is our special education model today dehumanizing?

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i will try and keep this short. i am parent of an 8 year old with HF/ Aspergers. I have seen special education in action in both private and public schools.

without exception, no matter what the school says it does, they all employ the same dictum, as far as I can tell.

And that dictum is:
we will make your son more neurotypical.

I understand the pros of this dictum. Gaining neurotypical social communication skills so that he may better get along in the usual world, in gaining friends, finding work.

However what I don?t hear from most any special educators is the opposite of this. Put simply, my question is, why? Why should my son have to conform to the neurotypical world?

Let me state it another way. Without fail, when I observe my son or hear his interactions at special ed school I hear the code words:

?that was unexpected? i.e. ?that was wrong?
?what zone are you in?? i.e. ?whatever you?re feeling right now doesn?t matter, you need to calm down?
and what bothers me the most; ?I wanted to hear about something else besides Minecraft from you today? i.e. ?what matters to you most doesn?t mean anything to me, you are tedious, you need to tell me something that I want to hear.?

all of these interactions on a small scale seem pretty harmless, at first, but add them up, to all day every day, basically what he?s being told is ?who you are is wrong, we are right?. And to me, that?s dehumanizing and regressive.

I signed up for and pay for special education for my son so he can learn in a better environment, and one that suits his learning style. I did not sign on for you to frame his personality to your paradigm; be that catholic, jewish, muslim, or behavoiralist/neurotypical.

Does anyone understand what I am saying, or am I alone here in these thoughts?

It is, but you can fight itsnd you can get them to go along in small ways sometimes.

But it is exhausting doing so especially for me being on the spectrum because the only way I have found to advocate is to act as typical (read unthreatening and predictable) as I possibly can. They will always try to get your child to fit in, but you can set priorities that work better. Especially if he is good at something they value like reading, math, art, music. It gives you him and them a strength to focus on. Which beats trying to homogenize him.

thank you for your response.

I'll just say fighting for my son is exhausting, NT or not! I admire you for advocating for your child without loosing your composure.

I'm also thinking that, since I don't agree with the system as a whole, to homeschool him if he would prefer that. We have co-op's and lots of opportunity for social interactions and engagement, and I have done it before in what was then a crisis situation with our public school.

Its always difficult to know what is right for him, as of now its been guided by mostly knowing what is the wrong situation for him. I'm just so frustrated that most all of our special ed models are not only not good enough, but as I see it, possibly pretty harmful.

When the teachers see what's right than I trust them. I was almost in tears yesterday with the special Ed teacher, I do lose my composure. But I kept my focus on what my child needs and when that failed, on how I'm lost if I try to focus on too many issues without enough instruction. She backed off to that I'm not an educational specialist, I can work on 1-2 things at a time, too much at once isn't productive.

What does your instinct say about whether your child is able to thrive in his current environment, that is to learn and feel appreciated?

that was unexpected
what zone are you in?
I wanted to hear about something else besides Minecraft from you today


It's possible your son may only be hearing these words due to literal thinking. You are only hearing them as something else. I wouldn't have known either if you didn't point it out. Most people tend to read into something that is said while us aspies tend to hear it the way it's said so we may not know what the person really meant behind the sentence. I am not saying no aspie can read between the lines because every one of us is different.

I don't see anything wrong with telling him you want to hear something else besides Minecraft that day. If that is all he talks about, they just want to hear about other things from him. My mom used to tell me to talk about something else if I got stuck on something and had went on and on about it and I wasn't even allowed to talk about something over and over. Once she heard enough, she was done with it for good and never wanted to hear about it ever again, not today and not tomorrow, never. I learned to keep them to myself and now I don't want to share them with anyone and I withdraw now and go in my own world with it.

Even I don't want to hear something all the time unless they are talking about other things too. I have an aspie friend who loves sports and I don't mind hearing about it because he talks about other things too. He is one of the few people I talk about my interest with.

The other two I am not sure about because I was never told those things except about being told to talk about something else or being told by my mother she doesn't want to hear about it and she is done with it and telling me if that is all I keep talking about, I will be dumped like a hot potato by a guy and other kids wouldn't want to talk to me or want to be around me. It's true unfortunately so I had to learn.

How is your son feeling about all this, is it making him upset or feeling bad when he gets told all this?

Welcome to the Asperger experience.

It's not just spec ed though. I was mainstreamed and it was the same there, just in different words. Reminds me of this excellent Einstein quote:

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."

The education system is a poor fit for a lot of children and teens, regardless of which part of it you focus on.

And the Asperger experience doesn't by any means stop with school.

It sounds like you understand and respect his POV. Family support is essential for us. I can't even begin to say how important your validating him is.

Not restricted to Aspergers or special Ed.

I was writing about my dylexic daughter, not my Aspie daughter. The special Ed teacher wants her to spell correctly and make her written work look normal. My priority isn't her looking normal, it's her understanding enough she can read and communicate in writing. Phonetically is fine with me right now, I see little benefit in pretending to be too normal until you can maintain it a bit. Too much focus is on looking normal. Both my girls are bothered by the pressure to fit into holes they know they don't fit.

But sometimes things that upset me, I can buffer enough they are ok. If you are able to kind of redirect the teaching staff when something really rubs you the wrong way as very problematic for your child and let go of some of the smaller stuff then sometimes, even things that seem bad (but not BAD) can turn out well. At least that's been my experience. I read once that you have to give room for others to love your child even if they don't do things as you would, because it takes a village to raise a child, especially a child with special needs.

And going along on the small stuff, and assuming positive notices, and treating the staff with respect can give you credibility on things you won't compromise about. And when you hit that wall, you have to fight or leave. For me, when I hit the wall, I leave. Well, take your child out. Been there, don't regret doing that a bit. If you have the option and you see it's hurting your child. But the fact that the environment is dehumanizing in some ways may or may not mean your child feels dehumanized, it really depends how much it's happening and how seriously it matters to him.

Waterfalls, to answer your question, no, I don't think the environment is helping him thrive. He says things like he wishes he was never born, and that he hates his life. He also isn't learning, he gets distracted and stressed out, also says he's bored. He doesn't ever want to eat lunch there, so he just does half days. He also doesn't like the reading specialist who is supposed to be teaching him to read, he refuses to work with her and instead they end up playing Uno or some other game, and I guess she tries to sneak in some phonemic awareness then, but I don't really know if they're making any progress.

League_Girl, thank you for your insight about his literal thinking, that hadn't occurred to me. I do think he feels a sense of rejection though. It seems like you may have felt that way yourself at times, as now you say you keep a lot of your thoughts to yourself. That must feel pretty isolating, and I'm sorry if it does. If I were in your situation I might start an blog and share my thoughts, or keep a journal about them. Your thoughts are important. Its wonderful you do have one friend who you can share your interests with, I'm happy to hear that.

Skilpadde, I agree the current education system is a bad fit for most children and teens, and I understand this is a lifelong issue my son will have to deal with. I do understand and respect his POV, mostly because I've always been skeptical of authority and systems. I also just "get" him, I can't really explain why, but its always been easy and felt good for me to understand other people and their differences. I'm also an artist so I'm not very interested in neurotypical people.

"I read once that you have to give room for others to love your child even if they don't do things as you would, because it takes a village to raise a child, especially a child with special needs.

And going along on the small stuff, and assuming positive notices, and treating the staff with respect can give you credibility on things you won't compromise about. And when you hit that wall, you have to fight or leave."

Very wise advice!

If saying he wishes he was not born and he hates his life is more than occasional, I would want him away too!!

When I felt unsure about my daughter who is on the spectrum complaining about school, I asked to go in and observe and they allowed this. It really helped me understand the teacher was a nice person and a competent teacher who worked hard and loved the kids, but I also saw how completely the environment failed to accommodate where and who my daughter was, and there wasn't anything IMO that could have shifted their need to homogenize clashing with her being who she was and needing individual responses. It helped me know that unless there was a radical change, from what I saw, yes, maybe she complained too much but how they did things was all wrong, through and through, for her.

That was hard to see. But it helped me understand. Have you been in to watch? After the first hour or so everyone kind of forgot I was there and probably was pretty much themselves. Treat them with kindness, they're trying. But they may be creating a good classroom for the norm, not those outside it. And that can really eat away at how you feel about yourself.

Whatever you do about school, try to enjoy the time outside school and not get too preoccupied by it. If you do, maybe it's time to ditch them.

Sadly, because that is life.

I grew up with all that "special snowflake" garbage from all the teachers.

Being unique is more important than being part of the crowd.

Well, unless you are one of the freaks that society embraces (and there's not that many that are), standing out is a good way to never go anywhere.

Most every unique person I know who has any measure of success learns how to shut up and act like the rest of the herd when it matters.

We ARE NOT going to change the world to embrace people who are truly unique. So, the truly unique must learn to fit in so that they can prosper within the framework they are given to live in.

Life isn't fair. Learning to accept it and deal with it is key to having any happiness in life.

ZeroNetGain makes a good point.

But "I wanted to hear about something else besides Minecraft from you today" is not teaching good conversational skills. Maybe role modeling what your child can do that would be welcome would work better? They could tell him "that's very interesting, we all have interests, let's explore what different people are interested in". I suppose maybe if he stays, there's a tactful way to point out he's likely to copy abruptly cutting others off if that's done to him too much..... I'm not sure what that would be right now.

Do you think you will keep him where he is?

I think we will keep him in for the whole school year. At least this school will not do therapeutic holds and time out rooms or put him in the hallway or manhandle him like he has been in the past. Also, since he only does a few hours there, I can take him to swim and the library when he's finished. He does not have meltdowns when he comes home, which is huge progress.

Also that is an excellent point about asking them to model just plain old good manners! They shouldn't just cut him off, you're right. I'll make that point at one of our next meetings. I think the younger teachers, just fresh out of their ABA training can be a little cold towards the children, maybe because they don't have the confidence to "go off script" and use common sense at times.

And ZeroNetGain you do make a very good point, life isn't fair, and all of us must learn to fit in to prosper within the framework. I'm not advocating for a revolution, although that would be nice, but I am advocating for my own right to teach my son these strategies, because I don't agree with theirs. I suppose just my having this belief will help, so I can give him a better, more insightful way of fitting in than just the ABA approach, which I do really hate.

I'm glad things have gotten better. Also glad you understood about showing as well as directly instructing kids, NT or ASD. So often I struggle with making myself understood and it's gets frustrating.

I do feel strongly about how powerful the impact of our adult actions is, and that directly instructing kids what not to do will rarely be enough. And that while ABA may be a powerful intervention in some ways, when it comes to conversation, having a capable communicator facilitate how and what to do to make it a good experience is what's needed, conversation isn't something that one can use behavior modification for unless the child has the skills and just lacks motivation to use them. Yes, well, wishful thinking by overburdened staff doesn't make it so!