A Struggle to Educate the Severely Disabled

[groovedaddy]

Donovan Forde was dozing when the teacher came around to his end of the table. Pale winter light filtered in through the grated classroom window, and the warm room filled softly with jazz. It fell to his teacher’s aide to wake him up from his mid-morning nap.

She shined a small flashlight back and forth in his eyes like a dockworker signaling a ship, and called his name. Then she put her hand on his cheek, steering his head forward as he focused his eyes.

The teacher, Ricardo Torres, placed a red apple against Donovan’s closed left hand, and then held it near his nose so he could smell it. “Donovan, the fruit holds the seeds of the plant,” he said.

Then Mr. Torres held a plastic container of apple seeds to Donovan’s ear, shaking it, and placed Donovan’s hand inside so he could feel them. “And these are the seeds,” Mr. Torres said.

He watched Donovan’s eyes and face for a sign he had understood, a smile, nod, a noise. Donovan gently pulled his hand away. No one knew if he had grasped it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/education/20donovan.html?th&emc=th

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. So... Duncan is going to tie these teachers' salaries to *what* exactly?

>>>>>Working with the apple and the seeds, Ms. Mack, who is in charge of most of Donovan’s repetition and drilling, marks his responses on a worksheet. “As far as what he’s retaining, I couldn’t tell you,” Ms. Mack said later. She has worked with him for two years, assigned to him because he is prone to seizures, and said the main change she had noticed was that he seemed calmer. “But I do think he appreciates getting an education,” she said.>>>>

[msongs]

2. schools demand research based strategies then don't provide any funding to implement them -

local teachers attend workshops with videos showing programs with 4 kids and 4 adults, and then are told to go back to their classrooms and implement those strategies in classes with 18+ kids and only 2 or 3 adults. management conveniently forgets that to achieve the same results one must replicate the conditions.

Msongs

[murray hill farm]

3. For most of my life I worked for a state educational system

and a good part of it working with disabled kids. This pisses me off to a great, great extreme. What about Donovan? And all the Donovans? The system still goes on with the idea that kids like Donovan "need" to be educated to be as "normal" as possible to try to get them to be as "normal" as possible as defined by people who never consider Donovan or what it is to be him. I can assure you that Donovan does not give a flying fuck about apples and that they came from seeds. Donovan cares about being clean and comfortable and cared for in a way that makes his life as fullfilling as possible for him...and the stimulation of colors or light or a hug and to be helped to experience his life to it's fullest for him, not for the others. This is true for all levels and types of disabilities. First see the person and accept the person and stop trying to turn them into the person we think they should be...rather than who they are in themselves.

[Frosty1]

4. You nailed it

That is a waste of money that could be better spent towards providing things these kids really need like physical therapy.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. You nailed it

This is a disgraceful trend.