the socialization angle as well and not just for the disabled student. Everyone in that classroom saw the accomodations made to that student. It normalizes disabled people in society and normalizes the accomodations they need.
Not in this example. Disabled accommodations usually don’t harm everyone else. If you think it’s okay for all the kids to get a substandard education so that they can witness the disabled getting accommodation, well, first of all we’re going to fight, but also I think you underestimate how this sets him up for persecution, not appreciation.
What actually happens is that it normalizes making fun of people like him. I do feel the socialization angle is important, but remember that classroom culture is very much predicated on kids making fun of those who are “different”.
I don’t have a wide experience to draw on but I have one very vivid direct experience of this.
Years ago I was shadowing a teacher for a day when I was considering teaching as a career. In one class there was a kid who had a gonzo remark to make for everything the teacher said. The whole class laughed at his every word. It was really disruptive. He made a clown of himself and the teacher did nothing. Even stranger, his girlfriend was practically sitting in his lap, stroking his wrist, and kissing his neck the entire time, and the teacher also did nothing. The whole flow of the class was destroyed and I remember nothing else from that hour. It blew my mind that the teacher just let it happen.
Later, I realized that my interpretation of what I’d seen was all wrong. The kid wasn’t a smartass. He was differently abled. He wasn’t trying to be disruptive, but he couldn’t control himself well and kept reacting out loud to the lecture, saying things like “oh shit they shot the archduke?” It did create a funny effect, but the class was mostly laughing along with him. Perhaps he had Tourette’s? And it wasn’t his girlfriend kissing him, it was his dedicated teacher sitting with him, whispering in his ear to try to coach him and get his disruptions under control.
I was across the room from him with an obstructed view and the dedicated teacher was very young which all helped me misread it at first.
But still. The level of disruption was totally undeniable. In addition to consuming an entire teacher of his own, the kid took over the rest of the class and impacted everyone.
I couldn’t have designed a costlier setup with worse results for everyone if I’d tried.
You severely underestimate the costs of effective special education schools. In general, dedicated special education is more expensive than embedding care in general schools. What you saw was a cost cutting measure, and the student and teachers in that class paid the price.
What is cheaper is basically warehousing disabled students until they turn 18 without making any effort to teach them anything. That’s undoubtedly going to be the next step.
A dedicated teacher per disabled pupil seems pretty far from warehousing them. One teacher for the other 45… that’s closer to “warehousing” in my opinion.
If you’re to dedicate a single teacher to every disabled student, that’s pretty extraordinary resourcing by public school standards. But dropping that into an already crowded classroom and expecting the kid to consume the same curriculum in the same way… that’s just madness born of some zeal for equality.
I’m not sure what you saw exactly, or how it’s formally arranged in your country. Over here we’re transitioning from dedicated facilities to regular classrooms. The pupils get additional support, but a) that’s not a teacher, there are no formal qualifications required and b) the support generally not full time. The amount of support depends on the needs, but unless there are serious physical issues it’s hard to get more than 12 hours per week.
The zeal for equality is the marketing line. Believe it or not, the bean counters did the math and figured out it was cheaper, at least in the short term, to ruin 34 other people’s education than to give that man a place in an environment where he can thrive.
That’d be less bad if this particular educational structure wasn’t getting mandated as a “legal right to equal education”, with any alternate structure being fought at every step by an array of institutional forces.
I have to ask how big was this school. One one of the schools I went to had only one deaf kid in the whole student body. So the school couldn’t just put in special classes by himself and hire a whole new set a teachers for him. Now given deafness and what ever that kid had are very different and need different accommodation.
Yeah that’s a good counterexamples. Especially if your example was in a rural area I could see how there is no better alternative. My example was in a school of 1000 kids in a densely populated area.
kindergarten to senor in high school was only 250 students.
There will be different solutions in different settings, for sure. And even for different kids in the same setting. I don’t like any plan that proscribes one solution for all.
yeah for this problem there really is no one solution for all.
There is the socialization angle as well and not just for the disabled student. Everyone in that classroom saw the accomodations made to that student. It normalizes disabled people in society and normalizes the accomodations they need.
Not in this example. Disabled accommodations usually don’t harm everyone else. If you think it’s okay for all the kids to get a substandard education so that they can witness the disabled getting accommodation, well, first of all we’re going to fight, but also I think you underestimate how this sets him up for persecution, not appreciation.
on the other hand what doesn’t set him for being made fun if
What actually happens is that it normalizes making fun of people like him. I do feel the socialization angle is important, but remember that classroom culture is very much predicated on kids making fun of those who are “different”.
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Inconvenient is one thing. A constant disruption to the learning of 40 other kids is something else.
I, too, wish you all good things in life.