The Blood is The Life 05-05-2012

[miss_s_b]

• Quiet Hands « Just Stimming…
  This made me cry.
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• BBC News - Child online safety plans unveiled by Brussels
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• Scientists to breed Liberal Democrats in captivity
  cruel but funny
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• Nine Articles 'for Women' That Journalists Should Stop Writing - National - The Atlantic Wire
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• Peace advocates' website is blocked as porn on UK mobile networks | Open Rights Group
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• what is 18-rated content? | help & support | Orange UK
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Comments

[telegramsam]

Ugh, that "quiet hands" thing... I have no autism diagnosis, but I had a habit as a child of doodling on paper in class when the teacher was talking and it helped me pay attention. If I didn't then I really struggled. I would end up paying attention to the other students fidgeting in their desks, to the sound of the HAVC, to footsteps in the hallway outside, the tag in my t-shirt scratching the back of my neck, bits of fluff on the floor, or whatever was outside the window. I couldn't just sit there and stare at the teacher and absorb what was being said.

I had a very few clever teachers who took the time to figure me out, ask me a question about the material being discussed and then leave me alone when I answered correctly, but for every one who was like that, there were two more with a stick up their ass who would snatch the paper from my desk and crumple it up in front of me before gleefully pitching it in the trashcan, or just sending me out in the hall.

Some teachers are sadistic, I think. It makes you wonder why they became a teacher if they hate children so much in the first place....

[miss_s_b]

Holly has got in trouble at school for rocking on her chair.

[telegramsam]

Oh ugh. Holly has my sympathy. Give her an extra hug for me. I have so many horrid memories of nasty teachers.

Are there any teachers at her school who have more experience with children who are not neurotypical, that she might be transferred to another classroom? It's pathetic that schools won't make even small, reasonable accommodations for their students. Even children without a diagnosis sometimes have "quirks" that aren't even disruptive or problematic but teachers hammer down on them because, hell I don't know, they just don't like anyone who didn't come off a damned standardized mass-production assembly line I guess.

I have a friend at church whose 14 year old nephew goes to a private school specifically for children with learning & developmental disorders. Recently they've allowed him to stand at his desk during class (he can't sit down without fidgeting and concentrate). Once they allowed him this very simple accommodation, his grades went from mostly F's and C's to B's and A's. He has ADHD and mild cerebral palsy due to being born very prematurely but he's not a stupid boy by any means. He's doing better now that the school stopped giving him shit over something so irrelevant (because standing instead of sitting is some kind of horrid sin?!?) but it took a lot of fighting between his mother & the school administration for this to happen (and this is a school that is specifically supposed to serve students with various disabilities).

S. deserved better and thankfully he got it. Holly deserves better too, and I hope you can get her teachers to realize that. :\

[miss_s_b]

The teacher reckons she disrupts other children, and to be fair it's possible she does. And that's the thing; school is necessarily about enforcing a degree of conformity, or they wouldn't be able to teach anyone anything.

I wish I could afford a one-on-one teacher at times, but she's so far ahead of her class in grades anyway that I think the learning what society expects of her is worth it - she KNOWS there are things she can do at home that she can't do at school, and I think that's valuable. Not only is she learning that there are appropriate behaviours for appropriate places, but she's learning that her mummy will always value her for herself and not try to change her - home is a safe place.

This way she is learning how to conform when she needs to, but not being forced to conform all the time. And we have told her that explicitly - that it's a skill she can learn which will help her when she grows up. She seems to understand this.

[telegramsam]

Well if she cope with it, that's good. And I do understand children need to learn how to function in society, even if that's difficult for them.

It just irritates me sometimes how draconian schools can be....

[miss_s_b]

Oh yeah, I agree with you. But Holly's teacher is a good lass, and if she couldn't cope with it then I'd be a lot less relaxed.

I'm actually more worried about the Special Educational Needs interventions she gets from people other than her teacher, if that makes sense?

[telegramsam]

Yea, it does make sense. Some of them are worse than the "regular" teachers, frankly...

[miss_s_b]

The last meeting we had with her I just felt incredibly patronised. And I felt like screaming "I HAVE A MASTERS DEGREE IN LAW! STOP TALKING TO ME LIKE I'M HARD OF THINKING!"

[telegramsam]

Oh, one of those. Fun.

Well, try not to concuss yourself banging your head on the desk... :\

[staceyuk]

Seconded.

[staceyuk]

I've shared that Quiet Hands things in a couple of places. Very moving.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm of the age when teacher were allowed to hit us, I remember one friend being hit around the head for smiling in class.

The Quiet Hands reminds me of how we were taught not to use our left hand, my sisters and I are ambidexterist. We were stopped using our left hands, I can remember my sister having her left arm strapped down, if we used our left it was smacked or hit usually a wooden spoon, I can remember the spoon even today. I know why they did it, but it was still wrong.

Sadly people being forced to conform is pervasive in society and not always for the good.

[miss_s_b]

Sadly people being forced to conform is pervasive in society and not always for the good.

Oh absolutely; but that's part of why learning to appear to conform when you need to is a useful skill to have. It's one I have never mastered, and that's probably why I didn't succeed in law, and the only political parties I have as options are the one I am in, Pirate or Green...