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Recently I got to talking with some goons about their experiences in special education programs, and whether or not they helped or hindered them. It got me thinking about my own experiences as a student with an IEP in the California school system and that I think in the end I came out much worse for it, and would have been much better off without it. I was diagnosed with a Nonverbal Learning Disorder in the mid 90's and placed on an individual education plan when I was still in elementary school. For anyone not familiar, it basically meant that I would spend about 30-60 minutes a week in an individual room with other kids that had learning disabilities ranging from ADHD to Autism to Dyslexia. This wasn't that big of a problem in elementary school, but when I got to middle and high school Special Ed classes took an hour out of my schedule, meaning that instead of taking two electives I could only take one. I was a band nerd and because much of my social support circle was with music students, I was in band and special ed for most of high school, with auto shop being the single elective I ever took outside of them. It wasn't until years later that my NLD diagnosis was reversed into a general ADHD diagnosis and I'm working on managing that as an adult. Thinking back, I wonder if life would have been different if I had had the flexibility in middle and high school to try other classes (computers/photography/yearbook/etc) that might have helped me develop interests and skills outside of music (I don't play an instrument to day and was never a great musician). I figure that because we're all cut from similar cloth here, other goons might have had similar experiences in school and I'm wondering if mine is unique. Consider this thread a place to talk about your experiences with learning disabilities, special ed classes, and how they had a positive or negative effect on your life trajectory. I think it goes without saying but this is not a place to poo poo on people with disabilities. Light hearted joking is tolerated, deliberate antagonizing is not. If you're a parent of a special needs kid I'd also be interested in your perspective.
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Feb 20, 2020 23:21
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| # ? May 7, 2024 08:56 |
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I always imagine there was some kind of windfall for funding for special ed programs in that day. There were maybe 3 or 4 kids in the special education class in my elementary school with actual special needs, the rest were just kind of unruly but otherwise unremarkable kids who may or may not have had ADHD or something. Dunno what they did with the money, because they weren't very good at their jobs there. For instance, I clearly remember watching from the window as this one kid with what must have been hydrocephaly made a break for it, got out of the building, and shimmied up to the top of the swing set laughing his rear end off while this 90 year old teaching aide chased after him and almost had a stroke. The real learning disability is the public school system itself, I guess.
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Feb 24, 2020 04:59
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I got in a fight in high school sticking up for an LRE kid that was getting picked on by a hillbilly He whooped my rear end but hey I tried
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Feb 24, 2020 05:19
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 e: wrong hread
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Feb 24, 2020 05:21
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I am a special education teacher. Did any of your teachers do that thing where they hold out what you want and make you say, "I want chips (or whatever) please?" because I loving HATE when the staff does that and constantly have to tell them to stop.
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Feb 24, 2020 05:27
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I used to work for a behavioral modification school program for kids with ADHD that was attached to the undergrad University I went to. It was intensive, with full on point system and rewards and such, and a "quiet room" where you sometimes had to physically restrain kids that were wiggin out. It was neat seeing kids improve and "graduate" from the program to go on to less restrictive schools.
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Feb 24, 2020 05:33
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Most of my day is reminding the staff to treat these children with dignity. This combined with a heavy caseload this year of students with extremely violent behaviors has been stressful. Sorry if this is off topic just had to vent I guess.
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Feb 24, 2020 05:35
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My mom is a special ed teacher and it always seemed to me like she spent every waking hour of the day working on IEPs for her students. The stories she's told me are insane and I think she has the patience of a saint. She loves her job.
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Feb 24, 2020 05:48
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Rubellavator posted:My mom is a special ed teacher and it always seemed to me like she spent every waking hour of the day working on IEPs for her students. The stories she's told me are insane and I think she has the patience of a saint. She loves her job. So much time. So many meetings. You go into LAP or you somehow adapt. Like how most of my teacher compatriots become librarians or grant writers...
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Feb 24, 2020 05:53
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Ive been working as an educational interpreter for nearly a decade( I help Deaf students understand their teacher and provide a cultural bridge) in special ed units in primary and secondary schools My state's education system officially views the Deaf as a cultural group that doesn't automatically make you "special" beyond your lack of hearing, mental impairment is at time comorbid but not assumed. This leads to some interesting interactions. I've had the whole gamut of students who are just deaf and have no other impairments, their skills sometimes eclipsing my own in some areas There are teachers that totally get it and are able to differentiatir teaching style and always do their best to have subtitles and understand how to use an interpreter On the other hand I've had some teachers who refused to have a Deaf student enter their class as it may be contagious Quite often the Deaf perspective hit some interesting points aswell, I worked with a 12 yr old who could barely spell his own name but had an encyclopaedic knowledge of all of pop culture and had an intuitive understanding of film language. And often used incredibly rapidly and well produced stop motion animation to get his points across when signed communication failed I really feel honoured at times to be part of a constantly evolving culture and to be making a difference in education of this incredibly marginalised and oppressed group that has existed alongside ,for as long as hearing people have On the other hand, I was a special ed kid myself for behavioural issues and was in remedial English and math. I would have stayed in it my entire schooling except I participated in a country wide mandatory English test and I achieved a high distinction for my age level. My father received the results and confirmed with me that I was still in special english class and how I felt about it. The next day he stormed the principal's office and asked him to explain why I was in special education English, and I was shifted within the week and math within the month. My takeaway from my experience is that a lot of special education comes from a perspective of maintenance at a lower level rather than raising kids out of it when they need assistance. Special education is a very blanket term that is incredibly faceted and perspectives inside it are as often right as they are terribly wrong, it sucks. Jestery fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Feb 24, 2020 |
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Feb 24, 2020 07:21
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I was put into a special Ed class because I had a stutter and liked to take my time doing stuff. It amounted to an extra hour to do homework and help the FASD kids that stuffed loose leaf paper straight into their packs like loving criminals. Later in life I worked as an intensive behavior specialist for a middle school. Those kids still aren't using binders.
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Feb 24, 2020 07:25
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Ed is a cool guy but I wouldn't call him 'special', just a man making his way in the world same as all of us. I was misdiagnosed as having a learning disability, but it turns out I'm just autistic.
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Feb 24, 2020 10:15
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My childhood education was hellish and abusive from special ed programs, so nah I can't say I was helped by it
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Feb 24, 2020 15:49
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My son has autism, and his IEP and Special Ed classes are a loving blessing. I don't know what i would have done without the support of teachers that actually cared about him and his progress. His behavioral issues when he was younger led to him falling behind academically, and while he's not quite caught up there, he is on the right track. His behavior is no longer an issue and he actually loves going to school now. I thank you Special Ed teachers and staff. You are doing good work
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Feb 24, 2020 18:53
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i like Timmy AND Jimmy on southpark (:
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Feb 24, 2020 19:09
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Lil Peeler posted:It wasn't until years later that my NLD diagnosis was reversed into a general ADHD diagnosis and I'm working on managing that as an adult. Thinking back, I wonder if life would have been different if I had had the flexibility in middle and high school to try other classes (computers/photography/yearbook/etc) that might have helped me develop interests and skills outside of music (I don't play an instrument to day and was never a great musician). I'd wager your adhd held you back in developing interests and skills more than anything else.
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Feb 24, 2020 19:17
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Jestery posted:My takeaway from my experience is that a lot of special education comes from a perspective of maintenance at a lower level rather than raising kids out of it when they need assistance. Special education is a very blanket term that is incredibly faceted and perspectives inside it are as often right as they are terribly wrong, it sucks. To echo with a few others have said, my experience was very much that I got to take my time on projects, assignments and tests. But it never did a lot to actually help me with the underlying issues. Maintenance is a perfect term for it, because I got the impression that there was no effort to help manage my learning issues and create behaviors and mechanisms for getting through them. Just keep me in this class where I can do stuff on my own time. I do believe that several of the special ed teachers I worked with cared very deeply about me and wanted to help, but also had bigger fish to fry and with a misdiagnosis it was hard to find the right approach. Schweinhund posted:I'd wager your adhd held you back in developing interests and skills more than anything else. That's very likely, and today it still does to degrees, although it's easier to focus now that I know what the problem is. I still wonder if I had been able to follow other pursuits if that would have affected me at all.
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Feb 24, 2020 19:24
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When was all this handholding stuff anyway? I am wondering if the program I was in was just an extreme outlier or if things changed with the times
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Feb 24, 2020 23:24
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IVE GOT MAIL IVE GOT MAIL YAAAAAAAYYY remember special ed? lol
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Feb 24, 2020 23:26
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Way back in the mid 80's when I was in 1st grade, I got placed in a penmanship class cause I was left-handed. They were trying to convert me to a righty and failed miserably.
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Feb 24, 2020 23:33
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I was in a behavioral disorder class for a while because I kept getting into fights. They couldn't get much info out of my pillhead mom, so at first they were like "okay this kid has bipolar disorder or other emotional/neurological issues". Then they met my dad and went "okay, no, this is learned behavior" and finally they let me back into regular classes right before high school started. My kid is severely impaired, and is in his school's special ed program, and everyone at his school's been pretty great to him. I'll miss them when he moves to a different school next year, and that's saying something.
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Feb 25, 2020 02:37
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50% of students with IEPs or whatever need them, 25% all turn their work in early and you forget they even have special accommodations because they're on their game 24/7, and 25% is assholes who abuse it until you finally find the file that lists exactly how much extra time they have for work and you get to give them 50% on everything because they've taken twice as long as they're allowed gently caress YOU MARTIN
flick my Mr. Bean fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Feb 25, 2020 |
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Feb 25, 2020 02:41
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As a general education teacher, good SPED teachers are loving angels in disguise and I respect the hell out of them. They are overworked, underpaid, and basically only there because of how much they care about those kids. There are bad SPED teachers, but by and large they are great.flick my Mr. Bean posted:50% of students with IEPs or whatever need them, 25% all turn their work in early and you forget they even have special accommodations because they're on their game 24/7, and 25% is assholes who abuse it until you finally find the file that lists exactly how much extra time they have for work and you get to give them 50% on everything because they've taken twice as long as they're allowed gently caress YOU MARTIN This is a very accurate assessment. The only thing I have to add is that the percentage of kids in the last category, the IEP abusers, goes up as you go to more affluent districts. Mostly because parents learn this one cool trick to get their kid more time on the ACT/preferential treatment.
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Feb 25, 2020 03:21
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Prof. Banks posted:This is a very accurate assessment. The only thing I have to add is that the percentage of kids in the last category, the IEP abusers, goes up as you go to more affluent districts. Mostly because parents learn this one cool trick to get their kid more time on the ACT/preferential treatment. Zane fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Feb 25, 2020 |
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Feb 25, 2020 04:03
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Hector Delgado posted:Way back in the mid 80's when I was in 1st grade, I got placed in a penmanship class cause I was left-handed. They were trying to convert me to a righty and failed miserably. i was successfully converted to right handed as far as writing was concerned. It hosed me up for a long time in some pretty profound ways lol
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Feb 25, 2020 04:05
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When I was in 6th grade one of the other students pushed me out of my chair because I was bouncing a freshly sharpened pencil on its eraser and the pencil went up my nose and fortunately caught the inside of my nostril instead of me just dying or something. The nosebleed from that was real bad and lasted a long time but they just had me shove a handkerchief in there with a cold can of V8 pressed on my nose instead of having me see the school nurse because they didn't want to call attention to themselves.
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Feb 25, 2020 05:35
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All these people with positive special ed experiences the gently caress. My entire school system just shunted us off to teachers who treated us like we couldn't add. I can seriously recall a high school math teacher spending 2 months in addition while we just got high and this was a nice suburban high school in 2000. poo poo the guidance councilor encouraged some to drop out and teachers openly ignored IEP's. I cannot emphasize how few shits this well funded school system gave about LD kids and how constantly baffled I am at never ending stories of how wonderful special ed teachers are supposed to be. Every single one I had was garbage from the moment I got that drat label growing up.
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Feb 25, 2020 05:53
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My youngest son had a mild speech impediment that we had two options for addressing. 1. Private speech therapy for almost 500.00/month 2. Free speech therapy, one on one session through his public school via the special education program. We went with number 2, and the odd thing is the principal actually expected us to turn her down because of the special education designation. He still kept all of his normal classes, he just had to go to the speech therapist a couple of times a week during his English class.
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Feb 25, 2020 05:59
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Hector Delgado posted:Way back in the mid 80's when I was in 1st grade, I got placed in a penmanship class cause I was left-handed. They were trying to convert me to a righty and failed miserably. Where the hell were they still doing that in the 80s?
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Feb 25, 2020 06:12
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this thread is good and im happy with the way its going everyone should have a chance to be educated.
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Feb 25, 2020 06:25
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Ches Neckbeard posted:All these people with positive special ed experiences the gently caress. My entire school system just shunted us off to teachers who treated us like we couldn't add. I can seriously recall a high school math teacher spending 2 months in addition while we just got high and this was a nice suburban high school in 2000. poo poo the guidance councilor encouraged some to drop out and teachers openly ignored IEP's. I cannot emphasize how few shits this well funded school system gave about LD kids and how constantly baffled I am at never ending stories of how wonderful special ed teachers are supposed to be. Every single one I had was garbage from the moment I got that drat label growing up. If a kid had a tantrum in my middle school they would wrap the kid up in some carpet and take them to a tiny, completely walled-in cell for them to chill out for a few hours with no supervision. The admin of the program did mock interviews for all the kids one week and when I said I wanted to be a programmer she asked me to give her the first five lines of a program that would generate prime numbers, and when I couldn't (because I was like 12 and had aspirations but not experience) she told me to think more realistically like working at a gas station. The middle school was also a high school, but if you graduated they just prepped you to get a GED because they weren't accredited or something. When I finally got out of that poo poo I jumped from dividing fractions to having to use the quadratic equation and I failed the poo poo out of that grade.
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Feb 25, 2020 06:26
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Rad-daddio posted:My youngest son had a mild speech impediment that we had two options for addressing. That's awesome. Mid-90s my school didnt have that under SpEd so I went to a private clinic but bc the cost, didnt finish the program so I still mess up s words a lot. I am glad that has gotten better : )
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Feb 25, 2020 06:29
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The test I had to take to find out if I should be allowed to hang with the normies was called the “wood cock johnson” and it’s not my loving fault that I kept laughing any time it was brought up.
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Feb 25, 2020 07:16
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signalnoise posted:If a kid had a tantrum in my middle school they would wrap the kid up in some carpet and take them to a tiny, completely walled-in cell for them to chill out for a few hours with no supervision. The admin of the program did mock interviews for all the kids one week and when I said I wanted to be a programmer she asked me to give her the first five lines of a program that would generate prime numbers, and when I couldn't (because I was like 12 and had aspirations but not experience) she told me to think more realistically like working at a gas station. The middle school was also a high school, but if you graduated they just prepped you to get a GED because they weren't accredited or something. When I finally got out of that poo poo I jumped from dividing fractions to having to use the quadratic equation and I failed the poo poo out of that grade. what the gently caress 
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Feb 25, 2020 07:31
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:what the gently caress Years later when I mentioned the name of that school to my psych she had a facial expression like "oh lord" and kinda lowered and shook her head
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Feb 25, 2020 07:43
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signalnoise posted:If a kid had a tantrum in my middle school they would wrap the kid up in some carpet and take them to a tiny, completely walled-in cell for them to chill out for a few hours with no supervision. The admin of the program did mock interviews for all the kids one week and when I said I wanted to be a programmer she asked me to give her the first five lines of a program that would generate prime numbers, and when I couldn't (because I was like 12 and had aspirations but not experience) she told me to think more realistically like working at a gas station. The middle school was also a high school, but if you graduated they just prepped you to get a GED because they weren't accredited or something. When I finally got out of that poo poo I jumped from dividing fractions to having to use the quadratic equation and I failed the poo poo out of that grade. I had a similar programming conversation except as a freshman in high school.
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Feb 25, 2020 07:52
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Groke posted:Where the hell were they still doing that in the 80s? Decas School Wareham, Massachusetts
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Feb 25, 2020 14:21
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next door jimmy made me suck his dick
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Feb 25, 2020 14:36
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signalnoise posted:If a kid had a tantrum in my middle school they would wrap the kid up in some carpet and take them to a tiny, completely walled-in cell for them to chill out for a few hours with no supervision. The admin of the program did mock interviews for all the kids one week and when I said I wanted to be a programmer she asked me to give her the first five lines of a program that would generate prime numbers, and when I couldn't (because I was like 12 and had aspirations but not experience) she told me to think more realistically like working at a gas station. The middle school was also a high school, but if you graduated they just prepped you to get a GED because they weren't accredited or something. When I finally got out of that poo poo I jumped from dividing fractions to having to use the quadratic equation and I failed the poo poo out of that grade. Are you a programmer now
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Feb 25, 2020 14:59
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bird with big dick posted:Are you a programmer now Nope
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Feb 25, 2020 15:02
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