If you know one child with autism, you know one child with autism. Like all individuals, they are incredibly varied and the range of things they will do to gain or avoid attention is vast.
Okay. Find me a human being who won’t scream for hours when you snap their femur.
The femur is the thickest and largest bone in the body. When it snaps, everyone around you knows. Every breath a scream.
Now, please defend ignoring a child screaming at the top of their lungs with every breath for two hours by saying something more about personalities and wanting attention.
I visit classrooms where children frequently scream with every breath for long periods of time. I also see children who plop to the floor many many times per day without “shattering a femur”. We don’t know if these behaviors were common for this child. We don’t know if the staff knew the child well enough to know if these were common behaviors for him. There is more to this story than the article presents and the use of the word shattered feels like clickbait language to me.
ETA- Special ed is almost always understaffed. In Texas right now we have a governor who is attacking public education by withholding funding in an attempt to get his school voucher bill passed. We are seeing a big increase in students with high needs at a time when everyone is underfunded. It’s creating an incredibly stressful environment and we are losing teachers and paraprofessionals daily. We have many classes being run on a shoestring staff with substitute help when we can get it. It sucks. It sucks to see your co-workers emotionally and physically abused. It sucks to see great teachers leave because they can’t take it anymore. It sucks to see kids who need more and to know that their chance of getting a trained qualified special ed teacher this year is slim. It sucks every single fucking day.
Nobody, child or otherwise, can scream for two hours straight comfortably. If a child is crying for that long unabated, there’s a bloody reason. Yes, you see children plop to the floor without breaking a femur all the time, and the sound of a femur breaking is absent in those times.
I know that education is underfunded, special education especially so. Probably more than doubly. I know that good people are ground down and out by the system when all they wanted to do was help kids learn. And I have also witnessed childcare staff more interested in their nails than the welfare of the children they’re supposedly responsible for.
Look, I’m not as emotional about this coming back after a few days and I might have just blocked that other guy because I couldn’t deal with the frustration on top of the nausea I was fighting at the time. I understand where you’re coming from. You’re fighty because you’re defending the good people you’ve seen beaten up and down by the terrible system we have in place, and I’m fighty because I’m defending little me who was frequently ignored for hours by my alleged guardians because I couldn’t communicate what was wrong and they - what, didn’t know how to troubleshoot? Call the doctor? 🤷♀️
So I understand why so many are coming to the defense of the staff, but I vehemently disagree. Those staff were still responsible for the welfare of all those children, this little boy included, and they failed him. But I want to be clear: I don’t believe in executing your generals just 'cause they lose a battle. Holding someone accountable doesn’t mean pillorying them in the public square. There is one defense, which doesn’t absolve them of anything but it is a defense: taking from it how to stop it from happening again. I have a lot more sympathy for people who care to learn from their mistakes.
Anyway, I appreciate you taking the time to read this. I am very good friends with a lot of teachers, and they all stress about not being able to provide help to one of their students needing it. But not one of them would leave a child crying on the floor for two hours without having checked for injuries or called for help, long before that time was up.
Thank you for your reply. You’re right- I’m defensive because i see how my co-workers struggle. And I’m irritated that people think every kid sits in a desk and learns to read, without acknowledging the kids with an education plan that’s different from that. I get it. When i was young those kids didn’t attend school, but now they do and most of us are just trying to do the best we can for them.
If you know one child with autism, you know one child with autism. Like all individuals, they are incredibly varied and the range of things they will do to gain or avoid attention is vast.
Okay. Find me a human being who won’t scream for hours when you snap their femur.
The femur is the thickest and largest bone in the body. When it snaps, everyone around you knows. Every breath a scream.
Now, please defend ignoring a child screaming at the top of their lungs with every breath for two hours by saying something more about personalities and wanting attention.
I visit classrooms where children frequently scream with every breath for long periods of time. I also see children who plop to the floor many many times per day without “shattering a femur”. We don’t know if these behaviors were common for this child. We don’t know if the staff knew the child well enough to know if these were common behaviors for him. There is more to this story than the article presents and the use of the word shattered feels like clickbait language to me.
ETA- Special ed is almost always understaffed. In Texas right now we have a governor who is attacking public education by withholding funding in an attempt to get his school voucher bill passed. We are seeing a big increase in students with high needs at a time when everyone is underfunded. It’s creating an incredibly stressful environment and we are losing teachers and paraprofessionals daily. We have many classes being run on a shoestring staff with substitute help when we can get it. It sucks. It sucks to see your co-workers emotionally and physically abused. It sucks to see great teachers leave because they can’t take it anymore. It sucks to see kids who need more and to know that their chance of getting a trained qualified special ed teacher this year is slim. It sucks every single fucking day.
Nobody, child or otherwise, can scream for two hours straight comfortably. If a child is crying for that long unabated, there’s a bloody reason. Yes, you see children plop to the floor without breaking a femur all the time, and the sound of a femur breaking is absent in those times.
I know that education is underfunded, special education especially so. Probably more than doubly. I know that good people are ground down and out by the system when all they wanted to do was help kids learn. And I have also witnessed childcare staff more interested in their nails than the welfare of the children they’re supposedly responsible for.
Look, I’m not as emotional about this coming back after a few days and I might have just blocked that other guy because I couldn’t deal with the frustration on top of the nausea I was fighting at the time. I understand where you’re coming from. You’re fighty because you’re defending the good people you’ve seen beaten up and down by the terrible system we have in place, and I’m fighty because I’m defending little me who was frequently ignored for hours by my alleged guardians because I couldn’t communicate what was wrong and they - what, didn’t know how to troubleshoot? Call the doctor? 🤷♀️
So I understand why so many are coming to the defense of the staff, but I vehemently disagree. Those staff were still responsible for the welfare of all those children, this little boy included, and they failed him. But I want to be clear: I don’t believe in executing your generals just 'cause they lose a battle. Holding someone accountable doesn’t mean pillorying them in the public square. There is one defense, which doesn’t absolve them of anything but it is a defense: taking from it how to stop it from happening again. I have a lot more sympathy for people who care to learn from their mistakes.
Anyway, I appreciate you taking the time to read this. I am very good friends with a lot of teachers, and they all stress about not being able to provide help to one of their students needing it. But not one of them would leave a child crying on the floor for two hours without having checked for injuries or called for help, long before that time was up.
Thank you for your reply. You’re right- I’m defensive because i see how my co-workers struggle. And I’m irritated that people think every kid sits in a desk and learns to read, without acknowledging the kids with an education plan that’s different from that. I get it. When i was young those kids didn’t attend school, but now they do and most of us are just trying to do the best we can for them.