TL;DR special schools for special needs

On one end of the education spectrum, we have a group of children – prodigies, natural born leaders, folks that think outside the box, and those born “gifted”.  They are often found in advanced placement courses outside of peer learning environments, and at times go to school tailored to their natural talents.  On the other end of the spectrum, we have a second group of children – those that suffer from severe learning disabilities, autism, ADHD or are emotionally troubled.  We have remedial classes and free tutoring in public schools, and have dedicated entire alternative institutions to these children who do not fit into a standardized testing environment.

I don’t feel that public schools are the right environment for either group.  As a practical issue, not every child is going to succeed.  There are smart kids who didn’t score high enough on the one test that might have gotten them into a school that would’ve help develop their natural talents and reach their potential – they aren’t challenged and their boredom leads to failure.  There are also kids with learning disabilities not severe enough to warrant enrollment in a specialty school – they fall between the cracks because they aren’t catered to and their frustration of being misunderstood leads to failure.  With both groups, you also face the harsh reality of economic strain – giving education away for free doesn’t guarantee that a child will succeed, it merely advances the possibility that they might.

The subject of severity of developmental disabilities should also a factor.  In 3^rd grade, I sat next to a kid that had Tourette’s syndrome, and he suffered from involuntary muscle movement (most notably, the ability high-kick better than any cancan dancer I’ve seen to date).  While he was never vocally disruptive, he was constantly knocking things over.  Even though it was distracting, Danny had a ton of friends because we were taught that it was something he couldn’t control, and he never did it to hurt anyone on purpose.  We knew it was frustrating for him because we would often see him leave the room, crying quietly.  We didn’t treat him like a black sheep, and I’m appalled that would be a problem anywhere. 

There is a shame attached to the kids that don’t fit in that I think is the basis of our problem – if we are to help these children discover the possibility to succeed, we are perpetuating frustration by failing them in the public school system.  I view autism as something that cannot be cured, but perhaps the symptoms can be alleviated in less severe cases through behavior modification therapy.  Obviously ADHD can be tempered with psychopharmaceuticals, but it’s still not a cure.  These developmental disorders need to be managed, under the care of people licensed to do so.  I think the most important word in this week’s prompt is “appropriate”.  We’re not stigmatizing these children by placing them in appropriate environments to help cultivate their individual learning needs – we are stigmatizing them by keeping them in environments where they are almost guaranteed to fail.