Sept 5, 2018, Marysville, WA, Arlington Times: Keep calm and school on with smaller class sizes in Marysville https://www.arlingtontimes.com/life/keep-calm-and-school-on-with-smaller-class-sizes-in-marysville-slide-show/ …To keep class size down, that school has added a new kindergarten, first- and second-grade class, along with adding two third-grade classes. Longtime special education teacher Debbie Whitfield said another big thing is a “calm down area” in every class. It’s part of the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports the district has been using for a while. “But now it’s consistent in every class,” Nelson said. The calm down areas are different in each class, but they usually are private, quiet and encourage the student to reflect. Inspirational sayings have been placed around almost every classroom. Low lights help set a quiet mood in many rooms. Second-grade teacher Randi Dunn wants all of her students to be comfortable so she uses “flexible seating.” Student can sit wherever they want, including on pillows strewn throughout the room. … She said quite a few of her students used her calm down area on Day 1. But others are doing very well.
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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.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
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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