Special Ed- Would it have made a difference?

[imagesbyholly]

@Girl Incognito- I was suicidal from fourth grade on. I didn't have enough visible academic trouble in school for anyone to consider placing me in any kind of special program, and I was exceptional in language arts. But I would have benefitted from a school that was small, focused in letting students emphasize their strengths, and where the teachers somehow were able to instill kindness and prevent bullying. The bullying, feelings of aloneness and being constantly overwhealmed, and academic struggles in math all contributed to my being suicidal. I was too afraid to ever actually try to kill myself, but I fantasized about it and desperately wanted to die. It was so miserable. My grade was very cruel. Funny though, my husband's grade (below mine) was generally pretty nice and accepting, and people didn't really get bullied. I guess it just depends.

It is so great when I hear about parents and students finding a great school/ program that really works for them. We don't have any options here for our kids besides a low performing, gang ridden school system and no money for private. So, we educate our children at home with great curriclum for $500 a year, approx., for four kids tot through 2nd grade. It's going really great, and our very large home education support group has organized a co-op that meets on Fridays with four classes for the students to rotate through, plus nursery and pre-k. I'd be glad to answer any questions if someone is considering this as a possibility. None of my children are diagnosed with anything, but my oldest has tendancies like I did as a child. She is sparkling in home school though, loves math and is FINALLY reading (my second oldest was reading before her) and is making friends!

 

[imagesbyholly]

@Soup- Jethro Tull! My husband loves Jethro Tull, and constantly played him when we were teenagers in the late '90's. Different generation, but same taste in music! Cool beans.

 

[Nolan1971]

It made a life changing difference for me! I was in special ed classes on & off from 3rd to 9th grade where I went to a special ed only high school
which I loved. The class size was only 6-8 students which I really liked. It was a perfect acceptance atmosphere no matter what your disorder might be.
It was the very first school where I felt the teachers really cared about us. Two of the most important people in my life came from my 4yrs there my
best friend/brother Rich & my ex-wife Amy. I have no doubt that if I had gone to a regular high school I would have dropped out around the 9th grade.

 

[Soup]

So much seems to depend upon the quality of the schools, the type of classroom atmosphere, what the 'special needs' classes offer & what other alternatives are out there. Home schooling can be a wonderful choice that more & more parents are exploring for their children. Home school co-ops can be great; esp in areas where the quality of the public schools is lacking (to put it politely!) the important thing here is to ensure quality learning materials & teaching quality. A parent is seldom a qualified teacher & getting the books & materials & trying to do it yourself without much support or formal teaching education is a daunting task. I've seen home schooled kids who have been utterly mis-educated by mis-guided parents using strategies & even materials from the 1960s. Kids emerging from these settings are in deep trouble when they enter into a regular secondary school or try to get into college. Also, there are religious fanatics of all sorts who are using their scriptures (from bible to Quran to you name it) as a basis for education in science, history & even ethics & sociology. This is problematic on so many levels that I cannot enumerate them.

What I like about home schooling is the way it cultivates a sense of community: integrating family life, formal education & peer group formation. For an Aspie kid, the smaller much more predictable & supervised group environment can be a life saver. The teacher is never overwhelmed with 30+ kids so nobody slips through the cracks. Any challenges can get addressed rapidly. Curriculum is more flexible with more time for educational excursions & even studying outdoors in the open air.

 

[girl_incognito]

@Girl Incognito- I was suicidal from fourth grade on. I didn't have enough visible academic trouble in school for anyone to consider placing me in any kind of special program, and I was exceptional in language arts. But I would have benefitted from a school that was small, focused in letting students emphasize their strengths, and where the teachers somehow were able to instill kindness and prevent bullying. The bullying, feelings of aloneness and being constantly overwhealmed, and academic struggles in math all contributed to my being suicidal. I was too afraid to ever actually try to kill myself, but I fantasized about it and desperately wanted to die. It was so miserable. My grade was very cruel. Funny though, my husband's grade (below mine) was generally pretty nice and accepting, and people didn't really get bullied. I guess it just depends.

It is so great when I hear about parents and students finding a great school/ program that really works for them. We don't have any options here for our kids besides a low performing, gang ridden school system and no money for private. So, we educate our children at home with great curriclum for $500 a year, approx., for four kids tot through 2nd grade. It's going really great, and our very large home education support group has organized a co-op that meets on Fridays with four classes for the students to rotate through, plus nursery and pre-k. I'd be glad to answer any questions if someone is considering this as a possibility. None of my children are diagnosed with anything, but my oldest has tendancies like I did as a child. She is sparkling in home school though, loves math and is FINALLY reading (my second oldest was reading before her) and is making friends!

I am so sorry you went through that. My son says the lack of bullying at his school is the biggest and best change. Plus the small classrooms help too (6 students to 3 teachers) I had to fight our school district to change my son's placement, but it was worth it. In hindsight I wish I would have homeschooled him from the beginning. He didn't have his Aspergers diagnosis until he was 10, and by then he would not have taken any direction from me education wise. Also with his behavior issues I am not so certain i would have been able to provide him with all he needs.
I am so glad your children are doing well.

 

[imagesbyholly]

We chose home education because we knew a few families (including his cousins) that did it and were very successful, happy, well rounded, did well in college, and we just really liked them. They were kind, and better at socializing with all ages than alot of people we knew, and weren't obnoxious teenagers (we were teenagers at the time too). Just really impressed with the family. I've heard people talk about freaky weirdo home schoolers they've met, but we've never met any yet. There are so many, you probably run into them frequently, but they don't stick out. There are over 2 million in the US. It's gotta be the right thing for you in order for it to work, and it certainly isn't the only road to happiness and success, but it's totally doable. There was a major study by the US Department of Education that found, among many other things, that a college education for the parents was not necessarry for the success (or testing scores, which are above average) of the home educated student, nor was economic status. These things do corrolate with general poorer performance among children in public school, however.

 

[imagesbyholly]

I am so sorry you went through that. My son says the lack of bullying at his school is the biggest and best change. Plus the small classrooms help too (6 students to 3 teachers) I had to fight our school district to change my son's placement, but it was worth it. l.

Thanks! I'm really glad he's doing so well! Really, if' he's happy, he can learn, and that's what counts! You are awesome for fighting for your son!

 

[Soup]

That's interesting, Holly! Since I'm in QC, Canada, things work very differently to the way they do in the USA. I'm glad you haven't encountered any of the weirdo home schools: means that there must be mostly good ones out there in your area. Here in QC, every now & again, you hear about some crackpot parent or small group of nutters who get busted for running an 'off the grid' type home school. Sad, really: the kids end up living with the consequences.

Any home schooling family has to be reviewed & assessed by the school board that the child would be in if s/he were in the mainstream system. Text books & other materials must e the same. Parents must show evidence of work being done that is up to & on a par with that which is being done in classrooms. Kids are tested by teachers at the school board periodically to ensure their competence. Instruction must be up to grade in both English & French- a fact that precludes many parents from home schooling on their own. I home schooled my son for 4th & 5th grade & it was a wonderful experience for us both: we were able to have a mobile classroom that sometimes occurred at a museum or other place of educational value. We also had the freedom to set our own schedule so sometimes, if an interesting event took place in the evening (like a play, classical concert, opera or ballet) we could attend as part of a school project.

 

[imagesbyholly]

I wonder if it is all the oversight and requirements that actually are adding to the problem? It differs state to state here. In KY where I live, the only requirement is for a family to write to the schoolboard once a year, and keep records, and teach certain subjects. Those things are never checked by anyone unless there is some kind of criminal issue, which I've never heard of. I guess people in our area mostly take education very seriously, and wouldn't want our kids hanging around all day if we weren't going to do a good job with it. That same study I referenced also found that home educated students scored generally high across the board, regardless of wether or not their state had strict, complex requirements or lax ones. Plus a lot of us use good curriculums, so we don't have to be experts on every subject in order for our children to succeed. Of course, there are home educated students who don't seem to turn out all nice and neat, but kids fail in public schools too; it can't be perfect all the time, I guess. A woman who is sort of my excersize consultant has 12 kids (gasp!), six have finished high school, and five have graduated from college. None did super awesome on their SAT, but all 5 ended up with academic scholarships (one or two with a free ride) because of how well they did in college and how hard they were willing to work. One daughter was just so artsy/ musical she knew college wasn't a good fit for her, and want on to be a musician and have a family. Three are public school teachers. The rest are still doing school at home. Maybe people would think they are freaky because they have such a large family, but they are all making a positive contribution to society, so I'm not going to complain! I try not to needlessly accuse people of being weirdos, since I was made fun of my whole childhood.

 

[Soup]

THanks again for the info about how things work out your way. I know virtually nothing about KY. It's so true that kids fail in public schools too. Here in QC, there are 2 basic public school systems: French & English. Outside of that, there are private religious schools such as Catholic, Jewish & Islamic. Some private schools cater to specific cultural but not specifically religious needs such as Santa Cabrini (Italian) Sourp Hagop (Armenian) & Humbolt (German). Kids in our public schools learn both English & French. Kids in the religious schools often study in 3-4 languages for ex. Santa Cabrini's kids learn English, French & Italian. At Jewish People's & Peretz school, they learn Eng, Fr, Hebrew & Yiddish.

All is not well, though. The French public secondary schools are seeing drop-out rates as high as 57% in some areas. These rates are unheard-of in the English system. Many of these kids never pursue a 'GED' in adult ed. A whopping 9-10% of French Canadian Quebecois are functionally illiterate. Due to French language protection laws in QC, all immigrant kids AND any kid who didn't have a parent who attended English school in Canada MUST go to a French school. This means that the French schools are grossly over-crowded. Immigrant kids are multi-lingual & are excelling academically: they aren't dropping out. Kids in English schools are seeing their enrolment rates plummet so their schools get combined into 1 bldg & a French school takes over.

I was fortunate to qualify for English public school but since I was in French immersion (like I did with both kids) My French skills (oral & written) meet & surpass those of most who attended 1st language French schools. Making things worse is the fact that French schools provide scant & shoddy English instruction since they want to 'Francisize' their students. These unilingual kids have poor skills in their only language & if things continue in this vein, will be reduced to an almost entire manual labour force. Immigrant kids go on to become professionals & other highly skilled workers.

Home schools here often play a different role: they are co-ops that run after regular school & on weekends. Immigrant kids from all over the world fill these small groups & their goal is to supplement the shabby education they get in French public school. Teachers provide advanced language instruction in English AND French as well as the child's native language. They also get supplemental instruction in technology, maths & often violin or piano. Classes move from one home to another within the network so no 1 home gets overwhelmed. Parents pool financial resources to cover the cost of hiring a teacher however often times several parents have the skills necessary to teach.

As for the woman with 12 kids, I'm always amazed by such people. There are many Chasidic Jewish families here with more than 15 kids as well as some large families from India & Sri Lanka but few French Canadians have more than 1 child & the same goes for English families. These large broods tend to do well here too. How people can afford it with the economy in such a decline is mind-boggling.

An example of a 'freaky' home school that was shut down was one where the kids were made to dress sort of Amish style. They were not exposed to any technology & forbidden from playing or even talking to non-members. The 'school' was set up to groom these poor children to be compliant participants in paedophilic activities. The entire set-up was a cover for a ring of paedophiles (films & images were sold online). Without oversight, these children's unimaginable suffering would've persisted unabated. The modest dress style fooled many into thinking that they were a 'plain folks' type Anabaptist group.

 

[imagesbyholly]

Yikes! Yep, I'd say that's freaky! But it wasn't a real homeschool, just a cover to hide perversion, sort of like massage parlors enslaving underage foreign girls here in the US. Stories like that make it hard on real home educating families. We have a lot of real Amish people around here, but the ones I know are really nice and normal (except for their rustic clothes and accent), and run their own little community schools. Sounds like the immigrant families who's children are having success are characterized by parents who value education enough to get involved. It sounds like an article I read in favor of school choice which discussed how public schools in India aren't performing nearly as well as the little independant community schools where parents get together and hire their own teacher. Those students must be doing well, or the parents lose out on their investment. And if the teacher is bad, the teacher gets fired! Sounds like education officials in Quebec need to stop sacrificing children on the alter of "Francisizing." On a side note- we're planning on using Pimsler for language when we are ready. SIZE]

 

[Soup]

We too have seen several such 'massage parlours' slammed shut & the enslaved women (often just teen girls!!!) rescued. Outrageous on so many levels: men from OUR country (yours AND mine) are the ones going into these dives (some of them were dressed up to appear fancy & cater to professional men) & knowingly paying to further exploit these poor girls & women. I don't even know what to say!

You're so right about officials here in QC that you ought to be up here running for office, Holly!

We recently (August) had a power struggle here. The premier was accused (with very convincing evidence) of corruption: giving lucrative city contracts to the mafia (!). He thought he could survive an election, but he miscalculated. His party (the Liberals; similar to your Democrats) were voted out. A rogue 3rd party formed & they are sort of like moderate conservatives (the Coalition Avenir Quebec or the CAQ, the coalition for the future of Quebec) with a strong anti corruption platform. Also running were the Parti Quebecois, headed by fabulously & suspiciously wealthy former education minister, Pauline Marois. Her party are militant French language advocates & want to make QC a separate independent nation (!). Premier Jean Charest, who lost the election, resigned abruptly leaving the Liberal party, the official opposition, leaderless(!) Now, they're embroiled in a leadership race & the Parti Quebecois is running rampant trying to tighten language laws even more (!!).

WHAT A FREAKIN' MESS!!! If QC were a country, it would be one of the largest in the world BUT one of the most sparsely populated. We're rich in resources BUT largely friggin' empty since whole areas are a frozen no man's land save for a few Inuit bands (like your Eskimos in Alaska).

We actually have LANGUAGE POLICE here whose job is to ensure that enterprises are conforming to the language laws. They test store clerks to be sure that they can get services in French. they bust anyone with an English sign...Signs can be bilingual BUT French has to appear 1st AND the lettering must be more prominent. They are largely a force with no teeth about whom people laugh since most of us Anglos have better French skills than they do. they want to tighten language laws & further restrict access to English learning in higher education institutions. This, of course, well get slammed by the federal gov't as unconstitutional & Ottawa won't give them the funds to keep the costly election promises they've made. This week they tried to impose a higher tax in upper middle class to affluent people AND make it retroactive to Jan. We are already the most highly taxed people in all N.A & we're not having it. Not to fund the mafia or far right nationalism.

 

[imagesbyholly]

Crazy! Go Rogue Third Party! I can fix it. Put the mafia, the edu-cronies, the corrupt officials, and the pedophiles on an ice island together. Who's voting for me?

 

[Soup]

YAY!!! Holly for Premi?re of QC: I'll manage your campaign. We'll herd all those buggers out onto an ice floe: they'd be a great snack for the polar bears!

This is the PQ separatist language freak Premi?re & her castle.Can you imagine such corruption? She looks fabulous for 62 yrs old but many French women defy ageing almost magically.

 

[J. Ann]

I was in special education for some classes in elementary school. In 3rd grade my mom started homeschooling me, and it made a major difference. By 5th grade I no longer needed any special education services. I strongly recommend homeschooling, along with extra help from a tutor. Make sure he also has some kind of social activity. If you think he is ready for public school, then middle school would be a good time to put him in (public elementary schools don't do very much to prepare kids for middle school anyway). It sounds like your son can be a smart student, and he diserves the chance to have the same opportunities as everyone else when it comes to eductaion and a future job. In Special Ed. he won't have that oppertunity.

 

[Spinning Compass]

In Michigan, where I live, homeschooling is very poorly regulated. Anyone can pull their kids out of school and claim they are homeschooling them. There was a case several years ago where the school suspected abuse; the parents responded by taking the child out of school where she would not be under the eye of protective services. She died in a house fire because she was chained to her bed. Apparently parents do not even have to demonstrate that they are actually homeschooling!

Homeschooling is definitely not for everyone. My parents were both well-educated and they gave us kids supplementary homeschooling. This was not intended to replace the schooling we received at school but to augment it. Certainly I received a much better education than if I had been homeschooled alone or from school alone. The trouble with homeschooling is if you start out with parents who are not as well-educated and may not be in a position to realize what those educational deficits might be.

As far as special ed, I would strongly stress that parents get involved. Know exactly what is being taught and what the underlying philosophy is. Not easy to do, I admit, if you aren't well-educated in psychology. But make an effort to find out. Ask questions about how they handle situations like meltdowns. Don't just drop your kid off or put him or her on the bus. You need to know. The special ed of my day was dominated by Skinnerian psychology. Skinner believed that little children were just like lab rats. It was not necessary to know anything about what motivated the child; the only thing necessary was producing the desired results. If locking a child in an isolation box did the trick, well, then, that is what they did. Is the school going to volunteer this information? Maybe, maybe not.

If I had a child that needed to go to a special ed class I would find out everything I could about that class, who teaches it, what is his or her attitude, what are his or her methods. If that meant sitting in a few sessions I would do so. That is because I have been through it myself.

 

[Flinty]

I doubt that special ed would have helped me because the main special ed teacher in our school was useless. Truly, truly useless, and once the worst cases of FASD were gone from the school I don't know if she did anything. Also, no one in our school was in special ed on a full-time basis, so I'd have been in regular classes for all periods other than probably math, where I didn't interact with the other students anyway.

 

[J. Ann]

If you are going to put him in special ed. make sure they are teaching him at his level. I have a friend (not an Aspie), who I have known for about 9 years. She has been in special education her whole life. She hates it. She says they don't teach her anything, and it makes her feel stupid. She's in high school and doesn't know basic multiplication, and she says it's because they just don't teach her. I believe her when she says they give her barely any work to do, because I know if someone showed her how to do stuff like 4x6, she's smart enough to learn it. Still, I'm not going to blame the school, because I'm not a student there, and I don't completely know what it's like there. I guess there's a chance they could actually be teaching her this stuff, and she doesn't understand it, but something just doesn't seem right.