"We must now allow special-needs children in the program.":td

I did not want to thread-jack Cambion's too much, so I'm starting my own rant about my job. I'm also off for the next three weeks, so yeah, I have a lot of time on my hands.

In the past, the program I work for did not outright ban special-needs kids, but they were discouraged from participating due to the lack of training among staff, and lack of resources. So other than a few kids who were just a bit "slow," we did not have any flapping, non-functional autards. Unfortunately, that is about to change.

In another location, not mine thank god, a moo just registered her non-verbal, low functioning Downs' tard, who attended the program in the past. The purpose of the program is academic enrichment, so it's obvious she's looking for a free babysitter for Derpson. Now before my boss got promoted, he used to run the program at this location, and he actually kicked the tard out of the program once before because of behavioral issues. Derpson ran off and disappeared on two separate occasions, but was found later on. He was also extremely disruptive to the other students, but not violent that I know of.

The do-gooder who currently runs the program at that same location "feels bad for special needs kids," and just "had to let him back in." eyes2 And my boss was ok with it! My organization has a huge legal team, so I really suspect my boss is worried about some kind of potential discrimination case.

So during the break from the students next month, we all have to take professional development in dealing with special needs children. At least I get paid for it. As I mentioned in the other thread, because it's an hourly city job, if I they so much as want me breathe for them on company property, I get paid for that. But because I don't really deal with the kids anymore, I will have to pass down this training to those I supervise.

Luckily, I managed to fill up all of the slots with "normal" kids before I knew about the policy change. And I also control the wait-list and applications. If anyone tries to register their autard, the application will get "lost" somewhere, so sorry about that!

I am sorry. I wonder how much normal kids are getting the shaft from this laws? Reason number 13,000 I'm glad I don't have kids: I don't have to worry about them getting shortchanged in school.

______________________________________________________
Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car.

Evan Davis

Why do I hate the term 'special needs' ?????

Quote
starlady
Why do I hate the term 'special needs' ?????

It may be the word special which is enough to trigger a guttural reaction, the word alone is enough to make me automatically associate 50% mentally deficient + 50% entitled.

AKA Speshul Snauwflake
:drool

Or special + needs = overbearing, very high maintenance while exasperatingly above reproach. Normal rules don't apply.

Quote
starlady
Why do I hate the term 'special needs' ?????

Maybe because it attempts to normalize the low functioning and portray autards as equal members of society. In today's society, any type of separation of two groups (even if you're separating the screaming lunatics from those without any mental disorder) is seen as inherently evil, because "all people are equal". So instead of calling them screaming lunatics, society calls them "special needs" to humanize them and make the difference between them and mentally healthy people seem small.

This may seem off topic, but Ayn Rand's Anthem is about a similar situation, were collectivism is taken to the extreme. It's disturbingly similar to our current society.

Personally, I hate "special needs" because of the political correctness. Can't we just call them retarded and be done with it? It's not like it'll hurt the kids' peewins - most of the speds can't even spell their own names. But it's also because "special" is one of the only terms used to describe any child - "special", along with "unique". So "special needs" is normal chyuld "special" amplified, which makes it automatically more irritating.

What in the fuck is a Downy kid gonna do in a school enrichment program besides drag down the performance of the other normal kids? Also, if this is a program aimed specifically at the advanced kids, why is there a tard even in there? Can you explain a bit more about the program, or would details be too identifying?

It does sound like your boss is concerned about being slapped with a discrimination lawsuit, probably thanks to mainstreaming. Kind of makes me wonder about something: if a normal kid's classroom performance is severely inhibited by a mainstreamed flaptard, who is right? The parent of the normal kid whose grades are suffering, or the parent of the tard who doesn't want her defecto-brat with the IQ of parsley to feel singled out in the tard class? I've always wondered whose child is more special in such a scenario.

Ah, but the word 'retarded' is stigmatizing, and was used in a negative connotation regarding tards, and Oh No, we can't have kids face reality that negativity is a part of life. Good Golly, think of the Childrums!

Seriously, it's PC bad-speak taken to the extreme, where even words have to be run past a pedantic censor, who whips themselves up in to a sudsy foam at the very thought of a minuscule reference to anything negative in group-think. It's basically an overreaction to phrases that is completely unnecessary, and is no doubt a result of some paper-pushing, protocol-school dropout / tin-pot dictator desk jockey who's justifying their jobs and their bachelor of arts major in appropriate language.

The Downy kid is the token gesture of equality, which is in actuality a glaring example of pointless kowtowing to pissy moo's, enrolling their derp in an enrichment program, for the simple fact that they want to feel better sluicing a defect. There is no benefit for the imbecile whatsoever, and probably reinforces the fact that they are severely disadvantaged by their inherent disabilities. Basically, they've become the very thing they are there for in the first place (a tard exception in a class of smart kids), defeating the purpose. The tard is going to garner more negative attention, and is going to become the class 'freakshow'.

This is the greatest irony of 'mainstreaming', in that in trying so hard to socially integrate derps into normal society and prevent segregation, it does exactly the opposite of what its designed for - isolates the derp from their own kin and community with similar capacities. Lawsuits may be the current motivation, but it won't be long before neuro-typicals realise that their future wage and prospects were impeded by mainstreaming, and litigate for lost potentials. (Not to mention the damages suffered by socially integrating dangerous flappers with IQ's of guano).

Amusingly, "mentally retarded" started out as a PC lickspittle term, back when it was first coined. Before that, such children were simply and bluntly called "feeble minded" . Then some Nice People (starting in the 1920s AFAICT) began pushing for the term "mentally RETARDED" to be used , as in, "Oh, no, Mrs Smith, your child isn't feeble minded; s/he's just...mentally retarded. Slow." There was an implied promise in the term : That if the children so described were just 'slow' or 'retarded', they could, with special training, catch up with the others. Of course they rarely if ever did, and so "retarded" became just as much a pejorative term as the earlier "feeble minded".

The horror over the use of "retarded" has less to do with its literal meaning as it does with childhood memories of bullies bellowing, "You REEEEEtard !" as their favorite go-to insult on the playground.

Even more amusingly, "special" seems to be making the exact same trajectory. Twice now, I have overheard one child insult another with "special", which when used as an insult is pronounced with deep disdain and curled lips.

It's the children themselves who are the problem, not whatever word is currently in vogue to describe them. Their behavior issues and lower ability to learn if not complete INability guarantees that ANY word used to describe them will sooner or later be turned into a playground insult. But the PC Speech Nannies will keep on finding new terms, certain that they can find the Holy Grail : A "sensitive"descriptive term that WON'T become an insult: Feeble minded...mentally retarded...mentally handicapped...mentally disabled...mentally challenged...special needs...

I wonder what word or term will replace 'special needs'?

And hell yeah, mainstreaming all but the highest functioning children (the near-normals) has an impact on the academic success of the other children: When the teacher has to explain something over and over for the 'slower' children, the others get bored and frustrated. Daydreaming beckons...The very brightest children can pick upon their own what they may have missed, but the average children might start falling behind.

Terms like "differently abled" and "minimally exceptional" have been used to describe people with physical and mental disabilities. I guess those are softer on the parents' poor widdle psyches because there are no negative words.

We've got some wordsmiths here. What's the most cushy, PC, bullshit evasion you can think of to replace the term "special needs?" No word limit, and extra points if you can manage a hyphenated word.

Quote
Cambion
What in the fuck is a Downy kid gonna do in a school enrichment program besides drag down the performance of the other normal kids? Also, if this is a program aimed specifically at the advanced kids, why is there a tard even in there? Can you explain a bit more about the program, or would details be too identifying?

It does sound like your boss is concerned about being slapped with a discrimination lawsuit, probably thanks to mainstreaming. Kind of makes me wonder about something: if a normal kid's classroom performance is severely inhibited by a mainstreamed flaptard, who is right? The parent of the normal kid whose grades are suffering, or the parent of the tard who doesn't want her defecto-brat with the IQ of parsley to feel singled out in the tard class? I've always wondered whose child is more special in such a scenario.

I'm going to try and answer some of these questions without being too identifying. I work for the city, but I do not work for a school. It is a free, optional, after-school/summer program. It is not aimed towards advanced kids, but actually the opposite because some of the services we provide are tutoring and homework help. There are more things we do, but that would be too detailed for me to share here.

Most parents are actually using it for free babysitting, but at least most of the kids are not disruptive. I definitely think my boss is worried about a lawsuit, since he is the one who kicked out Derpson in the first place. I am not going to let this new policy mess up my program. We do have kids with mild to moderate learning disabilities, but not full-on flapping autards. Like I said before, I control who gets in and I will "accidentally" lose the applications of any severely retarded kids.

Unfortunately, once in a while an application is left on my desk when I'm not in the office, and I never get to see the kid and parent. I could totally see myself calling back one of these parents, telling them their kid can come, and surprise! Here's Downsy. And then I'm stuck.

Re: The topic of mainstreaming.

I have seen mainstreaming in action and it never works out. Every single time there was an outburst in one of those classes, guess who it was? The tard. Teachers wind up wasting precious learning time controlling these kids who should have never been in the class in the first place. And the normal kids who are trying to learn get screwed.

It was one reason I stopped pursuing a traditional classroom job. I heard that my state was going to start requiring all teachers to be certified in special ed within the next few years, which I purposely did not do because I didn't want to deal with it! And now that I'm in an alternative career, it's still going to be foisted upon me whether I like it or not.

The only places that are safe for now are private schools. They are under no legal obligation to accept these kids or provide any services for them. But I make more money than I ever could in a private school, and I don't take my work home with me. So I'll just stick with this and hopefully I'll eventually get promoted to my boss' job, in which one could go months without interacting with any kids.

I've been a public school teacher for close to thirty years, and I'll tell you: If a kid is gifted or retarded, he or she gets all the attention. The average kid gets zilch. The teacher is way too busy dealing with tard antics to adequately reach the rest ofthe students. The gifted kids get to go on all the fun field trips. As for private schools, that used to be the safe place for a parent to put their "regular" child for an adequate education, but now the private schools are caving to the tard-moos, as well. In the small city where I live, we have a Catholic grade school that used to just flat out refuse to take anyone with an IEP. The principal would just tell the parents, "Sorry - we don't have the training or the resources." They DID take kids who were physically handicapped, but anyone who was retarded, no matter how mild, was referred to the public school. Now that has changed. The new principal (and the diocese) is willing to accept one and all, to the detriment of the other students, IMO.

Today's mainstreaming exists to save $$$ for the district. Separating and maintaining separate classrooms for retarded kids costs a lot of money. It's cheaper for the district to put the retards into regular classes and have the regular ed teacher deal with it. They can talk educational theory and PC nonsense all they want, but the bottom line is that mainstreaming kids saves millions of dollars on the state level each year. That's what the state notices.

@nobodylikesyourkidsbutyou Your state is required spec. ed. certification for all public teachers? That is insane. That means they are going to phase out real spec. ed for the students and just put them into regular classrooms in a few years. The onus will be on those regular ed. teachers to maintain control and lessons. Let's not even talk about all the extra paperwork that those teachers will have to do, including writing an IEP for each flapper and implementing it, separate lesson plans for each retard, inclusion plans, differentiated instruction, etc.. I would bet you a dinner at Peter Luger that those teachers will not be given extra prep time to complete all the extra tasks. They'll be taking it home with them each night to complete, with no extra compensation. Watch teachers quit, or "retire," and get jobs in the private sector in your state in a few years.

My district still has self-contained special ed classes for the worst retards, the ones who simply cannot function at all in a regular ed classroom. I'm wondering how long that will last.

Disclaimer: I've been teaching for 20+ years now.

Quote
Peace
@nobodylikesyourkidsbutyou Your state is required spec. ed. certification for all public teachers? That is insane. That means they are going to phase out real spec. ed for the students and just put them into regular classrooms in a few years.

My district still has self-contained special ed classes for the worst retards, the ones who simply cannot function at all in a regular ed classroom. I'm wondering how long that will last.

Disclaimer: I've been teaching for 20+ years now.

That is scary, :smn and I thought it was bad enough in my high school that the autards were walked through our lunchroom to get to theirs. Obviously, whoever is pushing for complete integration isn't a utilitarian. Am I the only one that favors Bentham's workhouse idea for the lowest functioning?

Quote
contemplativeintrovert
Am I the only one that favors Bentham's workhouse idea for the lowest functioning?

Personally I prefer euthanasia!

Quote
coco uk

Quote
contemplativeintrovert
Am I the only one that favors Bentham's workhouse idea for the lowest functioning?

Personally I prefer euthanasia!

Yeah, um, let's not go there we don't need the troll invasion.

Ex Lurker's analysis of the term "mentally retarded" vs. "feeble minded" is right on the money.

The ones who get really screwed in these shenanigans are the bright and gifted students, who should be receiving accelerated instruction and advanced learning topics instead of the token "fun field trips" that Gymrat mentions. Those are a poor substitute for actual advanced learning, but they're a lot cheaper.

The perception that being gifted = fun stuff is the reason so many parents want to call their kids gifted when those kids are really not, to get them into those programs. No one would clamor to get their average-performing child into precalculus lessons for 9–year-olds, for a point of comparison. But most school systems do little or nothing at all for the bright and gifted, not even the field trips. The money for that goes instead into mainstreaming Tardley in normal classrooms, where he proceeds to disrupt everything for average and bright students alike.

Advocates for the bright and gifted will expand Ex Lurker's point a bit further. The very terms "exceptional" and "special" were first applied to the gifted before the tard advocates coopted them and then took over the terms outright. "Gifted" will follow soon if it hasn't already. This is part of the pervasive egalitarianism in public school systems. We're all childfree here, but if I had a bright child, I'd have to look at educational alternatives. Have to.

This may also be an excuse for the screw you nions to bellyache for more money because 'educational outcomes are drooopppping'.
You average in the tardleighs performance, yeah scores will definitely plummet.
'We neeed more taxpayer money'.

two cents ¢¢

CERTIFIED HOSEHEAD!!!

people (especially women) do not give ONE DAMN about what they inflict on children and I defy anyone to prove me wrong

Dysfunctional relationships almost always have a child. The more dysfunctional, the more children.

The selfish wants of adults outweigh the needs of the child.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed, but some mistakes can be 'fixed'.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. Leo J. Burke

Adoption agencies have strict criteria (usually). Breeders, whose combined IQ's would barely hit triple digits, have none.

Quote
twocents
This may also be an excuse for the screw you nions to bellyache for more money because 'educational outcomes are drooopppping'.
You average in the tardleighs performance, yeah scores will definitely plummet.
'We neeed more taxpayer money'.

This is already happening. The scores of low functioning students are always averaged in with the other kids. That's why test scores are low when compared to other countries. If you sort the students into high, medium and low functioning students and compare their scores with representative students groups from other countries, then the USA is way up there. But that doesn't happen here, because everybody is supposed to be equal, so it's all mixed together. Unlike some other countries, who group their students based on academic ability.

I could also rant on about some states that have explicitly dumbed down their state tests, so all kids pass it, thereby guaranteeing school funding from the Feds, but that is for a different thread.

If I had a kid who was of above-average to gifted intelligence and I wasn't able to raise them where I grew up and attended school, I'd be looking into getting top-notch homeschool tutors. At least the area and county I grew up in has some of the best public schools in the nation and that's because academics take precedence and they're not trying to mainstream the mentally disabled. In fact, there are three tracts for the normal kids: basic, academic, and honors, as well as there being plenty of AP options. And for the STEM-inclined top students, there's a public high school that actually requires one to apply to enter (some students are granted acceptance without applying; I remember getting an acceptance letter from them during 8th grade) and it's one of the top 3 high schools in the country.

At least, that's how it was when I attended school. The "No Child Left Behind" bullshit started ruining the quality education by reducing time for students to learn critical and outside-the-box thinking by teaching for the standardized tests.

------------------------------------------------------------
"Why children take so long to grow? They eat and drink like pig and give nothing back. Must find way to accelerate process..."
- Dr. Yi Suchong, Bioshock

"Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born."
- Garrett Hardin

"I feel like there's a message involved here somehow, but then I couldn't stop laughing at all the plotholes, like the part when North Korea has food."
- Youtube commentor referring to a North Korean cartoon.

"Reality is a bitch when it slowly crawls out of your vagina and shits in your lap."
- Reddit comment

"Bitch wants a baby, so we're gonna fuck now. #bareback"
- Cambion

Oh whatever. Abortion doctors are crimestoppers."
- Miss Hannigan

You should home school if you in fact want to raise brats. The resources to do so can be found on the internetif you but only look.

+++++++++++++

Passive Aggressive
Master Of Anti-brat
Excuses!

Schooling was so horrible by the time I was in high school because of the 'mainstreaming' that it, along with some home issues, made me desperately wish I could go to a boarding prep school. I used to call them up (or go on their websites - way back in 97-98) and order informational packets from them so I could dream about being able to get away and being able to actually learn things.

When I was in 9th grade, I was in a GT/honors English class. HOWEVER, my school was 1) so overcrowded because the booming small town refused to vote in favor of building a bigger highschool that we had some classes in the fucking BATHROOMS and hallways (but damn if they didn't vote to chuck money at the sports team every fucking year) and 2) refused to un-mainstream the sped kyds, that it basically didn't matter that it was a GT class. Kyds were thrown wherever there was an open spot, intellect and ability be damned. We were reading one day, and some girl raised her hand and asked "what does succeeded mean?" I was pissed off enough at this point that I just thought "something you'll never do."

As a tangental rant: This particular high school also had FHA - future "homemakers" of America, aka future SAHMOOOs. The person who ran FHA there was supposed to teach a vocational course, that I signed up for in a different year, but refused to teach us anything about it. Instead, she had us make shit over and over and over for FHA to sell - so they could sit on their asses and do nothing like the future mooos they were. A friend and I got failed because we eventually refused to play her game and retaliated. She forced the entire class to make oatmeal raisin cookies so FHA could sell them for Xmas. My friend and I dumped half a bottle of green coloring in them under the guise of being 'festive' - so imagine what green oatmeal raisin cookies looked like. She was beyond pissed because they were unsellable. We high-fived each other, and enjoyed eating them in front of her for days after. And I probably just outed who I am if anyone was in that class with me, or heard the story around the campus.

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live." - Oscar Wilde

Quote
starlady
Why do I hate the term 'special needs' ?????

I hate it too. Because it sounds so PC and snowflakey?

______________________________________________________
Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car.

Evan Davis