Special ed sucks/ rules

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Why do you think special education Sucks or rules?

I'll answer both, I liked it because it offered a smaller class size with more 1 on 1 help. The teacher helped and was empathetic a lot towards anxiety. I didn't like it because although they take an alternative approach to how they teach you, they also.. well, they don't teach you. It was more babysitting, just catering to my meltdowns and such. For the most part they just wanted me to graduate, they taught us the most basic math and life skills at best. I guess it was awesome at the time but I'm 25 now and wish I actually put forth effort into my education.

Special ed sucks because it has a stigma to it that you're not very smart or that it's for "ret*ds" and I think it also rules because it's where you can get help with your school work, it's a quieter environment, it's a place to relax and calm down if you get too upset in class so you are not disrupting anyone in mainstream.

Special "Education" was, in my personal experience, nothing less and nothing more than the bureaucratic means by which I was deprived an appropriate education.

Special education is why I placed in remedial math when I first entered college. The lack thereof, and the ability to self-direct my studies, was the reason why I graduated cum laude with a degree in mathematics four years later.

It's like anything else in education; it depends a lot on the quality of what is going on where you are in school.

There are a lot of potentials for positives, but there are also a lot of potentials for negatives. When people instead of bothering to teach kids because they're not "capable" of it, that's a problem. It's a thing I've seen a bunch in special ed environments. When people go through and help people find ways to manage their symptoms, as well as adapt the material they are learning to how the individual learns best, that's a big positive. I've seen that as well.

I've seen students abused in schools under the guise of behavioral plans. I've seen students denied educations.
I've also seen students who wouldn't be able to handle the environments of a standard classroom thrive because they were given the opportunity to have a place that met their needs.

All people, whether in special ed or not, should be given individualized education. Sometimes its easiest to do that in special ed. Whether the situations at that particular school however leads to that...that's another question.

(This is my field of work. I work in education for autistic students, with my goal as to why I'm in this field being to improve the style of education within my subject in general, and in special ed/for autistic students.)

I would have to say it sucks. It never worked for me. but then again, school in general never work for me ether.

It helped me out but I'm dyslexic, have ADD, & some physical disabilities that made school really difficult for me.

Where I live, they don't even call it special education, they have another name for it, "School to Community" (which is kind of a stupid name IMO) and there's a lot of stigma to it. Some people think that the kids in the program are all ret*ds (well, they don't use that word, but they use euphemisms for it) and don't seem to appreciate their uniqueness. They don't get fun of, but they do seem to get treated differently. And though all the people in it are very different and have different disabilities, sometimes I feel they're treated as if they are all the same. I think everyone should get the help they need, but I don't think there needs to be self-contained programs.

Special Education is a subjective topic. There are places where special education is really good and then there are places where special education is in a bad state. It all really comes down to particular schools too. From my experience, some schools (such as Aaron School)
offer an amazing environment learning where the 1-on-1 focus is a lot higher and then there are other places where children are not treated as they should be.

I was born when autism wasn't as understood as now. I was intially diagnosed (when I was 4 years old) with severe hyperkinetic disorder / severe behavioural problems, and Tourette's syndrome. My mum initially forced me through the mainstream school system. I got expelled from two primary schools in two years.

I was then put in a specialist gifted school. That was an amazing school. I wasn't officially diagnosed with autism until I was in secondary school (as my mum was in total denial and my dad was abroad on business most of the time - I was only diagnosed after being sectioned for what I now know was an exceptionally severe, prolonged meltdown / shutdown - took me weeks to recover).

The gifted school got me from severe behavioural problems to being able to sit through a lesson, do exams, and even make a couple of friends.

If I had carried on in mainstream I would have probably ended up arrested several times or became a long term psychiatric inpatient.

When I went to regular but private secondary school I went downhill mentally but managed to still get almost all A*s in my GCSEs (except English Literature - A) and above 95% in all my A-Levels. As well as getting into the top 250 in a national mathematics competition.

However when I left secondary school I spent 2 years doing f*** all, after I was told to leave Cambridge University (I got in to Cambridge uni but I got ill very quickly due to no support). I then started BSc Pharmacology at UCL but I was sectioned 4 times by the police in one year due to extreme stress. I eventually got a support worker and I've been 3 years 4 months out of hospital (longest time I've been out by far since I was 15).

I think that pupils and students with autism should be given the support they really need, but encouraged to flourish and develop their skills and strengths. I certainly had that treatment in the specialist gifted school. And now that I have a full time support worker at uni, I am able to try my hardest at uni, health permitting (I have several chronic / life long disabilties).

I was OK with special ed until my middle school years because everyone was rude towards me and my special ed "teacher" was nothing more than a self-righteous pain in the neck. Thankfully, special ed for me stopped when I began my HS years.

Each person has a different opinion on Special Education. In my experience, each special ed program or school should be judged on an individual basis. Schools like Aaron School, NY and others provide an incredibly sound environment for kids with learning disabilities while you'll also find schools that just lump kids together and do nothing for their development.

For me it rules.