I hate heterogeneous classes.

[Mary]

Education has become one single classroom of 30 or 32 individual classes. It is more than one teacher can handle, and the group that is not working with the teacher is losing time learning.

Also, a recent study showed that in heterogeneous lower achieving students gain 5% points, average students lose 5% points (so it's a wash already) and high achieving students lose 7% points.

The dirty secret is all kids can learn, but not all can learn everything (I'd be labeled retarded if I had to understand Algebra and Physics!)

[Carlie]

I think it's ridiculous that I know that the derivative of x^2 is 2x but I have no clue what that means or why it's significant or why I'm finding it or how to use it in real life.

[Lisa]

I'm putting Carlie in charge of teaching my autistic client theory of mind. If he had any idea that something was going on in someone else's head that was different from what was in his head, he might stop hitting people. And if anyone can learn anything...well, I haven't figured it out yet.

Of course, I know 14-year-olds who never learned to talk. Toilet training was the order of the day. I'm thinking algebra is a bit beyond them, but maybe I'm just not thinking creatively enough.

[Lisa]

Oh, Carlie. That was so misinformed, on so many levels...well, crap. My head just exploded.

[Rusty]

Let me begin by saying that I do not claim to know much about special ed. The thing that always perplexed me, though, was how some schools use special ed. as a catch-all, not just for the kids with learning disabilities. They’ll throw anybody in there, whether it be the kid with behavior problems, the kid who doesn’t speak English, etc. I don’t know how any one teacher (and often as not it was one teacher, with two dozen kids) could ever design a lesson plan that would be suited to all the individuals in such a group.

[Carlie]

I hate intolerant people.
Yeah let's all be supportive of drunk drivers, understanding of child molesters, and honor child abusers but it's ok to jump on anyone who has a sense of morality.

[Tesse]

Carlie, you are one of the least "tolerant" people in this group and attack people with hostility and abuse for the slightest deviation from what you consider to be acceptable.

[Carlie]

My, that superiority blanket looks quite comfortable! May I inquire as to where I may purchase one?

[Carlie]

Funny how the things I am being accused of are faults I find in the accusers themselves. I hope you will recall that I never brought up my education until I was accused of being an uneducated ignoramus who didn't know what she was speaking of when she said half-siblings shouldn't mate in a loose rant.
I joined this group because of all the playful banter I saw and thought I could join in. I was wrong. i'll be much more careful with my words from now on.

[Carlie]

I am clearly terrible at communication. I really should just stop speaking altogether but I like talking to people and making lame jokes. It's puzzling that you actually thought that repulsive comment was serious.
and message 11 was said in a fit of anger.

and now this thread makes absolutely no sense since someone feels it necessary to selectively delete my comments. I think it's a joke on my i hate the moderators thread since it started around that time but it sure confuses things.

and I do feel that some of the people here do get my sarcasm. message 11 should not be construed to be addressed to everyone. I would really say it applies to at most 3 people.

[Lisa]

I can go on for days about autism. I probably shouldn't. It is strongly related to learning disabilities (at least in the effect it has on kids...or adults, for that matter). As such, it makes it difficult, or in some cases impossible, for kids to learn certain things. I used to work with a kiddo who had never learned to talk. She was 13. Her mother was very invested and had tried a lot of things, including and especially a positive reaction to benign behaviors.

Autism usually involves a severe deficit in social relatedness, along with a notable deficit in functional language. There are often also mixed signals/crossed wires about sensory input (poking yourself in the eye kind of tickles and is fun, whereas the buzz of the refrigerator running causes the kind of pain most of us would get from poking ourselves in the eye). Some of these children will never, ever learn to read a facial expression of, say, bemused fascination (one they get a lot, actually), though they can learn by rote or, eventually, by experience what someone looks like when pleased or angry.

They actually are just as capable of attaching to others as typical kids, but it's represented by a wildly different set of behaviors. Early in life, attachment is a set of behaviors designed to elicit protection from adults, and autistic kids can do that. As they get older, the attachment behaviors from early childhood (which are, even in typical kids, fairly one-sided) fail to develop adequate reciprocity. A 16-year-old I know who had once been misdiagnosed with autism recently noticed a bruise on my arm and said, "that looks like it hurts, but I thought it would be rude to ask." She's not autistic. An autistic kid might notice, but wouldn't wonder how I got it or whether it hurt, much less whether it would be socially appropriate to ask. She'd just point it out and talk about her own skateboarding bruise.

I actually adore kids with pervasive developmental disorders like autism. I've worked with them for more than ten years, and I understand them and appreciate them. And I actually understand why my kiddo I mentioned is pretty explosive. When you don't understand what's going on in someone else's head, it's easy to misinterpret, and when people misinterpret, they get angry. When you get angry, and have a poor sense of social convention, you often get aggressive, and it's hard to talk you down, especially if your language skills (and social language skills specifically) are poor.

Okay, I went on for days, didn't I? I'll end with my favorite autistic kid's jokes. I used to be a skills trainer before I went to grad school. When I showed up at the house to hang out with this 11-year-old kid, he thought it was uproariously funny to jump out at me and shout, "boo!" I laughed. He laughed. When I let him sit in the front seat of my car (this was before the "airbags are dangerous" thing) as we went to the gym to play basketball, he thought it was uproariously funny to reach over and try to turn off the car. On the freeway. I didn't laugh. He laughed. Damn, I miss that kid.