Bad barrels

more cat pictures

After reading more articles about the teacher who had classmates vote on whether or not 5-year-old Alex should be allowed to return to class, I've amended my thinking on the teacher's potential "worst person in the world" status. She was, of course, absolutely wrong to subject a special needs child--or any child--to this type of public humiliation. But the system failed Alex and his family in a big way. And it may even have failed his teacher by failing to provide her with the resources and training she needed. I recommend this post for some thoughts on the bigger picture.

And I think we do need to get away from scapegoating. Firing this teacher could be a quick fix that would let people believe that "justice has been served", but it wouldn't give me much confidence that Morningside Elementary School would be any better prepared to address the needs of future students on the autistic spectrum. Maybe Ms. Portillo does need to lose her job over this. I don't know. But what I do know is that exclusive focus on "bad apples" can keep us from examining the root issue of "bad barrels". From psychologist Philip Zimbardo:

When you put that set of horrendous work conditions and external factors together, it creates an evil barrel. You could put virtually anybody in it and you're going to get this kind of evil behavior. The Pentagon and the military say that the Abu Ghraib scandal is the result of a few bad apples in an otherwise good barrel. That's the dispositional analysis. The social psychologist in me, and the consensus among many of my colleagues in experimental social psychology, says that's the wrong analysis. It's not the bad apples, it's the bad barrels that corrupt good people.

No, this isn't Abu Ghraib we're talking about here. But it is another example of a case where pointing fingers without addressing underlying systemic problems would be unwise.

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From the annals of unhelpful advice

This past Monday, I spent my day off from work trying to help my son salvage a project for his science class. I explained the course of events that led to this emergency data collection here and elsewhere. The basics--Son in Ohio is almost 14, has a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, and is taking 8th grade science and math as a 7th grader. Demetrius was told on Friday that Son's grade was in jeopardy because he didn't have the data collected for a major project that was due this week. I put out an appeal for help, and the response was amazing. Son ended up with about 50 subjects for the study he was doing, when he was only trying for 32. Since I asked for help publicly, it seemed right to offer a public update of how the project went.

I wish I had a happy ending to report, but at the moment there isn't one. At least not for this project, but we continue to press forward in our efforts toward positive academic outcomes for our gifted, special needs son. We don't expect the job to be easy, or to have any magical "happily ever afters", but after all these years, it's kind of disappointing that we still need to butt heads like this with people who are supposed to be helping.

From a very unhappy e-mail I received from Demetrius when I was at work on Tuesday:

Apparently, after (teacher) told us on Friday that (son) might be failing science and math, we were supposed to spend our weekend consoling him to that fact instead of trying to help him. She keeps going on that (son) needs to take responsibility for his procrastinating.

Son's grade may still be salvagable, but the bigger issue is that his teacher is still saying stuff like this. "He has to take responsibility", he "has to learn" to do X, Y, or Z. Thank you for that headline from the esteemed research journal, Duh. Yes, of course he has to learn those things. When is someone going to start teaching him those things? Or even talking seriously with us about putting together a plan for how we are going to work together to teach him those skills?

I mean, what kind of social Darwinian attitude is it to say of an individual with any deficit, whether it be physical, cognitive, or emotional, "you're just going to have to learn"? How about tossing a non-swimmer into the deep water, and then "helpfully" shouting "You'd better start swimming or you'll drown!"

Shocking as it may seem, I really expect better than that from the people who are charged with providing my son with that Free Appropriate Public Education to which he is legally entitled. I'm even so bold as to expect that his teachers remember that Asperger's Syndrome is, by definition, a pervasive developmental disability--meaning that it affects many areas of his life. It's not just a social deficit. Yes, my son is classified as gifted, but that pervasive disability of his still has a cognitive component. He has trouble with something called "executive function", a set of skills involving

1. Working memory and recall (holding facts in mind while manipulating information; accessing facts stored in long-term memory.)

2. Activation, arousal, and effort (getting started; paying attention; finishing work)

3. Controlling emotions (ability to tolerate frustration; thinking before acting or speaking)

4. Internalizing language (using "self-talk" to control one's behavior and direct future actions)

5. Taking an issue apart, analyzing the pieces, reconstituting and organizing it into new ideas (complex problem solving).

And since that is a deficit our son has, it's something he needs help with. More effective help than urging him to "get organized" or "stop procrastinating". As far as helpfulness goes, those suggestions are right up there with "You'd better start swimming or you'll drown!"

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