Some teachers seem to have all the luck. Like Miss X. She has three autistic kids in her class. An accident? I couldn’t really say. Maybe the administration thinks she has a good touch with these kids. She does. Even though she has very little support to see to their needs (and they have many despite their myriad talents), she gives them all she’s got. She’s a very accepting woman and a great teacher. So wouldn’t it be a little unfair to tie her performance as a teacher to the standardized test scores of her students when a big percentage of them are in special ed? Wouldn’t it put her at a disadvantage and teachers who are not as inclusive, who do their best to get rid of special ed kids, at an advantage?
But why does Miss X have so many autistic students? Three’s a lot even by today’s standards. Back when I started teaching autistic kids were exotic. You’d only see them in special classes and in special schools. The first autistic child I worked with was in a special class I taught over the summer. He had long blond hair and liked to spit in his hand. He could keep a tissue afloat by blowing underneath it, and when put in front of my Smith Corona electric typewriter, would type the names of the major credit car companies over and over. I would talk a lot to the boy and though he couldn’t respond verbally we developed a relationship that was strong enough that his father, a single dad, sought me out during the school year for advice. “What can I do to help my son?” he asked me. I didn’t know how to respond.
I still don’t. And now there are more and more autistic students, and they’re not just in special classes; they’re in the general ed class with Miss X. Witnessing my own autistic son in the hands of his truly gifted therapists has helped me to better understand my ASD students, but I still need to learn much, much more. And now that education is under siege (from budget cuts and charter privateers) public schools aren’t the best place for learning. Some even think the help I give my disabled students is part of a pact I’ve signed with the devil to defraud the honest taxpayer in order to make the school districts rich with money earmarked for special ed. Kids with learning disabilities are the most over-identified, these folks claim, but don’t worry; guaranteed they’ll go after autistic kids too. Why are there three autistic kids in Miss X’s class? Because under the pressure of teachers and parents, they are getting over-identified too.
Watch and see if this recent article in the NYT doesn’t give them fodder. It examines what they used to call herd mentality, monkey see monkey do. Why are overweight people overweight? Because an over-eating friend of an over-eating friend has fallen off the Weight Watcher wagon, tipping over the first domino that will make a whole social network overweight. Why are parent’s freaking out about the illegal peanut traffic in schools?
They (the authors) even argue — and this is sure to generate controversy — that the obsessive drive to create “nut free” environments is not the result of any real increase in children’s allergies but rather something akin to an epidemic of adult hysteria, spread via network transmission.
Well if you think those peanut- hating parents are bad, the argument might go, take a look at their autism-loving brethren. Why are there so many autistic kids at school? Their parents are hysterical, that’s why. And worst of all, their craziness is spreading.
Yes, I can hear it now: vaccination doesn’t cause autism. Facebook does.
I guess all you can do is hunker down. And hope Miss X doesn’t get laid off.
