special education labels

I read a great blogg to day written by a NYC special education teacher who works in the Bronx. She did a great job describing the conditions at her school simply by telling a story about one boy’s lateness to class.

You might not think that one simple quasi- disciplinary issue could evoke such powerful feeling in me but if you were a special education teacher twenty years ago in just about the same place and pretty much daily experienced precisely what this blogger reported, then you might get very depressed and perhaps justifiably angry that this exact thing is still happening twenty years latter.

What the hell happened to all answers that were answered twenty years ago when the federal government issued its Nation At Risk report? There have been innumerable plans and initiatives. Books have been written and grants have been granted, the money spent and the time and effort has resulted in what? Conditions for kids with special needs have not changed.

The only thing that has changed is that there are many more students with special needs. Parents have been forced to resort to litigation if they have wanted to obtain the kinds of services that are available. Otherwise, schools simply give parents and students what they think ought to be sufficient to provide a free and appropriate public education.

Sometimes people values and beliefs about disabilities and persons who are labeled with them can get in the way of clear thinking about what is “appropriate”. After reading the teacher blogger’s account of a students behavior and its impact on her, her class and her soul I remember again what is not appropriate about being in special education.

The students take the label to heart. Our or our societies unexamined and unconfirmed beliefs about different being somewhat lower or less deserving come through these labels. The labels serve as archetypal visions* or Mandela that roar as loud as the rap music through an ear pod to a very creative and needed (and getting larger) portion of our youth. When we perpetuate the use of these labels we are responsible for distorting their images of themselves at a time when they need healthy ego development the most.

It’s not just the ignorant and malevolent politics of education that has many districts chasing ghosts while the real issues remain addressed by unsolved. It is need for all of us to wake up and see the value in every other one of us. And then act as if we all have great value, great purpose and great beauty. Imagine.

* hunchback of Notre Dame