Punishing the Different, etc.
Michelle on Jan 24 2007 at 1:11 am | Filed under: The Teaching
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I got a call yesterday from a teacher at the high school. Seems they are going to expel a deaf kid who is in foster care. Lord knows what kind of hell this kid has went through and is continuing to go through. They are expelling him because they cannot handle his behavior. So, they are planning on sitting him in one of my cubicles all day. An interpreter will be nearby. Usually, he is in deaf-ed classes. He would get visits from a deaf-ed teacher.
Of course I told the person that the placement sounded completely inappropriate. What, we are going to punish a kid for having had a shitty childhood and being deaf? Being deaf, his reading level is not very high. Phonics don’t work too well for deaf folk.
I don’t know crap about deaf ed. Other than phonics not working, that is. I don’t know a scrap of sign language. This kiddo does not need to be in a cubicle in my classroom. I cannot think of how on earth I can help him. Surely there is something that we as a society need to be doing differently here?
I asked one of the AP’s how one of my former students, who is mentally retarded, is doing. I expressed concern that his teachers don’t modify his Integrated Physics and Chemistry assignments effectively. Like he needs that class. Hmmmph. The AP told me he had had “an incident”. He will be coming back to us. It will be his third six-week period in my classroom this school year.
I spent my lunchtime explaining to one of the upstairs teachers who does credit recovery why his mentally retarded student didn’t do so hot on the videotaped book review. The teacher said my inclusion student wasn’t prepared enough for the presentation. I said that I thought he did a pretty good job, considering that he couldn’t read the notes he had copied from the book.
We fail kids in so many ways. I am frustrated with the entire system, including families and screwy values. I’m getting a new kid who doesn’t speak English. Brand new to the country and already a cholo. Ai, Chihuahua.
Yesterday afternoon, I went upstair to talk to my neighbor about the fights between her and her babydaddy. I told her that she didn’t have any privacy, as I could hear every word that they said. I offered help if she wanted the guy out of her life. She doesn’t. She apologized, and I said that I didn’t come up there to preach, but I wanted to get some sleep and was worried about her. While we talked, I watched her four-year-old skate around on the floor with a book I had given her serving as the skate. It is the only book in the house, as far as I know. Future student? I dunno. These kids hear every M*****f***er uttered during these fights. The older boy came down later and said his mama wanted to know if I had another phone, as theirs had “went out”. Yeah, it went out all right. The night before, I heard this loud dial tone sound and then the sound of what was presumably the phone being thrown against the wall. I don’t have any extra phones.
I’m just venting. Life is good. Just wish I could make it better for some folks. I wish some of them could make it better for themselves as well.
ITK code for Singing The Sky:
We’ve become such a throw away society–our appliances, our cell phones, our computers that most people won’t put the money or effort into repairs. I think that attitude carries over to kids sometimes too. Parents and some educators won’t work hard enough to fix/repair/remediate. So, they become throw away children. I don’t know what the answer is, Michelle.
You are making me feel so glad that I don’t have any bad neighbors. I hope you get some better ones soon.
FYI, I wrote about my mother’s deafness here.
I’m not her teacher or anything, but you might be interested. o_O
You can’t fix them all, especially when no one else is willing to help, much less listen. Makes it harder and harder to behave like a person with morals and common sense, doesn’t it?
It’s interesting that you’ve put this up as I was going to append this comment to your last post about normality. My wife and I saw a TV program on Tuesday evening about Abbé Epée, a catholic priest who pioneered sign language. He really flew in the face of society when he did this but he stuck up for these kids and for their ability to live normal lives if helped. At the time deaf and dumb (and I use the expression deliberately here) kids were considered mentally retarded. One woman even abandoned her kid and let it be put out that he was dead. It was quite shocking but it did show the difference loving care could make in the lives of these children.
I can’t express myself in regards to this posting and your blog in general. It makes me want to throw things. Usually this kind of thing makes me click out ASAP because I can’t handle it. But usually these kinds of things are either cynical or riddled with sap to the point where you just don’t care. But good lord, I read these things and I’m just there, just in the scene. It’s real and gets there fast. It kills me. Christ I sound like an idiot. A handful of bloggers have gotten book deals lately. I hope to god you do. People need to read this.