What is the goal of integrating mentally retarded people in normal schools?

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Saven, Jun 16, 2009.

  1. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Hahah! Oh really

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    You're being a twat.

    Now you have taken away the seriousness out of your own bloody point of view

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    They came for the disabled indeed!

    You're being a hysteric.

    Another example of political correctness derailing any kind of discussion.
     
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  3. Saven Registered Member

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    It's no use, Lucysnow. No matter what words I would have used, it seems that some people will read negativity where they expect (and maybe are used to?) negativity. It's very revealing about them, in some ways. Thank you for your words of reason.

    To Fragglerock: I'm just not sure that it's helping the kids who are mentally retarded in the first place. I think most of these kids know that something is wrong with them, even if they can't adequately express it. Perhaps that's the source of the behavioral issues? There may be some kind of inferiority complex that is being reinforced by that exposure.

    I suppose my position would be, wouldn't the mentally retarded kids be happier and more comfortable around those who are most similar to them?
     
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  5. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    actually i was quoting a poem. But anyway, segration is a stupid and outdated policy, sadly oviously some people still surport it but for the rest of us its an athathma. Kids may need extra resorces but the defult should ALWAYS be that they go to a normal school ect. This is further surported through anti discrimination and equal opotunity legislation.

    I mean how many of you think steven hawkins should have been stuck in a "special" school to make licence plates and stack boxes for the rest of his life because he is disabled.
     
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  7. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Asguard Hawkins was struck as an adult but say he was a disabled as a child, would he have been an example of what Saven was discussing? Would he have been disruptive? Unable to learn? Aggressive? Saven is speaking of a child who doesn't belong in the class, not of a disabled child who can keep up and behave properly. If this was his point he would have written the opening differently

    Saven: I suppose my position would be, wouldn't the mentally retarded kids be happier and more comfortable around those who are most similar to them?

    I think the answer is yes if they are not functioning on par with others. Any child would feel uncomfortable and suffer from a sense of inferiority if they are being singled out for behaviour problems or for not being able to grasp what other's grasp more easily. I would say that just like my friends daughter and Madanthonywayne's child its important to give them the help they need outside of a mainstream class before 'integrating' them if they are ever able to be integrated at all. I think it doesn't do the kid any good to push it along without recognizing the limitations.
     
  8. EmmZ It's an animal thing Registered Senior Member

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    Asguard, I think children with learning difficulties or special needs sometimes need education away from mainstream schools. Often children with Asperger's and Downs syndrome cannot cope with mainstream schools because they are not geared towards people who have specific learning, behavioural or social needs. Children with different needs are in the numerical minority and put in a class of children without the same needs can often leave those kids feeling alienated and frustrated. It's not that going to a mainstream school will assert their value it would only serve to fail to address the educational needs of a child that most mainstream schools aren't trained to deal with. Mainstream schools may be judged as the benchmark for all children to go to but sometimes that can be short sighted of people who want to pretend there aren't different needs, and clearly there are.
     
  9. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, no problem with blacks there. You exterminated them in "The Black War". If we'd followed your example, we'd also have no race problem.
    Black War
    Australian history
    (1804–30), term applied to hostilities between Aborigines and white European soldiers and settlers on the Australian island of Tasmania (then called Van Diemen’s Land), which resulted in the virtual extermination of the original Aboriginal population of the island. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/68399/Black-War
     
  10. John99 Banned Banned

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    when i was in hs they had special education which i think is a good way to do things but it is also a little strange. the reason is because they would end up putting the bad kids in with the kids whpo were a little behind.

    other than that i have no clue as to what would be best for these kids. as an aside, my gf, throughout hs was in the special ed. class but that was for assaulting teachers. i, however, was in the second smartest class. this was out of six classes.
     
  11. spaceChild Registered Member

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    As a deaf person I qualify for special education needs, would you put me with a bunch of "slow" kids simply because I can't hear what is said?
     
  12. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    i agree with you EmmZ HOWEVER there is a difference between what YOUR saying and what HE is.

    "At the school district in the town I work in, a mentally retarded kid has been frightening normal children because of his wild behavior and his aggressiveness. He is also somewhat deformed and that scares many kids"

    compared to:

    "I think children with learning difficulties or special needs sometimes need education away from mainstream schools. Often children with Asperger's and Downs syndrome cannot cope with mainstream schools because they are not geared towards people who have specific learning, behavioural or social needs"

    you do see the difference in focus dont you?

    Let me put it a different way, say child x of mine (no i dont have kids before you ask

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    ) has ceribral paulsy (to pick a condition at random). School sits down with me and my partner and together we work out if its a matter of getting extra help (for instance a personal assistant for him in the class room and yes i did go to school with some kids who had these) or a tutor at home on the weekends or keeping him back like mad did or whatever based on what the CHILD needs. As part of this concideration is given to sending the child to a special school or a "normal" school maybe part time even as one of the kids in my primary school class did (he did 2 days at a special school and 3 at our state school). This is what your saying (at least thats how i read it)


    Compared with:

    Child with ceribral palsy, parents called in and told by school that the other kid's parents dont want your child at the school, take him somewhere else where HIS KIND belong.

    Now you can word this however you want (i went for the open blunt kind to show the difference) but in the end it amounts to the same thing, "We dont want THERE kind around here". That is wrong
     
  13. John99 Banned Banned

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    her name was valerie. very pretty too although her right eye was always looking right. this worked out really well when we were driving though and she could tell me when a car was coming without turning her head. that wasnt right, for me to joke, like that. but it was the truth, except for the car part. she had, i dont know i guess it is a lazy eye. tbh, i dpo as well but it only shows up when i am tired. and that is also true.
     
  14. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    mad you do realise i have never said australia was perfect. But currently politically i would MUCH rather be here than the US especially concidering i have mental health issues
     
  15. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Yes if you didn't understand what they were saying. If someone cannot keep up in class because they have learning disabilities or because of behaviour problems then yes indeed they need special help. No one child should have the ability to interfere with the learning progress of an entire class just because they need more attention from the teacher. What they need is a special class.
     
  16. spaceChild Registered Member

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    You understand that you're speaking of dismissing a person because of a defect. A deaf person can still see, many can speak (clearer than a hell of a lot of hearing people) and so many of them are incredibly smart yet they get dismissed daily because You (not you specifically, speaking in general terms) think whats the point in talking to a person who can't hear my voice?
     
  17. spaceChild Registered Member

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    As for involving a child who is uncontrollable and scaring other children it would be more suitable that he was under far more supervised care. In a mainstream school a teacher has many people to teach and if the other students are scared they're not going to be learning.. except maybe stay away from people with disabilities.

    You could understand why they would want their disabled child to be mainstream though. It could result in his learning of necessary social behaviour and the other childrens understanding of people with disabilities. However in this case the kid probably needs more meds and better care
     
  18. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    spaceChild and thats why we have the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1992 and the state antidiscrimination and equal opertunity Acts. After all it disavantages the other kids if a school has to put ramps in and they cant get another swiming pool (im oviously talking about private schools) for wheel chair access. It disadvantages people that the uni has to spend money putting hearing loops into all the classrooms doesnt it? fuck no, they are essentual for deaf people and no harm to anyone else.

    Its such a disruption if a child gets a personal carrer to help them with there work while the teacher teaches everyone (yes because that would mean spending money and how dare they spend money on retards rather than MY child

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    )

    My cousins are dyslexic and there for had someone to read there year 12 exams out to them and scribe for them. They took the SAME exam and the ONLY difference was it was basically given orally rather than in written form. They had to have the SAME knowlage as everyone else to pass but if little fucks like the thread starter had there way they would be stuck in a class room with people with ABI and what not who COULDNT learn rather than giving them the help they DID need. There was no reason they shouldnt go to a "normal school"

    As i said there was a kid in my grade 6 class who did go to a "special school" for 2 days and to our school for 3 because he needed the help

    Decisions like this should be made based on the best interests of the CHILD, not stupid discrimintory fuckwits
     
  19. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    scaring other children because he "looks funny"? your kidding right
     
  20. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    Again. The purpose of mainstreaming is to teach the child in the least restrictive environment possible. Clearly, if the child is sitting in a wheel chair drooling lacking the ability to even speak, he's not getting much out of the effort. Also, if the child is disrupting the class, he needs to be disciplined and perhaps removed from the class just like any other child. But some disabled children are capable of functioning with normal children and this should be encouraged.

    As mentioned previously, my son with Down's syndrome (who was just tested as having an IQ of 77) fits in quite well with second grade children. Really, the main accommodation he needs is simply to be flunked until he masters the material. It helps that Down's syndrome children are usually small, so he's not bigger than his classmates. He also plays little league, and even Halo on Xbox live. He's quite good. If you play online, you may have played him.
    My son hates being with other disabled children. Most of them function at a level far below his (nonverbal, sit in chair and drool), so he's very bored when he attends any special ed classes. As I said, he's used to being with his normal brothers and sisters and being treated like any other kid.
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2009
  21. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    mad not to mention the advantages that the surposedly "normal" kids get out of having "special needs" kids in class with them. For instance i still rember some sign language (more of that than i do indoneasian ironically

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    ) because amongst other things our school had alot of deaf kids so they offered sign language classes for us at lunch times
     
  22. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    You know how us jingoistic American's are. I can't help but strike back when someone badmouths the old USA.

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  23. spaceChild Registered Member

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    Well thats what that guy said, that the other children were scared. Don't monsters look funny when we grow older (i'm not calling disabled children monsters just so we're clear) to a young child it may be scary to have a child in the classroom who yells and storms around and doesn't look the same as Billy etc. Particularly if the teacher or the parents haven't explained to the children why the child behaves that way or looks that way or just said he's retarded. A child won't understand it they'll just grow up with the same shameful bigotry.
     

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