That’s So Sped

April 20, 2022

We have to be brave

I tell the boy who weeps

at my desk, on my shoulder

There’s no shame in a different brain

Just as there is none in our different hearts.

I want to cry with him

on this broken morning

in the fresh world

with sunshine knives out for us

Put Down the Puzzle Piece

April 1, 2022

Sometimes, educators make mistakes with the best of intentions. I really feel this is the case with person-first language.

The history of special education is super short (note, the link contains historic language for disabilities). I read a biography of Rosemary Kennedy one year for book club, and it talked about how influential the Kennedy family’s experiences with her were in the creation of what would become IDEA. Rosemary Kennedy was lobotomized in 1941, seven years before my mother was born. Public Law 94-142 was signed three years before I was born. We are fundamentally a field if still not in infancy, then definitely just in toddlerhood.

And when you read accounts of the early days of special education it’s clear that we would really have to adjust our picture of who we were here to serve and what outcomes we wanted for our students. When I think about my own elementary teachers and their almost complete ignorance of the requirements of my IEP circa 1987, making teachers use language that put students first was probably not the worst idea.

The problem arises, however, when we become inflexible in our practice. The Autistic community has asked us to reframe our language and our thinking, and we need to stop being so stuck on what we were taught in teacher college or twenty years ago in professional development and center their voices.

I think sometimes it’s really hard for teachers to hear actual, valid criticisms because we’re so battered in the culture wars. As a teacher I can’t get out of bed in the morning without doing something somebody disapproves of (eg. existing while queer). So it’s hard to hear that we’ve been doing something wrong, especially when we had the best intentions.

There are plenty of Autistic voices explaining why they prefer identify-first language, why Autism Speaks is a problem, why ABA therapy is a harmful practice, and why it’s important to celebrate Autism Acceptance. Maybe this year it’s time to put down the blue lights and the puzzle pieces and listen.

Giving the Tour

April 23, 2021

I told this story yesterday to the tech class that’s working on building a sensory wall for our student services wing. I find that neurotypical students often have a lot of questions about what it’s like to be neurodiverse, and as an adult with ADHD I don’t mind talking about my experiences. My goal was to help destigmatize what happens in special education. The students asked great questions – I wish we had thought to make a record of them. Anyway, here is the tour guide story. Please be forewarned that this story contains the use of a slur as it was spoken to me in 1992 – I didn’t say the word to the students, but I assume this audience is mostly adults.

“When I was thirteen years old I volunteered to give tours of my newly remodeled high school to the community. Thirteen had been kind of a weird year. I had started it out by giving myself a sinus superinfection and spent a week in the hospital and months getting heavy antibiotics afterward. It was also the year that I learned I had basically no problem whatsoever speaking in front of groups of people. Anyway, I had sort of grown up in the high school, the daughter of two of their math teachers, so I was an excellent choice for being a tour guide despite barely being over “lost freshman.”

The middle-aged man threw the question at me outside the new special education classroom in A building, which was not, emotionally speaking, my home turf. “That’s the room for the r****ed kids?” he asked me. Nobody in the orientation session had prepared me for a question like that. The r-word had been professionally in use since the 60s, but it was outdated. I stared at my shoes for a moment, and he asked me again. I finally managed to get out “I think the word is intellectual impairments,” and awkwardly moved the tour on.

What I should have said was “You mean kids like me?” I went to the special education room once a week to have a teacher check that I was filling out my planner. My best friend had classes in the special education room – and her daughter now calls me Auntie. The first person I ever fell in love with would be a student in the special education room. But I was thirteen, and no one had taught me that my different brain and my different thinking was nothing to be ashamed of.

And the thing was, not only did I want to get the tour away from that room as quickly as possible, it made me not want to go back for my planner check. I didn’t want to be associated with these hypothetical students spoken about with contempt. I pushed away from the help I really needed because it mattered to me what other people thought.”

In going back to this story, it occurs to me that we can tell kids that words don’t really hurt and that other people’s opinions don’t matter, but that’s not authentic to who they are. Kids care. Teenagers care. How might we start a dialogue about acceptance of neurodiversity in our buildings that protects student confidentiality but also makes students feel safe and not judged for the services they receive?