The Blog I'm Not Writing

Department of Nine Out of Ten Psychologists Agree…

…that turning to familiar (“comfort”) activities in stressful times is an adaptive behavior.  Which partially explains why moiself  recently rewatched one of my favorite movies, Tootsie.  But really – who needs an excuse to watch that classic – which is perennially near the top of the American Film Institute’s list of best comedies – about a neurotic, out-of-work actor who becomes a better man after putting himself, figuratively and literally, in a woman’s shoes?

For y’all who haven’t seen the movie WTF is wrong with you ?!?!?!. ,  here’s a brief recap of what has led up to the movie’s final scene, which has one of the best ever, IMO, dialog endings of a movie.

 

 

 

Michael Dorsey is speaking with Julie Nichols, his fellow actor on a popular TV soap opera, where he pretended to be a female actor (“Dorothy Michaels”) playing a female character on the show.  Michael left the show after his dramatic, on-air revelation that he, a man, was in fact playing Dorothy Michaels.  Several weeks later, Michael has caught up with Julie outside the TV studio and tries to make small talk with her.  She blows him off until he drops his guard about why he did what he did.  Michael has fallen in love with Julie, while Julie, believing Dorothy was a woman, befriended Dorothy and came to deeply care for her as a friend and mentor, confidant, and even a mother figure.

Michael:
I just did it for the work; I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.
Especially you.

Julie (after a long pause, whispers):
I miss Dorothy.

Michael:
You don’t have to.  She’s right here, and she misses you.

Look, you don’t know me from Adam, but…I was a better man with you, as a woman… than I ever was with a woman, as a man.  You know what I mean?
I just gotta learn to do it without the dress.”

 

 

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Department Of Questions With No Simple Answers

A little while back, moiself  read a post on a community social media bulletin board (the post in its entirety can be read in my longest blog footnote ever     [1]).   The poster wrote about her child’s school district’s proposal to bus children from one grade school to another one, to create a Life Skills classroom for special needs children. The poster adamantly insisted that all students be mainstreamed and was strongly against the proposal (as in, if you hold a different opinion, to quote her directly,  you are wrong!).

After reading the post my first thought was rapidly followed by a bajillion others, all of which kept coming back to this:  I have a feeling that this issue is more complicated than the poster made it out to be.  [2]   Will the well-meaning people on all sides of this issue be able to listen to one another with open hearts and minds?

Moiself  is no longer a parent with children in primary schools; thus, I’m not familiar with the current educational strategies for students with special needs/cognitive and emotional disabilities.  I *am* familiar with human nature, and so I’m crossing my fingers (but not holding my breath) that reason and compassion and open minds will prevail over Possibly Misguided-But-Good-Hearted-Intentions ®.

 

 

This issue is often referred to as mainstreaming vs. special or adaptive education.  Probably not a good idea to phrase it adversarial terms; it’s a not one size fits all subject, and each Special Needs Child ( acronym-ed here as SNC – I will be using the vocabulary used by others, although I’m not fond of that term ) is an individual, not part of some apocryphal, Special Needs Child Community® .  But, society being what it is, students can seemingly be pitted against one another when it comes to funding educational programs.

Both MH and I volunteered in our offsprings’ classrooms in their K-8 years (and MH in high school).  [3]   I’ve some opinions on this issue based on (1) what I saw/dealt with in the classrooms, (2) what my offspring shared with me, and (3) what some concerned (and sometimes frustrated) teachers confided to me.

First of all, there’s the poster’s lofty proclamation that “…your children learn compassion, kindness, and acceptance” by being in a class with SNC  (“who struggle to fit into the educational environment due to their unique and personal disability needs”) kids.  Yeah…maybe…sometimes.  But why do some adults seem to forget or discount how downright nasty children can be to other children?

 

 

 

In Belle’s kindergarten class there were two SNC children who were mainstreamed at their respective parents’ insistence.  My heart broke for one in particular, when, after repeatedly seeing his inappropriate behavior during recess,   [4]   I (privately and discretely) asked The Teacher®  about him.  TT®  had tried to get him help, but was dealing with the fact that he, along with another SNC child, was taking up so much of her class time…she knew it was unfair to the other kids, but even though it was “just” kindergarten, he was behind in so many areas….

I saw a similar dynamic in Belle’s first grade classroom.  Again, as a classroom volunteer, I discretely asked The Teacher®  for tips as to how to deal with a certain student during the reading groups I was leading.    [5]  He was disruptive to say the least, and the other students’ frustration with him was growing – it was *their* time he was disrupting, as well as his own.  And TT®, sadly and discretely, told me that she had at least five students who needed their own (as in, one-on-one monitoring) classroom aide, but only one of those students had an aide.  She then surprised me by apologizing to me for what, given the realities of the classroom, my daughter Belle was missing out on.  She explained it to me thusly:  by being one of the “smart” students (as in, hardworking, able to stay on task, eager to learn),  Belle didn’t get the attention *she* deserved – and still needed no matter how smart she was, by virtue of being a first grader – because of all the time that the teacher had to spend trying to keep the SNC students on track (or at least to try and quell the disruptions).

The teacher shared this privately, but it was no secret.  Even at age six the students had more social awareness than many adults gave them credit for – and their resentment (of their share of their teacher’s time and attention being spent on SNCs ) was palpable.

 

 

You know the thing that adults do with (so many issues, but in particular) regard to SNC – the trying-not-to-say-what-they-are-saying?  The euphemisms change every five years or so, but I saw that what was true when I was in second grade was still the case when my kids were:

  You can call the reading Groups A, B or C,
or The Red Group and The Green Group and The Blue Group,
or The Eagles and The Hawks and The Ospreys, or whatever….

Pick your code of choice, it doesn’t matter.  You and other adults may never use the words  (“the smart/advanced/gifted” groups and the “slower/special/challenged” groups); you may even banish such terms and labels from your classroom, but guess what?  The kids still figure it out.  And they don’t necessarily apply the terms in a negative way, but simply as another way of noticing who does and who is what.  Kids will do the seemingly instinctive, self-descriptive, sorting that kids do:

* I have blue eyes like my mom; I’m allergic to nuts;
I suck at jump rope; I’m in the advanced math group;

* I like kittens and puppies; I don’t like spelling tests;
I’m good at kickball; I’m a middle reader;

* I’m tallest in my class, I like reptiles and parrots;
I’m a fast runner; I’m in the slow math group…

 

 

There is an unintentionally cruel side to mainstreaming, that Belle’s kindergarten teacher described in a way that almost broke my heart, when she talked to me about the disruptive child I previously mentioned.  The child was frustrated; he was soooo much slower (in every way – speech; vocabulary, physical coordination; emotional self-regulation…)  than the other kids.  And his developmental delays were obvious to him, as well as to his classmates.

If the boy could have been in a class with other students at the same skills and maturity level he could, on some days and in some situations, excel, and maybe even have a turn at being on top.  He might learn to enjoy school and learning.  But by mainstreaming him, at least at his particular age, he was always going to be at the bottom of the heap, and school (and by extension, academics and learning) was going to be a painful reminder of that, for him.

 

 

Oy vey…I don’t know.  What a dilemma.

I have been fortunate. Through an inscrutable combination of luck…

* The genetic lottery?
Our kids’ respective,  “natural” or inborn temperaments and interests?

…and intention

* Mindful parenting? The history, on both sides of MH’s and moiself’s’ families,
of education being cherished, valued, and enjoyed?

…navigating the world of SNC has not been my parental row to hoe.

And I have felt the shame of resenting the SNC whose overwhelming needs/deficits took time away from other students; I have justified my resentment about the time and resources taken away from the others – aren’t all kids supposed to be *special* ?!?! –  when I saw how my own and other supposedly “gifted” kids didn’t have enough to challenge them, when they were given busy-work that bored them…or were given the label “gifted” with no accompanying programs or opportunities because, as one teacher told me, they didn’t have the resources ( several other parents of a child who’d tested gifted told me that they’d been told by their child’s teachers that getting SNC students up to grade level was prioritized over keeping the “higher level” students engaged)….    [6] 

I have seen and felt the teachers’ genuine devotion to and concern for their SNC students, when it seemed obvious to me that the kids were not only falling behind the rest of the class, but, worst of all, seemed genuinely *miserable.*  How could that kind of mainstreaming be in those children’s best interest?   [7]   

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

 

 

*   *   *

May you menfolk “learn to do it without the dress”
(or hey, with the dress, if that floats your boat);
May we mindfully navigate the pitfalls of educational good intentions;
May we rejoice in knowing there’s less than 17 weeks until Exploding Whale Day ;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1]  “Local Friends and neighbors…. Please read and share my thoughts on this important change coming to our grade school! I am so mad, so sad and so very disappointed in this proposed change….

Our grade school is planning some really big changes that you may think does not impact you or your children, but you are wrong! The benefits that your children gain by having their friends and neighbors who struggle to fit into the educational environment due to their unique and personal disability needs are enormous. Your children learn compassion, kindness, and acceptance by just including those who do not learn as they do. We all have differences, and we need to learn to live together and accept one another. Not to exclude those who are different but to include them. Our society pushes those who do not fit into the traditional learning model out of society because they have been taught to do so by school programs such as these. This is not necessary! Please come to the meeting and say “NO!” Not at our school.

They are proposing bussing children in from ______(location redacted) grade school to _____(location redacted) to create a “Life Skills” classroom. I can tell you from experience that no life skills will be taught here, this is a place to put our children who are different so that they do not impact the learning of those around them. This is happening because our district has hired a Special Education Director who has absolutely zero experience with anyone who has special needs. This Director was head of a high school TAG program with no experience on how to support someone with high sensory needs so that they can learn alongside their peers and not be segregated and separate. I have heard rumors that they have allowed the placement of a 4th grade student to the preschool classroom to “hang out” for the day because they do not know how to support this individual. We need to hire someone who can support our children so that they can be accepted and included into society, not shoved into a separate room and forgotten about by their friends and neighbors.

Please come with me and help me tell the school district that we do not want this change! Keep our children at their local community schools. All children deserve an education alongside their peers regardless of their disability. Ask them instead to please hire experts who can teach from experience how best to support our children where they are because their lives are valuable too. Children with disabilities deserve an education alongside their peers at their local community schools and the other children deserve to know them, to be friends with them. This is a disservice to our entire community, not just the few children that are bussed in and forgotten about. This impacts all of us.”

[2] and I confess that I have not seen any follow-up reporting (nor read the comments) on the issue.

[3] With the exception of K’s first grade teacher, who made it clear that she did *not* want parent volunteers in her classroom.  She told me that, in her experience, she ended up spending too much time tutoring certain parents – and she couldn’t tell who were the quick learners and self-starters among them and it was difficult, once you had a parent volunteer and realized, “I’m going to have to hold this one’s hand,” to find a genteel way to “fire” them…so she found it easier not to have any at all and thus not have to make those distinctions and be accused of favoritism, etc.

[4] Read:  out of the blue/apropos-of -nothing, * violence* toward a classmate.

[5]  Reading select books to students, five students per group.

[6] Some administrators in our local school district apparently thought that parents would be placated by the Gifted label, even though there was no corresponding change in instruction or programs or opportunities offered for the gifted.  When I discovered that reality, I told son K’s teacher I didn’t want him tested for the program if there was no point to it – they weren’t going to pacify us with a feel-good label (and she told me, in confidence, that she fully agreed…then went ahead and had him tested anyway.)

[7] One of those kids was a girl in my son’s 3^rd grade class.  I knew some particulars of her family life, and saw how lost and spacy she seemed  (her bio dad, along with a series of “mommy’s boyfriends,” passed through a revolving door between jail and her mother’s house, and her mother had been doing drugs while pregnant with her).  I was a math aide in that class; after noting the girl’s consistently abysmal worksheets and test results on the most basic of arithmetic skills, I asked the teacher if I might offer to tutor the girl after class.  I think the girl trusted me; after noticing how her classmates scorned and/or ignored her, I’d made it a point to always greet her during my volunteer shifts and find something nice to say to her.  The only time I saw a light in her eyes, which were consistently dull and glazed,  was when I complimented her (ratty, faced) red high-top sneakers.  The teacher had tears in her eyes when she told me that she so appreciated my volunteering to tutor the girl, but that the suggestion had already been offered, *several times* by both the teacher herself and other teachers and classroom volunteers.  The girl’s mother had vehemently refused (and seemed to resent) all offers:  Her daughter was going to be in the age-appropriate grade, and that was that.

[8] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org