Autistic Boy Voted Out of Kindergarten Gets Even

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What's disgusting is that THIS is what "popular culture" is doing to our society.

The nonsense of Big Brother, Survivor, etc. is all done for the drama of "reality TV."

They do things that NOBODY should do in polite society.

If a teacher is going to model how to let kids interact by what's on television, we're in big trouble if that's going to be the trend society follows.

That is absolutely true. Reality television relies on toxic behaviour because it is more dramatic to watch than appropriate behaviour. Watching other people do just exactly what they should do is deadly dull and not very entertaining. So that's why TV does what it does. But using that dramatic, entertaining and utterly toxic behaviour as a model for how people should behave is a horrible idea. Somebody who has that idea should not be anywhere near the impressionable minds of kindergarten children who are learning what they should do when away from their parents.

What kind of b***h runs her classroom like a gameshow?

The other parents at the school need to pull their kids out of there. I would.

That's awful! I can't believe that a teacher would do such a thing!

Society was like that before "popular culture", only less organized. Shows like Survivor offer a template. People have always tried to talk others into excluding ones they don't like for whatever reason. Most likely this teacher was irritated at this child's behaviour which, to her, was strange and disruptive. Never experiencing these compulsive behaviours herself, she's at a loss to relate to them. I can understand them because, at that age, I was a lot like this child, doing nearly the same things. What others didn't know is I felt like I had to do these things, but, at the same time, I wanted friends and losing friends because of these behaviours I was at a loss of explaining or stopping, upset me profoundly. I can remember wondering to myself why I did things that I knew would bring tentative friendships to an end. I liked eating paste and I had no idea why. Whenever we did an art project in class involving Elmer's glue, I wanted to eat the glue. Now, the idea isn't exactly appealing to me and I cannot explain why I did it back then. I was not happy about it, and if someone said to me, "if I wave this wand you will no longer eat glue or do the other things that make classmates who want to befriend you not like you", I would have accepted because making friends in school was more important to me at the time.
Shows like Survivor are very honest about human nature and what people are like, imo and from my own experience.
The teacher should have had a conference with the parents and worked it out that way. The way she handled it is enough reason for her to not be teaching. There's protocols one should follow in these situations, involving the parents and reducing conflict among students whenever possible, not rallying them together to gang up on a classmate. She could have turned the situation into something positive instead she made it much worse.

I am NOT saying that the behavior was in anyway excusable. I am only saying that you can't say it is somehow more horrible because he was AS, because no one knew he was AS.

I was a teacher, and I am well aware of the issues that teachers go through. But I was also an undiagnosed AS, and I know how teachers treat you then. And I know that while kids like to be treated like tiny adults, they are in fact not tiny adults. And there are certain subjects and activities that cannot be discussed/performed with children because they will not understand what it means. This is one of those cases.

The teacher should be severely reprimanded and made to publicly apologize to both the student and to the class. Mostly because the damage done was not to the single child, but to the way that all those students view acceptable social behavior.

Beyond that I am more open to giving people a chance to rectify their mistakes, depending on the individual person and whether it seems like a mistake or a character flaw.

My parents had a similar situation, though not nearly as traumatizing as what happened to the boy. When i was starting in elementary school (mid-80s), i was showing signs of AS, but the diagnosis didnt yet exist. So, i was apparently taken to a school psychologist and they thought i was merely suffering from childhood depression. Well, that diagnosis didnt stick either, so my parents asked this psych (i call psychologists that for short) and this one merely told my parents, "Id dont know what's wrong . . . good luck." or something along those lines. Since finding out my condition recently, and prior, my mother has been furious with that person.

you can't really be angry if the diagnosis didn't exist yet.

It wasn't an official diagnosis until 1994, but it had been described earlier, and experts should have been aware of it, same as they are now aware of NLD, even though it's not on the DSM IV.

+1

AS was known about not long after 1968. If a therapist knows nothing beyond the DSM, they aren't qualified enough to treat you. You look to these people for competent help, and they charge more than enough money that they should be trying to honestly help you.

just because you are a therapist doesn't mean you are knowledgeable about undiagnosed/unlabeled problems. Usually only specialists know. Which is why you can go to a family practitioner about many things, but you go to a specialist to find out about the things that the family practitioner doesn't know.

I am not going to throw a fit and blame a Dr. for not knowing all the symptoms of a rare disease. But I will throw a fit if they can't diagnose a well-known one.

It wasn't known in North American until 1991. But still, lot of doctors didn't know about it then. More know about it today. I think it got known more once it arrived in the DSM-IV book.

the article said "The school board initially suspended Portillo one year and stripped her tenure, but reversed itself in June." the part we don't like is mostly "reversed itself in June" although the rest isn't fun, it's the fact that they forgive after however many months suspension, despite having a far more suitable punishment already ordered, and your reference isn't completely relevant because it talks about people wanting her to die, I haven't seen that here, could you point it out for me? I don't believe WP is quite ruthless enough to want anyone to die, besides being against the rules two say they should die, I think most users would dislike just about any murder,

but considering this discussion, how much of society is "polite"

the article says he was voted out by a majority of 14-2, I wonder how the 14 treats the 2

and how could they could kick him out, as I have never heard of a class or a teacher being given, by a higher authority(school principal, district super-intendant, or any like office), the right to remove a student for any significant duration, without consulting said authority, and would be even more disappointed if any such authority would, along with the teacher, consider such an option appropriate.

I've been following this story, as I found it very distressing when I first heard about it; and in the original article, it was stated that he was undergoing the diagnostic process at the time of this incident. So, although the diagnosis was not yet 100% official, autism was suspected.