Is your special ed class like this?

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Yes, I'm in special ed, so don't make fun of me about that!

Besides the work and the teachers and my friend, I don't seem to fit in with the other kids in those classes because:

I'm not no snooty, preppy rich kid.
Don't really know crap about stuff like current events, music, politics, etc.
I have not moved here from another town recently.
I'm not very cliquey.
I don't get in trouble almost every day.
Mostly everyone actually has lives outside of school (after-school stuff, going over to friends houses, etc.)
I'm not racist, stereotypical, or say anything offensive to anybody.

Weird, ain't it?

Last edited by roygerdodger on 15 Mar 2008, 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was in special ed until 5th grade when I became mainstreamed. Indeed both my spec ed class and normal class I never really managed to fit in with anyone ever. Your spec ed class is very strange indeed, I mean only as far as compaired to mine when I was in elementary school.

For starters I had the opposite problem, I was never 'snotty' but did grow up in a household that had a relatvily high income. As a result I was the only 'rich' kid in my spec ed class, and really in all of school, very few got to grow up like I did, and thats both good and bad I suppose. Few knew about global events, some did, many did not, I was pretty young at the time and was less interesting in anything that did not have to do with Desert Storm which ended just prior to me moving into my new spec ed class. As far as a clique goes, all these kids had their own seperate issues, and I never saw many of them form their own groups. Some formed groups with other kids in different classes, mainly the trouble makers. I got into trouble everyday, like half of my class, many had behavior and emotional problems, and I was probably the only ASD kid in that class. I got the feeling some of these kids had bad lives , I had a good life outside of school, friends, and did stuff normal boys that age did. I never heard a racy remark, but heard a bad word used for gays and and of course the boys and girls in the class did not get along well so things were sometimes said, I refrained from saying stuff like that or even did not understand what these words meant. I was the youngest kid in that class.

I was in Special Ed for about 10 years of my schooling. I spent 8 out of the 10 years in a Special ed school. It was a small Special Ed school that I actually liked very much. The classes were small, there was a teacher and a para in each class (sometimes a additional para) and the kids were mixed in the sense of problems, situations and race. There were kids who were poor, middle class (like me) and even kids who had families with a good amount of money. I had my good days and bad days there. Many kids, in problem wise, were worse off than me but there were a few kids who didn't have as many problems as me. It was a mixed bag.

The last two years I was in a large Junior High School in a special ed program. That was a horror! I would get into details right now but I did not get along with the kids there. No one really respected me there and I was constantly teased and ridculed. I was gradually mainstreamed into regular classes and eventually did end up fully mainstreamed. The mainstreaming varied. Some of the classes were okay, others were rough. Most of the teachers in these regular classes thought very highly of me and I managed to get good grades.

I was in special ed in high school, and predictably I didn't conect with any of my class mates on any level. On the other hand I connected a fair bit with my Teachers because not only did they tend to be more mature and educated but we also liked the same bands. Also unlike my peers I was self educated, I read fiction, non fiction and kept up with world events. In fact sometimes I found that I knew more about the world than my Teachers, like my PE Teacher who tried to convince me that Bauhaus aren't Goth, or my case workers who were apparently ignorant of the symptoms of Aspergers Syndrome.

I was in a special ed class in grade 9, but I was put back into a mainstream study hall afterwards because they realized I was high-functioning enough to not have to be in the class.

Also one more thing, I seem to be the only one in class that doesn't own something like a cell phone, MP3 player, etc.

Well, my experience with special ed(five solid years of institutionalized hell), was a dilemma between rigor and socialization.

I slept through most of "school" and frankly I learned at least twice more then the combined amount that school inflicted upon me.

After all, how many people know that Nuku' Alofa is the capital of Tonga? (or where Tonga is for that matter).

I love my spec ed class, so I guess it's just your school or something. My spec ed class only has 7-9 people in it at a time, and there's a beanbag chair where you can relax. I also have the best resourse teacher ever, and you always know she has your back.
I also have one of my closest friends in my resourse period, which makes it even better (and easier to deal with the fact I'm stuck with resource for the rest of my school days)

Don't worry about that, if there's one place where you wouldn't get teased about being in spec ed, it's wrongplanet, as most of us have been in there one time or another.

hi, if the sdi/specially designed instruction is given in a place that is not meeting your needs, advocate for change!

special ed is a service, not a place!

best,
s in pa

I was in speech therapy, to get me out of classes that I did not need because I already read and memorized ahead of everyone.

Hmmm...very interesting.

I think in a lot of special ed classes, unfortunately, there's a tendency to lump together everyone who needs some kind of, uh, special education. Usually this can include people with mental retardation, learning disabilities, people with ADHD, people who don't know how to behave properly and have been diagnosed with ADHD, or any other type of "non-standard" student.

Of course, all of these people require different approaches, which the average government school employee is completely unprepared to understand or provide.

sld123 is completely right. Special ed is a service for which you pay, and if it's not meeting your needs then complain.

That's odd. There are two resource rooms at my school, and they sort them by their disorders.

I wish it was like that at my school! In my special ed class it was just like he described, everyone lumped together.... I must say it was absolutely hilarious, however. I just kind of sat there and watched as the special ed teacher faught to keep the classroom under control... you had the ADD/ADHD kids sneaking around the room trying to find ways to cause trouble (such as turning a sink into a water catapult), then you had the few AS students sitting around scattered, as well as some other disorders. The only other special ed solution is for people with severe problems, who get escorted around by a special ed teacher. In all honesty, the special ed classrooms at my school are just a place to put the kids with disabilities so they don't cause distraction... they don't know what to do with us, so they just stick us in there with a very unlucky teacher.

Yeah, it's kinda like that at my school, too.