I would be interested in what other parents think about this situation. My 10th grade son came home from high school today (the 1st day of school) with an assignment from his reading teacher. Tomorrow in school, the class of 8 sped students are not to talk at all during the entire day. They are to use any other form of communication except talking. The 8 students are not together in classes except for the reading class, so this means that in some classes they might be the only student doing this assignment. They are to take the letter into their teachers (each class period is a new class and new teacher) to let them know what they are doing. This is to let the students know how difficult it is for people with disabilities to sometimes communicate. I can see the assignment being done later in the quarter once everyone is more settled in with their groups of friends, lunch groups, and teachers. I really think that it is inappropriate to be done the second day of school.
Two of the students are freshmen, the rest are sophomores in the class. Can you imagine being in a totally new school with multitudes of new students, coping with new teachers, hallways, schedules, etc. and not being able to talk for the entire day! If the teachers “catch” the students talking, they have been threatened that they will lose points on the assignment. My son has problems with social skills and making friends as it is due to his ADD/LD. Now the second day of school, he is single himself out even more by not talking in class, at lunch or even in gym. I don’t think it is appropriate, but wondered what others think. I put a call in for the teacher as soon as school was let out and I saw the assignment, but I never got a reply. She will probably call tomorrow and I don’t know if I should just tell my son to treat the day as any other school day and talk as he finds necessary or what. Any suggestions/comments from other parents?
Re: class assignment
Thought I would let people know what happened today. I told my son to go ahead and try to do the assignment to the best of his ability. He was already afraid of “losing points” on the assignment if he talked and didn’t want to lose points for not doing it. I called the teacher at 3:00 pm yesterday, right after my son came home from school with the assignment. The teacher e-mailed me her message today at 2:30 pm (during the last class period today!) Here is her response
“The sheet did explain the purpose, but basically it is for the students to be aware of how important it is to learn, appreciation of how lucky we are, and how it applies to our reading class. For instance, like how would of society
differ if we couldn’t talk and how important of a skill it is. I am
always planning new ways to learn!!! The students have to write/type up a
page reflection about how there day went. They were able to talk in the
halls, lunch etc….just in classes. ” (Mispellings and wording is the reading/writing teacher’s, not mine.)
My son came home upset and cranky. Why? because during the day as he tried to participate with the assignment, other students in his classes and even other teachers “laughed” at him as he made his attempts to communicate. He said and wrote in his reflection paper that he felt like crying sometimes during the day because of the embaressment the lesson caused! What did my son learn? Yes, it is difficult to communicate without speaking, but also the lesson that other students and teachers even can make a student feel embaressed, different and sad because they are only trying to do a lesson as instructed.
And yes, she is a newer teacher.Third year teaching, second year at the high school level. The first year was at the elementary k-5 level. My son had her last year and had a lot of trouble with her teaching methods. Unfortunately, she is the only teacher for this level and my son is stuck with her again. Any suggestions on how to approach her would be appreciated. I have tried the nice approach, but she treats you as if she is not ever to be questioned because she is the “teacher” and you are only the parent. I feel like I am dealing with another one of my children. I ask a question about something my son didn’t understand and I didn’t either, she replies with an answer of “I already told your son that,” “I thought I explained that to you,”or something like above, “The sheet explained the purpose.” I am sorry, but if I need a further explanation. I really don’t think that it is too much for a teacher to do. Am I wrong?
Re: class assignment
Absolutely not, you are not wrong. If you can’t get a satisfactory answer out of her consistently, I would bring someone else with me to ‘impromptu’ hallway discussions or better yet, every time she fails to explain something to you in a respectful and thorough way,call a team meeting with her and someone in the supervisory role to explain your position and dissatisfaction with the way she is teaching your child and her being disrespectful to you. You don’t say if she is the resource teacher, if not I would certainly include that person too if your child is in special ed. I have found our resource teacher to be very helpful in trying resolve difficulty with a particular teacher. Let them know that if the explanation of the assignment isn’t obvious to you then obviously your son can’t figure it either.I also don’t think she thought through her assignment very well if she didn’t at least tell the other teachers what her kids would be doing. There is no excuse whatsoever for making kids who already feel different feel even worse. This assignment might have been better off used only in her class, I have read about this kind of exercise being done to help kids be more tolerant of people with differences but it was in like a health class and no one was held up for ridicule. Honestly, this was a stupid thing the teacher did and I would have told my son not to do it and not worry about the grade because I wouldn’t worry about it. I would also complain up the food chain about a teaching practice that is hurtful to students. Talk to the other parents, see how they felt about it, if they felt the same, make some noise together. I am not sure what you can do about the teacher if she is the only one available,some of the teachers on this board could probly help out, I am thinking move to a different school if you can’t get out of using this teacher. I would hate to think that your son has a whole year ahead of him to deal with someone like this lady.I don’t know if I helped out, I hope so. I just hate when kids and parents get treated like they are all small children.Good luck!
Re: class assignment
I think your teacher is a moron. children with disabilities dont need disability sensitivity training, its the ones who have no disabilities that need the training.
Hind sight is wonderfull and this is certainly too late now, but in the future anytime an assignment is given by this person that has the potential to cause psychological harm to your child I would call her up and inform her that you, as the parent, are refuseing to allow your child to participate in the assignment because you feel it will be harmfull to him.
The teacher may try to give him a 0 ot f for the assignment, which you can fight eigther through an iep meeting or through normal administrative channels, certainly even taking the 0 or f would be preferable to asking a child with disabilities to further allienate hiself from his peers, and far easier to clear up afterwards then damage to self esteem and the psychological harm caused by the dimwits ill concieved attempt at practiceing psychology without a license.
Re: class assignment
It sounds like the teacher may be defensive: She reacts as though she’s been criticized, when you only asked a question. What she’s doing is deflecting. It might help if you got to know her a little better, like volunteering during one day, and not ask a single question. I’m trying to think of what might neutralize her defensiveness.
Carol
Re: class assignment
I had to chime in — I so TOTALLY agree with OHIO. This teacher is incompetent, in my opinion. I don’t usually crit teachers for spelling/grammar mistakes etc. (since I know several excellent teachers who are dyslexic and are still GREAT teachers) but WHAT is she doing teaching 10th grade with skills at that level? If she is dyslexic, I am baffled that she would design such an assignment AND give it to the kids (sped) who already have a good idea what it is like to be handicapped in communication. GRRRRRR!
I generally teach my son that he must meet the teacher’s requirements, but I think this is one time where the teacher is at fault.
Best wishes,
Elizabeth
Re: class assignment
I’d be concerned about this too. I especially don’t like the idea that “points will be taken away” - that your son and the other students will be punished in effect if they slip and talk.
If the point is to let others know how hard it is for LD people to communicate, why are LD students being punished or graded down if they talk?
I could understand this project being done in the reading classroom where all the spec. ed students are together. To make them take it out into the day particularly at this point in the school year doesn’t quite make sense.
They’re trying to start the year off with a special project to get everyone’s attention and interest and they deserve to be commended for that but this project doesn’t seem like quite the right one to have chosen.
I think you’re right. That assignment makes an already very challenging situation even tougher! Of course, it could be that if he were to do it and then tell people “I had this stupid assignment” — then they might have a good starting point for conversations, since stupid assignments are a common thread for many high schoolers.
I’d tell the kiddo if he doesn’t want to do it you’ll back him up, or he can try it… I have a feeling other kids will sort of try it and act like they did it and fake out the teacher.
And… I just can’t help it… What’s this crap about learning what it’s like to be different anyway? Um… aren’t they experiencing that already????? Tell the teacher to go the day wihtout talking just to “see what it’s like.” What’s she want, to make *d*** sure* they are as different as possible?