Nov 20, 2019, Irish Examiner: Let’s get real about the kids who can’t do mainstream schools https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/columnists/lets-get-real-about-the-kids-who-cant-do-mainstream-schools-965526.html …Stop trying to shame us, please. Stop trying to tell the 2% of school students who attend special schools or classes that they are being “segregated” instead of included. The National Council for Special Education’s (NCSE) latest emission is a progress report, including policy advice on special schools and classes which says the Government should consider the abolition of all special schools and classes in the Irish education system. This is not because the NCSE has found that students with disabilities ranging from Down syndrome with a mild intellectual disability to profound autism will all do better with Mary, Pat and Joe in the local mainstream classroom. They have not found this…. The NCSE’s attempt to abolish special schools and classes is based on ideology, not pedagogy, however. As they explain, the UN has advised that having a mainstream system and a separate special education system is “not compatible with its view of inclusion”. That’s very nice for the UN, sitting in its air-conditioned office. Provision for a child’s education should not be dictated by ideology, however…. Interestingly, no one was sent to the UK where special education provision is actually expanding…. My son is one such kid. He has ASD and a moderate ID and has been in one mainstream and two special schools. The sensory overload of a mainstream classroom of 30 kids in it constituted mental and physical torture for him. I will never forget leaving him clutching a teacher’s hand in the playground of his special school for the first time. Bit by bit, he realised he was going to be safe there…. Autism may be, in itself, a special case among special cases, because the challenge a mainstream classroom presents to a child with a sensory processing disorder can be such that no learning can happen…. While barriers to mainstream education should be constantly pulled down — and the provision of the Education (Admissions to School) Act 2018 which forces schools to open special classes if there is demand is positive — I don’t believe a school should be prohibited from asking if a potential student is disabled as will be the case from 2021…. Is disability now so shaming that we cannot even speak its name?
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Loss of Brain Trust features over 9,000 news stories published worldwide since January, 2017
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
CHECK OUT MY SUBSTACK:
https://annedachel.substack.com/
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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