Monthly Archives: May 2012

3rd Grade Math: Aspergers + Emotionally Conflicted Classroom = Lawsuit

May 30, 2012 By in The K-3rd Grade Years Tags: , , , , , , , , 18 Comments

 

If you are going through hell, keep going. Winston Churchill

My last Teddy post was about the day he tore up his classroom. You can read how he learned to do that here. The story picks up the next day, when I called and left a message for the school system’s Autism Specialist. Teddy’s emotional safety was in jeopardy and we needed help.

No response.

I left messages almost daily.  She called back…

ONE WEEK LATER.

And when she called, I wasn’t home. This was 1999, before I had a cell phone, so I missed the call and now it was the start of Christmas vacation and I couldn’t call back. Instead, I took a wonderful break from worrying.

On break Teddy displayed none of the behavioral issues he had during school. What a relief it was to see him relax. Damn it hurts to watch your child suffer. I feel for each and every parent who watches their child in physical or emotional distress. It sucks the life right out of you.

Then, as we all know, breaks end. The first day back at school Teddy threw a chair.

We started the new year, the new decade, the new millennium EXACTLY how we ended the last year, the last decade, the old millennium.

2000 began with me on the phone, once again leaving messages for the Autism Specialist. I was desperate to schedule an IEP meeting, to get everyone together and help Teddy.

When my messages weren’t returned, I called the next person in the chain of command, the Assistant Director of Special Education. When I told her I wanted to request an IEP meeting to do a Functional Behavioral Analysis and Individualized Behavior Management Plan she asked, and I quote,

Has it been determined yet if Teddy is in his current placement because of behavioral reasons?

WTF!

For OVER A YEAR nothing but Teddy’s behavioral issues had been discussed.

For OVER A YEAR the school system insisted he, A CHILD WITH AUTISM, be removed from the general education environment and be placed in an EMOTIONALLY CONFLICTED setting because of HIS BEHAVIOR.

For OVER A YEAR the school system insisted this placement was the best setting for him to “learn how to behave.”

Was she thinking I put my kid in an EC classroom for the kicks?

This woman could not hear what I was telling her. She could not hear the problems my child was having. She could not hear how completely inappropriate Teddy’s setting was. SHE COULD HEAR NOTHING. Her only response was to throw an obstacle in the way of helping my child.

Is that what they teach in Ed school?

Seriously.

Has it been determined yet???

The Assistant Director of Special Education had NOT A CLUE.

She was the first one to suggest the placement because of his behavior. She scheduled our EC classroom tour. And she attended the series of IEP meetings that led to this moment.

Just how STUPID was this woman? And just how many of our tax dollars was she paid to be COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT?

Moreover, never once did she, or any other school personnel feel the slightest bit RESPONSIBLE. There was ABSOLUTELY NO ACCOUNTABILITY for this fucked up situation. None.

And three more weeks passed until I received notice that a meeting was scheduled for February 10th, six weeks after my initial request. Six weeks… the number of weeks Teddy was originally to be in the EC room before being returned to a mainstreamed 3rd grade class.

By the time February 10th and the IEP meeting came, Teddy had been out of school for a week. I refused to send him to school anymore.

We had the meeting… but, officially, we didn’t have a meeting.

This is the cast of characters I met with that day… Teddy’s EC teacher said she didn’t know why we were there. The principal didn’t know Teddy was out of school and they hadn’t arranged an LEA to be present, so I was told we couldn’t have a meeting.

Hell no was my response. It took six weeks, well, six weeks and four months to get to this moment and I wasn’t going to let it pass without making it very clear that I was now demanding Teddy be returned to the general education classroom with an aide. I made it clear this was Teddy’s wish as well.

The only comment the principal made was that she didn’t think she would have an aide available and to get one would mean she might have to take an aide away from another child.

I told them that wasn’t going to happen. Another child’s services WOULD NOT be touched. They were going to have to do whatever they needed to do to help Ted and if I had to, I would call an attorney to make it happen.

“Oh, you don’t need to do that. We all agree he needs an aide.” I was told.

So Teddy returned to the EC room on Monday, February 14 with the understanding plans were being made to get an aide and place him back in the general ed classroom.

On Tuesday, February 22, 12 days after our meeting, the EC teacher called me to say Ted had gotten upset from the loud room. He had been in the time out booth screaming for everyone to be quiet, he left the booth still screaming, she grabbed his arm, hard, and left marks on it. Finally after 40 minutes he fell asleep. He then wet himself while he was sleeping and was sent home on the bus in his soiled clothes.

My eight year old child was so upset he had a bladder accident and then had to walk through school with wet clothes to get on the bus.

That was it.

All of my patience. All of my good will. All of my optimism was gone. It was used up. I was empty.

I was finished with her. Finished with all of them.

I hung up and called an attorney.

Next: The paperwork for Teddy v. County Board of Education is filed.

Charlotte

On Circumstances and Attitudes

May 28, 2012 By in Quotes Tags: , , , , , 7 Comments

army_troops_on_board_a_lct

A Memorial Day Tribute Inspired by Led Zeppelin’s Stairway and the Journey to D-Day

Our boat sank Saturday. It was an awful feeling as I stood, unable to do anything but watch from the dock as Neal was frantically trying to bail out the water faster than it was pouring over the transom. The bilge pump wouldn’t work, and within a minute, despite his efforts, the boat was underwater and he was swimming. As the day went on I thought about how we can’t always control our situation but we can always control how we feel about our situation. It can be hard to be positive when your boat is sunk or your kid is struggling. Then I remembered it’s Memorial Day, and this post I wrote about boats and attitudes…

Originally posted September 2011

“ I wonder.” It’s one of my favorite thoughts. I get excited at “I wonder.” The walls in which I live tremble when I say, “I wonder” for I have taken an entire house down to the studs and rebuilt it fueled with those two words. Today though it is not architectural renovation on my mind but rather emotional archeology.

It’s pouring down rain. I just listened to the weather at the airport. The wind is gusting to 25 knots and the ceiling is broken at 700 feet. The current conditions are one more connection to what has been on my mind for days.

It started with a song line as it so often does. Led Zeppelin. Stairway to Heaven. When John Bonham starts on the drums I know for sure I want to come back next life as a drummer in a rock band. Combined with Jimmy Page on the guitar the music is filled with energy and optimism.

While listening to it I heard the words, “Yes, there are two paths you can go by,” and my thoughts took me back to New Orleans and a visit to the National WWII Museum. I saw again the images of soldiers, young men no older than my own son. The GI’s occupying my mind’s eye were on ships, in the English Channel, June 4-5, 1944, in weather very much like today. They were waiting and wondering what would happen next.

For they were part of the massive armada headed to the beaches of Normandy to face the German army and very possibly their death. In his book D-Day, Stephen Ambrose wrote how General Eisenhower described the soldiers’ situation. “Those people in the ships were in cages, you might say. You couldn’t call them anything else. They were fenced in.”

 “There’s still time to change the road you’re on.” The song continued and mixed with the images of the men, yet the two were incongruous. They were doing battle.

How could these men possibly change the road they were on? They were caged, they had no choices.

I started wondering if there are times in life when we can’t change the road we’re on. Was Robert Plant wrong when he wrote those words and I was silly for liking them?

As I wondered and read accounts from the men who experienced D-Day, I realized most paths are not concrete but actually abstractions and so “in the long run” we can always change the road we are on by choosing how we see our situation.

For even while encaged in the brutality of war men such as those aboard the USS Bayfield tried to be encased in the belief that good would come from their inevitable sacrifices.

“During the cruise across,” Lt. John Robert Lewis said, “we all assembled on the deck and sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” This was a very sobering time to sing the words, ‘As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.”

What a powerful image and equally powerful is the lesson that Robert Plant was right about there always being two paths and their existence means we always have the freedom of choice.  It’s when we forget we have this freedom, which we often do, that we put ourselves in cages of our own creation.

Discovered also on this “I wonder” journey was a different kind of reminder of how and what we forget. According to the National Council for History Education, in the late 1990’s 40 percent of graduating high school seniors thought the US fought WITH the Germans and AGAINST the Russians in WWII.

If we imprison ourselves when we forget we have choices, what will happen when we forget we have history? How will our future leaders, young people who don’t know basic facts make solid choices regarding the future of our country, when their judgment has no historical grounding? Are the lessons learned from our past becoming lessons lost?

“I wonder” is a journey and at its threshold the final destination is unknown. Therein lies the fun.

Occasionally I wish to have a post that is dedicated to the act of remembering. The idea is to highlight a person, an event, an invention that has contributed to what we know, experience and maybe even take for granted today. I do this in the memory of Bill Bailey, a gentleman I met in Studs Terkel’s The Good War, who affected me when he said,

“I still think we’re all part of somethin’, call it the history of the human race, if you want to. I feel that if some guy ten years from now has got some halfway decent conditions, I wanna feel that I helped in some small way to make it possible for him to enjoy them conditions. I mean, that’s the name of the game. I just want somebody to say, ‘Them poor son-of-a-bitches, they musta taken a beating back in the old days. We don’t know all the names, but glory to them, or somethin’ like that.’ “

I hope you will enjoy reading these “Bill Bailey” posts as much as I know I will enjoy putting them together. Please share any ideas and thoughts. I would like the feedback!

Footnote:

“After lunch, Eisenhower sat at his portable table and scrawled by hand a press release on a pad of paper, to be used if necessary. “Our landings… have failed,” he began, “and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to this attempt it is mine alone.” Stephen Ambrose

Saying we always have the ability to choose our course does not imply that exercising choice is always easy. But to make a choice, take action and then willingly accept the consequences of that choice without passing blame or making excuses is strong and courageous living.

I also enjoyed discovering Eisenhower led Operation Overlord and Robert Plant wrote Stairway to Heaven in English country houses just 31 miles apart.

Charlotte

The Story of Tony, Teddy’s Troubled EC Classmate

May 25, 2012 By in The K-3rd Grade Years Tags: , , , , , , , , 12 Comments

 

These are some of my favorite things people said to me when I struggled over my son Teddy, who has Aspergers, being placed in an emotional conflicted classroom…

“Oh, you just worry too much.”

“Relax. It will be okay.”

Or, a personal favorite,

“They are professionals, they’re trained. They know what they are doing.”

Sure.

You know how sometimes you can hear something and it settles right, it makes sense. And then other times, you hear something and you bristle, it makes you uncomfortable, you just know, instinctively, it isn’t right. Continue reading →

Aspergers, Empathy, Bullying and Suicide

May 23, 2012 By in General Tags: , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Good grief… what a title!

What is going in the mind of someone who would write that?

The answer.

Alot.

That misspelling was deliberate so that I could include a favorite drawing and give a shout out to an all-time favorite blog post by Hyperbole and a Half.

Moreover, it was important to me to inject some humor into this post before I launched into, well, a humorless subject.

This morning I read an article on Slate, More Problems For Bully, about a teenage boy, Tyler Long, who had Aspergers and committed suicide. This post is not about Tyler and it is not about the documentary made about his life, Bully. Rather, it’s about Aspergers and empathy and was inspired by a comment that I read after the article.

Okay, confession time here. I have been involved with Aspergers for over 16 years. I have heard for over 16 years how people with Aspergers lack empathy, but when I read this comment, especially the last sentence, and the declaration that someone with Aspergers would have “an easier time taking their own life” because of their absence of empathy, well that really started me thinking about the words I have heard so often and have, a time or two, spoken myself.

He. Lacks. Empathy.

I started wondering, really wondering…

Does he?

Really?

Or have I just parroted what I have heard? What I have been told to think?

OMG, am I, as Ted so likes to say,

A SHEEPLE!

That is, you have to realize, just about the lowest form of human thinking according to Ted.

I need help here, dear readers, I really do.

How does Ted lack empathy?

When he was little (and also labeled Emotionally Disturbed/Conflicted, just like the commenter mentions) he hit kids and because he did, it was said he lacked empathy. School’s thinking was he should know that hitting hurts, and thus should not want to knowingly hurt another child.

He knew hitting hurt. He had so much awareness that hitting hurt that he could articulate it. Read that here.

But he hit kids because THEY CALLED HIM NAMES. He hit them ONLY AFTER they hit him first with their words. They HURT HIM and he DECIDED hurting them back was worth it. In all the incidents that Teddy was involved in, and believe me there were many, he didn’t do the initiating. There was always an antecedent.

His hitting wasn’t an empathy issue. I think, in his six-year-old mind, hitting was about JUSTICE.

That is the wild west of an Aspergers mind.

So still, I remain confused about how Teddy lacked empathy.

When I get confused about something I go back to the basics. Since I am confused about a word, I went to its definition…

empathy |ˈempəTHē|

noun

the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Give Teddy high marks then for empathy! He sure did share the feelings of another. When another child was mean to him, he shared it. He regifted their meanness right back to them.

Now, if he was expected to answer their meanness, their teasing, with kindness, a turning of the cheek, well is that really empathy? Instead, I believe that is more a discussion about the ability to execute a higher-level response and asking a six-year-old child to ignore the taunting of classmates with self-control, with personal discipline is extraordinary, Aspergers or not.

So really, truth be told, at least in the case of Teddy, it is not so much empathy he lacked, but rather a lack of numbness towards being picked on? And let me go out on a limb here and propose that perhaps the lack of empathy was from the ADULTS who were completely unable to comprehend the situation and rather than support him, punished him, ignored the perpetrators and neglected to model for him appropriate behaviors when cruelty was shown to him.

Help me reader. Am I completely missing what lacking empathy is?

A Letter To Someone I Do Not Know

May 22, 2012 By in Community Tags: , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

I read your words.

I know the pain. I know the fatigue, the doubt, the worry.

If I told you it will all go away, would you believe me?

And would telling you that some how not honor the feelings that encompass you right now?

So instead, I will tell you a story.

We bought a lake house seven years ago. At first it was an albatross, the entire place, inside and out needed to be completely gutted and remodeled. There was no relaxing there.

Oh the work.

It was physically exhausting ripping off layers of siding, pulling out windows, removing all the doors.

It was emotionally exhausting knowing most of our net worth was tied up in a house that was uninhabitable and to the eyes of most, a complete ruin.

But we kept on.

We worked room by room and eventually, two years after the purchase, we were done.

What was once a burden is now a sanctuary.

And one of my favorite ways to spend my time at the lake, now that I can go there to relax rather than work, is to go down to the dock, by myself, and just sit and look at the water.

One day while fully engaged in dock sitting, I looked at the dam which is to the south of our place and saw how, as dams are meant to do, it stops the water. It ends. There is no more water beyond. Or at least, at dock level, it appears so.

What if this was the only view I knew?

What if it was my only perspective?

But I am a pilot, and I have seen the lake, the dam and the river beyond.

I know, with just the perspective of a few thousand feet of altitude brings, the entire view changes and I can see what I could not see from the dock.

Suddenly, what did not exist, exists.

And it is beautiful.

It reminds me that the river, like life, flows on, to wonderful places I cannot yet see.

And with an altitude greater than I will ever achieve in an airplane or in life, I would see that this little land-locked river ultimately joins the vastness of the open sea.

Eventually, everything connects.

This awareness of perspective illustrated to me how I am part of a vastness I cannot see.

I cannot see the biggest picture, even the bigger picture. With my dock view, I can only see a tiny segment of all that is.

But just because I cannot see the biggest picture does not mean it is not there, it is, just like the water beyond the dam.

So, outrunningthestorm, remember what you see now is from a dock view and in moments of need, to cope, to get you through, know you too are a pilot and that you can takeoff in an airplane in your mind. You can change your perspective with a gain in mental altitude, some distance from the present moment, and see there is indeed so much more, and this will work out, and it will be beautiful.

You can read outrunningthestorm’s post here.