A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott asserts (likely not based on experience):
===================
The problem with "gifted" children tends to be that their
parents, in their zeal to advance their child's intellect,
unconsciously
isolate their gifted children from their peers, usually by focusing on
academics to the exclusion of socialization.

Kids simply do not grow up to be socially isolated all by themselves,
it
takes parental complicity.
==================

First, I don't think you know the difference between "bright" and
"gifted". I have two daughters: one is bright (very right) and the
other is gifted. There's a *huge* difference. Being gifted is, in a
manner of speaking, a disability.

No, it's a gift and a challenge.


Gifted kids view the world through different lenses and their
classmates' impression of them is very similar to their impression of
the child with other cognitive disabilities. In a small elementary
school, both groups of kids are very much alone.

Then the fault lies with the school and the parents involved.

As KMAN points out, kids need peer groups and friends who will invite
them to birthday parties and the like. I can assure you, the
socialization difficulties my daughter had at elementary school had
nothing to do with her parents.

I would expect you to say so. Realize, however, that it may not be so.

Her difficulties were those of a
disabled child.

Nobody said that growing up was easy. That's no reason to isolate anyone,
however.

Once she was in high school, she found like-minded
students. Now that she's at university, she's got a wide social circle.
It's more about having peers that one can relate to than it is about
anything the parent do or do not do.

It's up to you to find her peers if necessary.


--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/3/05 2:23 AM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/1/05 11:23 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Thanks to KMAN:
============
If I may, for many a person with a disability, "handicapped" is like
the
n-word to many a person with black skin. I realize no offense likely
intended frtzw906 :-)
=============

You're right, none intended.

As I was writing, I occasionally was about to write "disabled" but
wasn't sure if that was perhaps the taboo expression. In another
lifetime, I was in the public school system, and was more "aware". Now
I occasionally get caught using n-word equivalencies... Sorry!

It's not the "handicapped" that bothers me...people can be handicapped and I
don't subscribe to the pressure to use "politically correct" speech

It's not about being politically correct. My awakening on this issue comes
simply from listening to people with disabilities and understanding how the
rest of the world views them and how this impacts on the way they view
themselves. I don't know one person with a disability who wants to be
labelled as handicapped. Of course, they would prefer not to have any label
at all. But there are times when it is pragmatically necessary, in which
case, whatever the label, understanding that it is "a person with a
disability" not a "disabled person" makes a huge difference.

It's semantic politically-correct pettifoggery. Disabled people are
disabled.

No, they are people.

It's just a fact of life. They are handicapped. They have a
"disadvantage that makes achievement unusually difficult." It's only a
pejorative term if one uses it in a pejorative context. Otherwise it's
simply a statement of fact couched in a way that is, if anything, supportive
of their disadvantage and it recognizes the fundamental strength of
character that's implicit in their successes.

If they find it important that you don't speak about them as though the
disability IS their identity, rather than a part of who they are, why
deliberately go out of your way? A person with a disability is just that - a
person with a disability. They are not a "disabled person" like some car
than won't run.

Unless one is using it in a pejorative context, saying "That man is black"
or "That woman is Asian" or "That child is Indian" or "That person is
handicapped" is simply a statement of observed reality and ought not be
cause for all this histrionic gum-flapping.

The term "handicapped" is offensive to most people with disabilities, when
you say "person with a handicap" or "handicapped person." Why do out of your
way to use a term that you know offends, when there is no reason you have to
use it?

Engaging in politically corrrect sophistry doesn't help anybody, it just
masks the *real* problem, which is that many people consider the handicapped
(or disabled, or "person with a disability") as somehow inferior to others.

It's not about being politically correct. Language used around people with
disabilities and the way people with disabilities are treated/viewed are not
two phenomena that develop in isolation.

That's not the case. They are not inferior, they are not superior, they are
equal in every way but one: they have a disadvantage that makes achievement
unusually difficult. Lots of people have such disadvantages. Blacks.
Indians. The poor. So what? Big deal. Denying that they are disadvantaged
doesn't help them overcome the disadvantage and help them towards
achievement

I agree with all of the above.

it merely silences the debate because people are too afraid of
being politically incorrect to take ownership of the problems the
disabled/handicapped face in life that each person can help to resolve.

I disagree here. Affording someone the simple respect of acknowledging that
they are first and foremost a person, and using terminologies that do not
offend them, does not silence anyone.

Getting all het-up about calling someone "handicapped" is just a way of
avoiding the issue entirely.

Only in the same way that getting het-up about calling someone a "******" is
just a way of avoiding the issue entirely.

Your position on this makes no sense.

It makes it easy to say "hey, he's not
handicapped and he doesn't need my help" and go on about your life with nary
a thought to how you could ease the burden.

All I've said is that if there is a need to refer to the fact that someone
has a disability, the most respectful way to do so is to say that the are "a
person with a disability" not a "disabled person" and not "handicapped"
since that is a term that is as offensive to a person with a disability as
"******" is to a person who is black.

It also allows people to ignore the issues entirely by claiming that they
don't want to be seen as being insensitive or discriminatory by noticing
someone's disability, so they just *ignore the person entirely.*

Using respectful language has nothing to do with what you are talking about.

What you are talking about here is, however, quite interesting, and if it
were not being spoken in the context of justification for deliberately using
disrespectful language, would be a basis for an important discussion.

If you don't think this is the case, spend a week in a wheelchair sometime.
You become positively invisible.

I have some significant insight into what people with disabilities
experience.

Sorry, but I believe in telling it like it is and facing things directly,
not finding semantic refuges and dodges that allow me to avoid the issues.

Sorry, that's not what I am advocating.

I'm telling you that there are ways of being more respectful to a person
with a disability. That has nothing to do with avoiding issues. You don't
have to call someone who is black a ****** in order to directly face the
issues concerning them.

what
offended me is the compartmentalizing of the handicapped child as a debit to
the system and your presumption that this debit ought to be leveled out by
abusing her sister out of egalitarian zeal.

As to the anecdote in question, you can't begin to imagine how the
hypocrisy of those parents ****ed me off.

There's nothing in the least bit hypocritical about what they did. Their
handicapped child is entitled to a public school education, according to
your own vociferous arguments, and the parents are perfectly entitled to
exercise that right. Her sister, however, is fortunate enough to get a
better, private education at her parents expense, who, by the way are *still
paying for her public school educational right!* Thus, while the bright
sister's private education reduces the burden on the public school system,
thus freeing up resources for other students, her parents are now, in
effect, paying DOUBLE for the handicapped sister's education. What on earth
is your complaint? It's not only no skin off your nose, it's actually
beneficial to the school system as a whole.

Your complaint sounds remarkably like sour grapes to me.

Or you are being incredibly naïve and/or disingenuous.

The outcome of this will be the erosion of funds for the public school
system because support for paying the taxes to sustain public schools will
plummet.

Only if you let it happen. And if it does, what does that tell you about the
value of a public school education?

It tells you that people are selfish.

Moreover, it won't happen because if it was going to happen, it would have
*already happened.* But it's not happening, is it? People still pay taxes
for public schools, and many of them put their kids in private schools
anyway. No big disaster looming. Never has been.

Will be. If you make public school education the sole domain of the poor and
people with disabilities.

The further outcome will be schools that are comprised entirely of the poor
and people with disabilities.

So what? So long as they are receiving a top-notch education funded by the
public

They won't be.

which can afford to provide far more resources to each public school
child than they could before, when children who had the means to get a
private education were forced into the public system, thus clogging it up,
who cares? Think of it as a way of providing much better, specialized
education for those students.

It won't happen. There will be less and less money. It will become like your
plan for health care for the poor...unless a charity provides it, there
won't be any.

And for them to malign the
public system as they were in the process of diminishing it!

How did they "malign" the system? By wishing to give their gifted daughter
an education commensurate with her abilities? By exercising their
handicapped daughter's fundamental right to a public school education while
paying double what you pay for your child? Please enlighten us as to how
they "maligned" the system.

It stills
makes my blood boil! If I were king for a day, private schools would be
on the chopping block.

Why? Because YOU can't afford one for your own kids? You would bind gifted
children, or even ordinary children lucky enough to have wealthy parents to
academic slavery merely in order to assuage your own guilt and anger over
not being able to provide a premium education for your own children?

You are leaping to the faulty conclusion that a publicly funded school is
incapable of serving giften children appropriately.

It's hardly a faulty conclusion. Every study ever done shows that private
school educations are far superior, particularly when it comes to
individualized instruction for the gifted, than public schools.

Whoops, you are getting a bit mixed up.

Those studies don't claim that a publicly funded school is incapable of
serving gifted children appropriately, they claim that they simply aren't
doing so. Obviously, they could, with the right approach and the right
resources.

It's a simple fact that public schools, by their nature, have to provide a
uniform curriculum to every student because there is always insufficient
money, resources and teachers to provide individualized instruction for
gifted students.

So provide what is needed.

Even in the best public systems, which provide special
"charter schools" and special schools for the gifted, the quality of
education is far inferior to a private school education targeted at an
individual student.

And the more public schools become the sole domain of the poor and people
with disabilities, the worse and worse the schools will get, since they will
get less and less resources and less and less funding.

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/5/05 12:51 AM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/3/05 10:14 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself frtzw906 wrote:

KMAN picks up something I missed. Thanks:

As to the other daughter, being gifted, she is unlikely to have as many
problems with socialization


Are you nuts? That's one of the groups that has the most problems with
socialization! Worse than software engineers! (Although sometimes one in
the
same).

It's not the kids who have problems, it's the parents and schools which
create problems.


=========================
Exactly! As I mentioned, one of my daughters fits into the gifted
category. One of the most heart-wrenching experiences for me (I can't
even imagine how it must have been for her!) was picking her up from
school with a couple hundred kids playing on the playground and she,
always, by herself with no friends. High school was a relief. University
has been a godsend for her.
====================

This is why it's imperative that children be carefully socialized very
early, beginning when they are babies and toddlers, so that no matter how
bright they are, they are still well able to communicate and interact with
their peers. The problem with "gifted" children tends to be that their
parents, in their zeal to advance their child's intellect, unconsciously
isolate their gifted children from their peers, usually by focusing on
academics to the exclusion of socialization.

Kids simply do not grow up to be socially isolated all by themselves, it
takes parental complicity.

Actually, once kids reach adolescense, the fact that they were well
socialized at an early age seems to matter very little, in terms of the
experiences of gifted children and children with intellectual disabilities.
The high school experience results in abuse and isolation, even if
physically integrated with other kids.

I'll grant you that high school is a cruel place, but it's a lot less cruel
if a large proportion of the students have grown up with disabled
schoolmates. It takes time, of course, to change the culture.

You won't change the culture by having people with intellectual disabilities
sitting in a classroom while a curriculum targeted at everyone but them is
followed. This just wrongly teaches the other kids that the students with
intellectual disabilities are useless and at best are to be patronized as
pets. To earn the respect of their non-disabled peers they need their own
curriculum tailored to their needs where they can experience and demonstrate
success.

and will experience socialization at her new
school as well, and will receive a better education. Keeping her in
public
school would be unfair to her, particularly so if its done *because* she
has
a disabled sister.


Explain again.

The child who is gifted is better off in a specialized environment with
other people who are gifted, but the child who has a disability is not
better off in a specialized environment with other people who are
disabled.

Why?

=================
Excellent question. Gifted minds need to know.
===============================

Because gifted students need specialized teaching and stimulation to fully
realize their *intellectual* potential.

And you don't think a student with an intellectual disability needs
specialized teaching and stimulation to fully realize his/her intellectual
potential?

I believe I said that just below. However, their needs are different.

Everyone needs a learning program that meets their needs. A high school kid
with an intellectual disability needs a curriculum to prepare them for life
after high school, not wasting time sitting in the back of a chemistry class
picking their nose.

Don't you think it would be even more important for that student
than the student who is gifted, given that the student who is gifted is
likely bound for many more years of formal educational opportunities, where
as the student who has an intellectual disability is likely to complete
their formal education at the end of high school?

It depends in part on the nature of the disability.

I'm talking about intellectual disabilities.


If they are unchallenged by ordinary
educational curricula, they become bored and often disruptive and their
intellect suffers.

What do you think is happening to the intellect of the student with an
intellectual disability who is forced to sit through an irrelevant
curriculum? What do you think is happening to their behaviour? How do you
think it impacts on them to be sitting in a classroom with a curriculum that
doesn't meet their needs, being bored, and being disruptive. Do you think
that earns them a whole pile of non-disabled peers who invite them out on
dates for Saturday night?

Nobody said it was easy. Still, mainstreaming disabled students is better
for them, and for their peers, and for society, than hiding them away in
"special" schools. We tried that model. It doesn't work.

I haven't said a thing about a special school.

And, frankly, the special school model is very old and was done at a time
when a person with an intellectual disability being in school at all was
considered progressive.

Every student needs a curriculum that is right for them. Sticking a kid in a
class that is not intended for their learning needs for five years is just
the pre-abandonment phase for the lousy quality of life that will follow and
the kids they were sitting with have moved on to post-secondary education
and/or jobs.

At the same time, gifted children also need socialization
time with "ordinary" children, so that they can also learn how to come to
grips with their intellect and learn how to integrate into a society that
may try to exclude them out of jealousy or merely because they are the
"green monkey." Gifted children must learn how to put on social camouflage
so that they can associate successfully with those who may not be as
intellectually advanced. But these lessons are much easier for gifted
students to learn, in part because of their intellect, but also because they
can learn to "hide" their intellect when necessary. It's not like being in a
motorized wheelchair or having some physical deformity.

Disabled children also need specialized instruction to help compensate for
their disabilities

If you mean they need learning opportunities that are appropriate to their
needs, that is certainly true.

Yup.

They won't get it sitting in a class with a curriculum that has nothing to
do with their needs or abilities.


but most of all they need socialization with others to
learn the skills of living in the world that they cannot receive in special,
disabled-only classes.

Do you have evidence that they learn these socialization skills through
being placed in classes where the curriculum is directed to everyone but
them?

It depends on the individual student, the particular class, and the specific
needs of the disabled student. It may well require additional teaching aides
to help the disabled student keep up.

Oh, what great socialization that is. So the rest of the class follows the
teacher at the front doing their Grade 12 lessons, and the kid at the back
sits in the corner with a TA doing his Grade 2 lessons. Yessir, that will
develop a profound mutual respect and open up all sorts of social
opportunities.

It may require special teaching
techniques and tools. It may even require modifying the *whole* curriculum
so that the "normal" students participate in ways which help the disabled
students through. Peer mentoring has had some success.

Ah, yes, the kids that are trying to get an A in Grade 12 chemistry so they
can get into college will have their curriculum altered, and the teacher
will stray from the curriculum to take time to include the kid with the
intellectual disability. It's no problem if the chemistry curriculum doesn't
get done and the kids don't get into college. Nobody will mind.

It's a matter of tailoring the classroom to the students, not tailoring the
students to the classroom, which is a fundamental paradigm shift for most
public schools.

Good luck with that. As early as Grade 9 high school kids are being hammered
(as are their teachers) with the need for high grades to get into college.
That's what high school is for most students - preparation for the next
stage of schooling. For students who aren't going on to post-secondary
education, they need their own curriculum to prepare them for their own next
step, not a watered down peanut gallery version of somebody else's
curriculum.


In such classes, what socialization they learn is how
to interact socially with other disabled children, not with everybody else.

You might want to learn more about what goes on when students with
intellectual disabilities are placed in the mainstream classes, and see if
the results are as you expect.

You might want to not make assumptions about what I know about the subject.

Well, you are so far off in dreamland (for a guy who loves to acuse others
of utopian thinking) that you clearly need a reality check.


What most students with intellectual disabilities need more than anything is
a peer group, just like the rest of us sought out in high school. They want
peers they can relate to and they want friends - real friends - who spend
time with them on weekends and during the summer.

Yup. I agree. And they find those peer groups not just among the disabled,
but among ordinary students in a non-discriminatory environment.

You aren't going to find that sitting in the Grade 12 chemistry class,
sticking out like a sore thumb and being humiliated by an environment that
has no relevance to you.

They also need a curriculum that meets their needs - learning how to use the
public transportation system and how to manage money.

Yup, but not until they are older. We're talking about young children here,
remember.

I'm talking about high school. I told you some time ago that "mainstreaming"
works quite well until about the end of elementary school.

The need help with the
challenge of a world that deals in abstraction, places importantance on
sequencing, requires the ability to read the emotional states of others, and
the ability to understand various social contexts and apply appropriate
behaviours - all areas where people with intellectual disabilities
experience severe learning difficulties.

Yup. No argument there. They do need help in those areas beyond what an
ordinary student would.

And they won't get it in the mainstream high school class, where the kids
are being prepared for the next step in their formal education.


None of that is taught in a Grade 12 chemistry class,

Correct. What's taught in Chemistry is chemistry. Plenty of disabled
students are capable of learning chemistry. Physics, too. Just look at
Stephen Hawking.

Stephen Hawking does not have an intellectual disability. I haven't been
talking about people with physical disabilities. Obviously there's no reason
why a student with a physical disability who has the same or higher
intellect than the other students in the Grade 12 chemistry class should not
be a competent and contributing member of that class just like anyone else
with those intellectual abilities.

and in fact, you
probably could not come up with a more cruel environment.

Learning to deal with peer cruelty is also a necessary skill.

Spend some time talking with kids who have been through it and see if they
learned that skill, or if instead they developed mental health issues that
ended up being more of a barrier for them than the intellectual disability
itself. Talk to the parents of those kids when their kids are in their 30s
and 40s and still haven't recovered from the damaged suffered.

The high school environment holds little relevancy for life after high
school. It's not worth deliberately forcing suffering on people just so they
can experience the suffering, given that they aren't going to experience the
special brand of high school suffering ever again.

I submit very
little is being taught about socialization either.

That may be true, but that is the fault of the educators and the people who
oversee them (like the parents) not the student. So fix the problem.

You could fix the problem by changing the purpose of high school for all the
kids, accomplished by elminating post-secondary education and competitive
employment.

What is happening is the
kid with the disabilitiy is picking his nose and playing with his pecker,
which is in my view a toally appropriate response to being in an environment
that has absolutely no relevance, and an environment where everyone else
there can see that you are totally out of place and is reaching all sorts of
disparaging conclusions about you.

I find the way that you stereotype all "kids with disabilities." Very
diverse of you.

I'm talking about students with intellectual disabilitiesin high school, and
have been throughout.

This leaves them with a deficit that can cripple them for life, not just
physically or mentally, but socially. It leads to feelings of exclusion and
isolation because they never have the opportunity to meet and make friends
with non-disabled children.

Do you have evidence that this happens as a result of being placed in the
mainstream classroom?

Sure. It happens all the time.

How do you know?

To develop a friendship, mutual respect is required. It's hard to develop
the respect of your non-disabled peers if you are sitting in algebra class
doing self-stimulation to pass the time as concepts totally irrelevant to
you and of no benefit to your future are discussed, and the rest of the
class points at you and comes up with insulting nicknames.

Stereotyping. What about the "disabled" kid who is perfectly normal
intellectually

Obviously that's not who I am talking about. Give me a break.

but was paralyzed in a car accident and can't move anything
below her neck? Do you think she is going to be "self-stimulating" rather
than learning algebra?

You really need to examine your anti-disability prejudices a bit.

You need to stop being disingenuous. You know that's not who I am talking
about.


Hiding the disabled away is also harmful to non-disabled children.

I agree. Don't hide them. Give them a curriculum that meets their needs and
make sure that their achievements are celebrated as loudly and proudly as
anyone else in the school.

You falsely presume that the only curriculum that they "need" is specialized
life-skills training.

I never said that.

Disabled kids need to learn math, science, english and
all the things any child needs to learn.

Yes.

Yes, they may need MORE help, and specialized life-skills training *in
addition* to their regular schooling, but that doesn't mean they should be
excluded from mainstream society.

I want them included in mainstream society. This is accomplished by having a
curriculum that meets their needs, rather than sitting them in a Grade 12
chemistry class that is going to be of no benefit to having a better quality
of life when school is out. If they can't go anywhere because they can't use
the bus, can't buy anything because they can't use money, and have no social
life because they have no friends, then I submit that whatever else they
were doing was a complete waste of time.

It only
exacerbates the "green monkey" syndrome and makes it much harder for
non-disabled children to accept those who are different. It is to everyone's
benefit that children be required to associate with and create relationships
with disabled children as early as possible. The earlier the better, before
prejudices, bigotry and bias rear their ugly heads.

This works quite well in elementary school, but starting in middle school
and by the time of high school it doesn't work,

I disagree. How well it works in high school depends entirely on how much
importance parents, teachers, students and the community as a whole puts on
tolerance, diversity and empathy for the disabled.

None of that helps a bit. There is no way to make Grade 12 chemistry
relevant for a person with an intellectual disability who still needs to
learn how to make change for a 20. It doesn't do a thing for either the
"regular" student or the "disabled" student to share a classroom environment
where it is obvious to all concerned that the student with a disability is
just filling up space.

and part of the reason is
simply that for the non-disabled students, the purpose of high school is to
move on to the next academic step (university or college) which is not the
destination for students with intellectual disabilities.

Most high schools are little more than a 4 year holding pattern wherein
children go through puberty and learn social skills. That being the case,
one of the skills they need to learn is how to get along with the disabled.
If they don't learn it then, they will grow up to be bigoted, intolerant
"abilitists" who stereotype, demean and marginalize the disabled.

That's exactly what they learn through mainstreaming, which is forcing the
person with a disability into an environment that does not meed their needs,
and puts them through 4 or 5 years of humiliation as everyone pretends they
are included in a curriculum that is totally irrelevant to their needs.

They need a
curriculum that is focused on giving them the most tools possible to enjoy a
meaningful and contributing existence in the post-school world. Sitting in
classrooms and spacing out while someone else's curriculum is delivered
won't accomplish this.

Stereotyping.

If you were reading at a Grade 2 level and still learning how to break a 20,
what would you do during algebra class? I'd space out as far as I could. Or
worse, I'd act out and do whatever I could to communicate "get me the hell
out of here." And that's what happens, one or the otther, or both. Does
wonders for socialization, yessir.


Ensuring an inclusive school environment for all is very important, but
putting kids with disabilities into a classroom that is delivering a
curriculum that does not meet their needs for the misguided purpose of
offering "socialization" is a fool's game.

No, it's a game of compassion and diversity that every child needs to learn,
if for no other reason than the "there but by the grace of God go I" lesson.

You won't teach it or learn it by sticking someone in an environment that
does nothing to meet their needs.

And it is the person with the
disability that suffers.

Not necessarily. Not if the community is compassionate and supportive.

If you compassionaltely and supportively force someone to endure a totally
irrelevant environment, they still suffer.

Now, if you are talking about a person who happens to use a wheelchair but
is perfectly capable of benefitting from the Grade 12 chemistry curriculum,
then by all means, that's where they belong, not in some separate classroom
doing the same work but separated from their non-disabled peers.

The problem with your argument is that it makes grossly erroneous
presumptions about "the disabled" and their abilities.

No, it doesn't. It speaks what they have to say for themselves. Sit down
with people with intellectual disabilities who endured mainstreaming in high
school and ask them about it. Try to find out what they learned. Ask them
how many friends they have from those mainstream classes.

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/5/05 1:06 AM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:


"BCITORGB" wrote in message
oups.com...
Scott demonstrates that he's never spent any time in a school classroom
as an adult:
====================
And mainstreaming also places an undue and, at times, unfair burden
on
teachers and classmates.

Only if you believe that providing a proper educational and social
environment for someone who is already facing an enormous uphill battle
just
to survive is an "undue burden." Most people, and certainly most
socialist
egalitarianists, believe that helping the disabled is not an "undue
burden"
but is rather a mitzvah and a gift, and an opportunity to show charity
and
love and empathy and concern for those less fortunate, and a teachable
moment particularly for children (as well as ignorant, bigoted adults)
wherein the intrinsic value of every human being can be demonstrated
and the
rewards of altruistic service to others taught to impressionable youth.

====================

Scott, if you're trying to teach a lesson in arithmetic to a class of
Grade 3 pupils and are repeatedly disrupted by random vocal and
physical outbursts the, yes, that's an undue burden. A burden on the
teachers and the majority of the pupils, who, I might add, also have a
right to an education individualized so as to maximize THEIR learning.

You pose an interesting dilemma. You veer away from the line taken by
most right-wing critics of the educational system. Most such critics
make the case that far too much time is taken up with mamby-pamby, soft
stuff like socialization, and that not enough hard-core maths, science,
reading et al are taught. So, we need to decide, during math class,
should the primary focus be on the teaching of maths or should we
repeatedly take time out for "socializing" whenever we get a random,
irrelevant outburst?

I'm sympathetic to the socialization argument. To a point. Once the
socialzation becomes an undue burden to the teachers and other pupils
(when their freedoms are being violated), then, I think, we've had
enough.

frtzw908

If I may, rather than focusing on the "burden on the teacher angle" let's
look at who it is for...students. If you are teaching Grade 6 math so that
students will be prepared for Grade 7 math, but you have 3 students with
intellectual disabilities in the class for "mainstreaming" purposes who are
still at a Grade 1 math level and trying to get to Grade 2, who is it that
the teacher is going to appropriately serve all of those needs?

Hire another teacher or put the disabled students in a Grade 1 math class.

Um. Right. You need to give the students with disabilities instruction that
meets their needs. Which is why mainstreaming them in a Grade 6 class makes
no sense.

Thanks for finally getting it!!!

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/3/05 2:27 AM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/1/05 11:26 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:


"BCITORGB" wrote in message
oups.com...
Thanks to KMAN:
============
If I may, for many a person with a disability, "handicapped" is like
the
n-word to many a person with black skin. I realize no offense likely
intended frtzw906 :-)
=============

You're right, none intended.

As I was writing, I occasionally was about to write "disabled" but
wasn't sure if that was perhaps the taboo expression. In another
lifetime, I was in the public school system, and was more "aware". Now
I occasionally get caught using n-word equivalencies... Sorry!

As to the anecdote in question, you can't begin to imagine how the
hypocrisy of those parents ****ed me off. And for them to malign the
public system as they were in the process of diminishing it! It stills
makes my blood boil! If I were king for a day, private schools would be
on the chopping block. [I might be persuaded that "choice" in education
*might* be a good thing through some sort of voucher system so long as
-- ditto the medicare program -- nobody could spend more than the
voucher amount. I'd have to think this one through.]

frtzw906

The challenge is to promote flexibility and excellence in education without
ending up with nothing but elite schools for the gifted/rich and slums for
everyone else.

Well, the free market, combined with stipends for the genuinely poor solves
that problem.

It won't work. The amount of the stipend is obviously going to have limits,
and the amount of taxes the free market payers are going to want to
contribute to those vouchers is going to be next to nothing.

Not unless society as a whole decides to abandon the poor, which is
unlikely. If they were going to do so, they would have done so by now. You
imply that contributing to public school education is optional or voluntary.
I never suggested any such thing. I suggest that the stipend be based on
need, and that it come from taxes that are levied equally on all, to reduce
the burden to any individual as much as possible. Even the selfish rich
would be unlikely to complain about a few dollars, or even a few hundred
dollars in additional sales taxes paid to fund public schools.

Schools in poor areas are already not getting the funding and resources they
need. Poor people are already being abandoned, and what you are advocating
only makes it easier to do so.



However, in the present system, if "slum schools" happen, the blame falls on
the government, not on the parents who put their children in private
schools...while usually simultaneously paying for a by-right public school
education for the same students.

The fact is that the more students who are moved to private schools, the
more money and resources available to those remaining in public schools.
What on earth could be wrong with that?

What's wrong with that is it is total crap.

You don't know that.

Sure I do.

You merely assume it because you have no faith that the
people will be willing to tax themselves to achieve it. Problem is, they
ALREADY ARE. If they can get a better education for their children, while
providing a better education for poor children for the same amount, or less,
than they are now paying for a public school education, why wouldn't they?

Because they won't want to pay for something they aren't using. They aren't
willing to pay enough for decent public schools now...you think their
interest will go UP when public schools become the sole domain of the poor
and people with disabilities?

The only real difference in the money stream is that the money goes with the
child, not to the district. In this way, the educational system has
something to compete for, which always results in a better product.

What a joke. I have to admit, when I was in my early 20s I used to think a
bit like you. The world doesn't work that way. Grow up.

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/5/05 1:17 AM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:


"BCITORGB" wrote in message
oups.com...
Scott texplains:
=================
The whole reason that "mainstreaming" is being mandated in many places
is
precisely BECAUSE of the sort of attitude that you demonstrate that the
disabled are a "burden" on society, which is the same thing as saying
they
are worthless, unworthy and ought to be hidden away someplace where we
don't
have to look at them and don't have to deal with them, and don't have
to
expose our children to them.
===================

I demonstrate *no* attitude. So far I have described actual events. You
have advocated shunning PC language in favor of "telling it like it
is". That's all I've done.

I didn't say anything at all about "burden on society". You chose to
read that into my comments. Please recall, that's what you admonish
others for.

I said they were, in some instances, a burden on the learning
environment in classrooms. They inhibit the ability of other pupils to
learn (and the ability of the teacher to teach). Further, as KMAN
points out, the mainstreamed classroom may be completely inappropriate
for the child with disabilities as well. His description of "nose
picking and pecker player" was particularly poignant, because I've seen
both.

I stand by my statement "they are, in some instances, a burden on the
learning environment in classrooms." I challenge you to demonstrate
otherwise.

frtzw906

I guess one issue with phrasing it that way is that a learning environment
is for learners (all of them).

What is really happening is that the Grade 6 class is designed to deliver a
curriculum to advance the Grade 6 students to Grade 7. This means that if
you have people working at a Grade 1 level, they are being denied an
appropriate curriculum, and any efforts to provide them an appropriate
curriculum will in turn deny the Grade 6 students what they need.

What it all boils down to is everyone should have a curriculum that meets
their needs.

In this we can agree. I never suggested that disabled students should be
"socially promoted." I find "social promotion" to be extremely harmful. I
know, I'm a victim of that system. I was "socially promoted" in math, even
after I *begged* to be kept back so I could learn the basics.

As a result, my math skills are abysmal.

I "skipped a grade" and was also put in an "enrichment" class. Had similar
problems...I had strong communication abilities and was able to (not
deliberately) fool all sorts of teachers into thinking I was further ahead
in math and science. They always felt I was "underachieving" in those
subjects. But what happened was I missed out on learning a lot of
fundamentals by moving ahead too quickly. I taught myself the fundamentals
as an adult because I wanted to be able to teach them to others. My math is
pretty decent now, but I wouldn't be teaching a physics class :-)

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 4/3/05 2:43 AM:

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott figures:
===========
It's not the "handicapped" that bothers me...people can be handicapped
and I don't subscribe to the pressure to use "politically correct"
speech, what
offended me is the compartmentalizing of the handicapped child as a
debit to the system and your presumption that this debit ought to be
leveled out by
abusing her sister out of egalitarian zeal.
=========

OK. in my anecdote, there was the need for brevity. To fully explain
the hypocrisy: here's the rest of the story.

The parents in question have a province-wide reputation as advocates
for the disabled. A cause celebre for them is school mainstreaming of
disabled pupils.

OK, so given their passion for this cause, they then remove their
bright daughter to an elite private school that does not admit pupils
with disabilities.

Um, is this true? I find that extremely hard to believe, particularly in
Canada, because even here in the USA, it's illegal to discriminate on the
basis of physical disability. I sort of imagined it as being a hanging
offense in Canada.

Actually, Scott, you'll be happy to know (I assume) that in many ways the US
is well ahead of Canada in terms of the rights of people with disabilities.

I'm not sure, but BCITORGB might be talking about intellectual disabilities,
rather than physical disabilities.

As I recall, their "rationale" for doing so was that
there were too many ESL students in the public school their daughters
were attending.

"ESL" meaning "handicapped" I presume?

English as a Second Language.

Surely, if "mainstreaming" is good for the goose, it
ought also to be good for the gander.

That's why it was hypocritical.

Hm. Well, given what you say, I'd say they were being perfectly consistent
with their beliefs and advocacy. They are "mainstreaming" their disabled
daughter, just as they argue ought to be done. Clearly they *could* provide
the very best individual, specialized care and education for their disabled
child, but choose instead to keep her in public school in order to "walk the
walk" and demonstrate that disabled children can be "mainstreamed." I laud
them for standing by their principles.

On the other hand, their gifted daughter evidently needs a more
intellectually stimulating environment to reach her full potential, so they
decided not to stint on her education by keeping her in private school.

I see no hypocrisy at all. I see rational judgment and a concern both for
their children and other disabled children, because they evidently genuinely
feel that the public school environment provides a SUPERIOR educational AND
SOCIAL environment for their disabled daughter. I happen to agree with them.

But...that's the very nature of the hypocrisy.

They want a generalized environment for one daughter, and a specialized
environment for the other.

Without commenting on which type of environment would be most beneficial for
either of these individuals, I do find the behaviour of the parents
hypocritical.

Putting disabled children in "special ed" programs, even very good ones,
isolates them from society and from their peers, and it leaves them in the
lurch when it comes to the necessary socialization skills they can only
learn when interacting with other non-disabled children.

There are different forms of isolation, and there are lots of interesting
articles and first hand accounts you might want to explore regarding the
experiences of people with disabilities in "mainstreaming."

It is also important to realize that the school environment is a temporary
environment, and there is life after school. "Mainstreaming" usually means
that a person with a disability (one with an intellectual disability) is
simply filling up space in a classroom with a curriculum that is not meant
for nor meeting their needs.

"Mainstreaming" is
specifically intended to get disabled children out of isolation and get them
involved in the community and society, where they can both learn to cope
with their disabilities in the real world as well as learn to make friends
and dispel prejudices and preconceptions that are often part and parcel of
"normal" childhood experience when "normal" children are isolated from the
disabled. Anything that leads towards the understanding that the disabled
are not "freaks" of some kind is good, and I applaud these parents for
sticking with it.

There's little evidence that "mainstreaming" accomplishes any of what you
think it does. But without getting into that, I'm confused by your position
about what the parents did.

If mainstreaming is all about people with all different abilities spending
time together, then how is pulling their bright daughter out of the
mainstream consistent with that belief?

As to the other daughter, being gifted, she is unlikely to have as many
problems with socialization

Are you nuts? That's one of the groups that has the most problems with
socialization! Worse than software engineers! (Although sometimes one in the
same).

and will experience socialization at her new
school as well, and will receive a better education. Keeping her in public
school would be unfair to her, particularly so if its done *because* she has
a disabled sister.

Explain again.

The child who is gifted is better off in a specialized environment with
other people who are gifted, but the child who has a disability is not
better off in a specialized environment with other people who are disabled.

Why?

don't you guys knwo how to edit out old verbiage?

Stephen Hawking does not have an intellectual disability. I haven't been

He was in no way disabled as a child.

I disagree with forcing kids to "socialize". It can be terribly traumatic
to an intelligent sensitive mind. If a kid want's to be alone with his or
her thoughts then leave him or her be.

I also don't agree with focdign people of any age to take certified
paddling instrctions.

It's all a plot by busy bodies who want to control other people's lives
because they are such failures in their own lives. It's the same reason
peopel who can't solve thier own mental problems become clinical
psychologists.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm
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Scott proposes a model tat contradicts earlier comments:
==================
It depends on the individual student, the particular class, and the
specific
needs of the disabled student. It may well require additional teaching
aides
to help the disabled student keep up. It may require special teaching
techniques and tools. It may even require modifying the *whole*
curriculum
so that the "normal" students participate in ways which help the
disabled
students through. Peer mentoring has had some success.
==============

I'm not entirely opposed to this. However, may I remind you that you
thought it entirely appropriate for wealthy parents, of brighter kids,
to take those kids out of the public school environment. Your point was
that they have every obligation to look after the best interests of
their child.

Let's go with that proposition.

What if I decide that it is NOT in my child's best interests to mentor
someone else? You claim the move to a private school, to "escape" the
public school environment, is appropriate for wealthy people. Where's
my child's right to "escape" and to have an individualized curriculum?

frtzw906

Scott:
=============
I find the way that you stereotype all "kids with disabilities." Very
diverse of you.
===========

This sort of nit-picking does nothing to advance the discussion. Given
the context of the thread thus far, we all know full well the nature of
the disability KMAN is referring to.

frtzw906