Students, schools, disabilities, and funds?
Lenona
By family therapist John Rosemond.
Excerpts:
The mere fact that a person is lacking in some characteristic or
ability does not necessarily mean something is "wrong." That a certain
10-year-old child is shy, lacks conversational skills, and prefers
solitary activity to group play does not mean something is amiss
inside the child's brain. Nor does the mere fact that a child
struggles with learning to read or do math mean his brain isn't
working properly. Also, it is well known that the child who is
"painfully" shy at ten may be outgoing at age forty-six, and a child
who struggles to learn to read may grow up to be a best-selling
author. Very little about a human being is set in stone.
All of this is to say that for all the prior lip service, today's
educators seem to have absolutely no respect for individual
differences, no respect for the fact that "lack" is not synonymous
with wrong. In today's schools, the range of acceptability concerning
an ever-increasing number of aptitudes has been getting narrower and
narrower over the past couple of decades.
This narrow-mindedness on the part of educators has coincided with the
proliferation of various supposed childhood "disorders."
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?source_name=mbase&source_id=2011775732
(seven responses)
Here's one:
" By the way, isn't it interesting that every time a child is found to
qualify for a diagnosis, the child's school qualifies for more money
from the state and federal governments? As my grandmother used to say,
"Well, don't that beat all!"
Really? If anything, in the school district I work for we are under
pressure NOT to give a diagnosis as providing the extra required
services is very expensive (and is not completely reimbursed by
federal or state funds). Does this psychologist even work in schools?
(end)
Does anyone agree with that commenter? I wouldn't know about how
school districts work, but I'm curious.
Lenona.
Rod Speed
I expect the real world is a mixture of both approaches.