roguetech wrote:
Yupa wrote:
The teacher was punished for doing the right thing, and when people are punished for doing what they should be doing, that really pisses me off.
I think the right thing to do would have been to ask the child to go to the nurses' station (if he was being particularly disruptive that day), and speak to the parent about placing the child in a setting that could deal with whatever special needs he requires. If the socially accepted "right thing" is to ridicule and taunt children to teach them that school is a place to fear, then I don't see how Autistic behavior could be considered social unnacceptable, unless of course he was considerate to his classmates.
Quote:
In real life peoples' behaviour is evaluated when they get out of line and if their presence is determined to be detrimental to the workplace environment in any way they are fired.
Being fired would be equivalant to expelling him from the school, NOT ridiculing him and making his expulsion a public specticle. More to the point, you need to read up on the American's With Disabilities Act (for the US, other countries have similiar). "In real life" people not only may not be "fired", but are also protected against being singled out for discrimination (i.e. ridicule) for a disability. If I were treated this way at my place of employement, I would sue the socks off them. (see
http://www.sunpublications.com/articles ... 822605.txt)
Once again, he was not being ridiculed "for a disability", since it was not yet proven that he had Asperger's Syndrome.
Oh, and here are some other examples of someone "being singled out for discrimination": refusing to hire a person who is proven to be mentally ret*d because you know that their disability will prevent them from contributing to the organization they are applying for, and refusing to let a cripple join a football team.
However I'd say that in this boy's case his disability should not play into the matter. If the teacher wanted him out of the class because he was playing with his pencil or because he stuttered or was twitchy, that would be different. However, he had a history of disruptive behaviour.
Another thing that should be pointed out (I know this from my experience in elementary school) is that children often want to be sent out of class, and the more manipulative students (I was one of them) will often behave as badly as possible just so that they have an excuse to leave the classroom.
Therefore sending him out of class would not be just, as it would not properly qualify as a punishment.
In fact, some students might even consider it a reward, which wouldn't exactly make very much sense.
Notice also that the articles on this matter are very unspecific about the events leading up to this, but they must have been pretty severe if the teacher had to ask the class to vote the student out.
I brought this issue up with my father, by the way, and he agreed that the teacher handled the situation appropriately, and he's usually the sort of person who'd take the child's side in cases like this.