My Special Students are not Sweethearts

I work with a lot of different people in disability services, so in turn I see a lot of different disabilities. I am interested in all of my work really, and try not to limit myself. But I never forget where it started, and continues to this day, with one day a week at Special School.

At Special School, in my particular classroom, I have students who have severe physical impairments but who also have brains much brighter than their bodies. I sometimes classify this as the cruelest turns of fate, to be in a body and you want it to work but you know it doesn't and it won't. It is different from Autism, which I heard beautifully put as 'seeing life through a different window, not understanding what you see, and nobody understands it either' (a generalization, but holds true for many people I know). It is different from intellectual impairment.

I know my students well. They are getting older, so I like to refer to them as my friends. They are all clever - much cleverer than people give them credit for. They can be lovely, but not always. They are teenagers and I remember my moodiness as a teenager all too well.

What I cannot stand is upon a minute of meeting them, someone who says "Oh bless them, what sweethearts!"

One of my students is, I'll give you that much. She is a sweetie, and she is often happy, and she is quick to smile and laugh. She is sweet. I'll even let you say she is a sweetheart.

But one of my other students that I can think of? Sweetheart is not the first word I would think to describe her. Bright, vivacious and bitter. I know her. She is currently limited as we unlock a key for an effective communication device, and this can make her angry. Would you call any other high-school aged student a "sweetheart" moments after meeting them?

One day, a friend of mine who is studying to be a social worker wrote this on Facebook

"It never ceases to amaze me how much people with disabilities despite all the discrimination they face on a daily basis are still some of the kindest and friendliest people I know."

That's coming from a social worker. A mass generalization on all people with disabilities.

I work with many different people. Guess what? I get bitten. I get spat on - purposefully, too. I am often covered with bodily fluids (nobody's fault). I get yelled at, by other carers. I try and stop self-injurious behaviours. I listen to a lot of squealing. I sometimes have to run a lot.

Sometimes I work with sweethearts. Sometimes I work with real cool cats. Sometimes I work with a mate or a buddy, and everything in between.

It's not glamorous. There is nothing romantic about this.

My Special Students are not Sweethearts, simply because they have a disability.
I've gotten it before too. I know my friend Emily from Words I Wheel By gets it too, as does her mum.

Any assumption about a person with a disability: that they will be sweethearts or not is a massive and unfair overgeneralization. We should be seeing a person before a disability. When we judge or assume that someone will be one way or another because of their disability, no matter what the disability, we are not being person-first.

And clearly, sometimes even social workers need a reminder on that.

When Political Correctness Turned Ugly

In Australia, I feel like the entire Special VS Inclusive Education issue seems to be less of an issue. I don't say that to sound at all "better than America" because I don't think that's true. We don't have special education classes within mainstream schools, so I think that is why it is less of an issue. You have mainstream classes (with additional support, if required) or you have special schools. You also always have the option to homeschool your child.

Shock horror: it is completely possible to fully support mainstream, inclusive education AND special schools at the same time. I definitely do. Every case is unique, and some children are going to benefit most from being in mainstream schools and some are going to benefit most from being in special schools. There are lots of factors that need to be considered, but having the option for both is something I consider very important.

I support them both, much in the same way I support mothers who breastfeed and/or bottle feed - as well as I support mother's who tube feed and use TPN! Sometimes, I see people get so hung up over the breast feeding VS bottle feeding issue and I simply think: shouldn't we a) be grateful that your child has a swallow reflex and muscles strong enough to take the breast or bottle and b) congratulations! you are giving your child nutrition! you are succeeding as mother! But I digress.

Recently, I got a very angry and very rushed email from one of my employers. It is from a vacation care that I work at, based at a special school and classed as a disability service. It is only for children with a disability. The email was sent to the entire staff and it was from the two supervisors.

They quit. They had been told their contracts may not be renewed.
It sounds like new people had come in and want to dissolve the vacation care program, and hand back the funding. They gave various reasons as to why, which I will tell you now and tell you every reason why I think those reasons are wrong:

"Services that only cater to children with a disability are not inclusive and will not be supported by the company"
1. This is the children's school, and it is their vacation care program. No other schools open their arms wide for children outside their school to attend their vacation care program, so how are those programs inclusive? We already accept children from other special schools as well as mainstream schools, with a diagnosed disability - so in many ways we are doing inclusive.
2. There are heaps of programs for adults with disabilities, heaps of services for them. This is one of the few times when adults with special needs probably get more available to them than children. Nobody ever accuses those services of not being inclusive. Children need these services too! They were created because the children need a high level of care that not average-Joe could provide to them, and parents need to work.

"Services for children with a disability which are based at special schools mean that children never leave that environment and won't be supported by the company"
1. In mainstream schools, children who go to before-school care, after-school care and vacation-care don't get this much concern. Why is suddenly an issue for the company?
2. You have no idea what we do in school. We go on a lot of excursions - definitely more than mainstream schools - we experience multiple environments, so don't you dare say that is the only environment they experience.
3. The children do go home on the weekends you know...
4. The children are in vacation care because they need to be. Their parents work. Not every child from the school is there at all, and rarely are the children in everyday of the week.
5. Some of the children come from different schools anyway, so they are experiencing a different environment.
6. We spend all our time during vacation care in the playground, gym and multi-purpose area, and area that we never get to spend enough time in during school time. We don't even go near the classrooms.

"Services for children with a disability which employ their teachers as staff mean that children never get to experience anything else and won't be supported by the company"
1. In our program, I was the only person who had anything to do with the special school who worked there. I am not a teacher, and I am only in school generally one day a week. There was only one student who I worked with on a regular basis. This student actively sought me out everyday, I was able to stop other workers one time when the student was in a situation they should not have been and if the student did not want to be with me, they had multiple other staff members to go and play with.
2. How awful for someone who knows your child very well to be working with them. What a shame that you feel safe and comfortable leaving your child at a service.
3. Again, we didn't even have any teachers at our program...
4. The chances of the child's specific teacher working there are probably quite slim. And then there are other children there too, so they will be busy with them.

The company has refused to have a forum with parents. I think my supervisors sent out this email to everyone to get them to rally with them.

My problem is: the children really have nowhere else to go. No mainstream school vacation will take them because a) they don't take kids from outside their own school, and b) they are not set up for it. It's not an issue of being inclusive, it's that they don't have a hoist or change tables or training or the staff ratio.
We have the facilities. We have the soft play rooms. We have the accessible playgrounds. We have the training.

What is the real problem???? TELL US.