Jesus. H. Christ!

[liberalhistorian]

I cannot BELIEVE the level of ignorance, prejudice, hostility and downright intolerant hatred on this thread. Actually, yeah, I can believe it, as the mother of a teenage aspie who's had to deal with it for most of his life, but it just is both infuriating and saddening that supposedly intelligent, "progressive" and "enlightened" individuals who should damn well know better, can be that way also. Sad to find this shit here on DU as well:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4844929#top

[elleng]

1. Not going to read thru that thread, liberalh,

Its only ONE cost of public education, and another of 'liberty;' we're FREE to say what we want. MANY don't get the corrolary (sp) We must have and use judgment to determine what we SHOULD say.

Sorry

[liberalhistorian]

2. I'm sorry, but I'm not quite

clear on what you're saying?

[elleng]

3. I don't want to aggravate myself by reading the entire thread.

People are free to say what they want, even when what they want to say is thoughtless, uneducated, dumb and hurtful.

[Kajsa]

4. I completely agree, liberalhistorian!

And as you can see, I posted several times in that thread.

The ignorance there is astounding!!

When it comes from someone who doesn't know
what they are talking about, that's one thing.

When it comes from someone who works with
Special Education students, it's outrageous!

:(

[KamaAina]

5. It's not just us

you can find almost any kind of bigotry you can name out there at "progressive" DU. Sexism, homophobia, on rare occasions even racism have reared their ugly heads.

That's why God Skinner gave us the Ignore feature.

[Left coast liberal]

6. I tried to bang through the whole thread...

...but I got to pissed off.

I too was amazed at the ignorance and the continued justification for it.

This story particularly haunts me still.

[citizen snips]

7. I don't understand why people post threads like these

it just gets everyone pissed off

[merwin]

8. I read the entire thread and was amazed by the ignorance.

Between my own parents and in-laws, we have a college president, 2 college professors, an elementary school teacher who now works for Reading First teaching low-income schools how to teach reading properly (a program which had its federal funding canceled, even though WA has had huge successes with it), and a couple high school teachers.

My mother-in-law in particular is a special-ed teacher is currently teaching the last chance high school special-ed kids in a low-income district. The one thing that almost every high school kid that is in her class has in common is that they all have learning disabilities that have been mis-identified as anger/behaviorial issues for so long the kids turned into what the teachers thought they were.

It looks like the school was looking for a reason to get rid of the child because they didn't want to have to accomodate her anymore, as is shown by this quote:

"Teachers and the principal wished to pursue charges because they felt there were ongoing problems and this was the only way to resolve it," Lakewold said.

This statement shows that the teachers and administration knew what the child's triggers were and either didn't care or wanted to provoke her.

I personally score very high on all of the Asperger's tests, but have only been formally diagnosed with ADD (although my dad did not want to treat it and I didn't find out that I had ever been diagnosed until recently). I'm not sure many doctors would give a diagnosis of Asperger's to me as I've developed enough coping mechanisms to either pass as a very shy NT or fade into the background.

I really feel for the girl, as school was equally hellish for me between the beatings from other kids, humiliation, and then being blamed by the administration as the cause of the problem. It eventually ended up with my parents transferring me out to a private school because the administration sucked so bad. I had the same issues at the other school, but not nearly as bad.

I really hope Obama pushes for proper rules being put in place for special needs children, with special attention placed on the lowest of the performing schools instead of punishment. But I don't want to get into No Child Left Behind here :)

[elleng]

9. I still haven't read the thread,

but want to share. My younger daughter is a junior at West Virginia University, where she is studying education, with special ed concentration. She told me today that she's actually teaching a nursery school class, and is in charge of a student disabled by repeated broken bones.

The thrilling part for me is that my daughter has learning differences. She struggles, and has to find her way. Fortunately we learned about this when the principal at her elementary school suggested testing, after which we sought a high school with a program that would accommodate her differences. We later learned that WVU is able to help her, also.

My point is that its our job as parents to watch carefully, and where appropriate find a better place for our children. The schools my daughter attended were Catholic schools with fine histories and reputations, little attention to dogma, and much understanding. We paid for them, and still are, but I would not have settled for less. I'm afraid that public education is generally far from being able to address these issues successfully.

Sorry for the long discourse.