What is education?
March 12, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
What is “education”? It is simply academics—reading, writing, mathematics? If a student is not having difficulties in their academic work but has other “special needs” that are not so directly tied to a student’s academic study, ought the school district to still provide for those “special needs”?
As reported in today’s Associated Press (via the Portland Press Herald) in regard to the case of a student with Asperger syndrome, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has ruled that “Maine law broadly defines education to include more than such academic subjects as reading and mathematics.” School Administrative District 55 of York County (Maine) is considering whether to reverse the ruling, which “opens the door to special education services for a girl with Asperger syndrome whose disability does not limit her academically.” The student attended the county’s public schools through fifth grade and was successful academically but had difficulties with social skills and communication, and “later stopped studying, began cutting her arms intentionally and tried to commit suicide.” She was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome by a school psychiatrist.
A team from the school determined that the student was not eligible for special education services because there was “no ‘adverse impact’ on her academic progress.” The Portland Press Herald further notes:
After the family filed suit, U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby found that Asperger disorder is a disability under state law and that it affected L.I.’s educational progress, even though it did not stop her from reading and writing.
The Maine School Management Association, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief for the district, warned that by “overidentifying” special education students, school districts will deplete the resources needed to help disabled students with academic needs.
From daily adaptive P.E. to occupational therapy for his sensory needs and more, my son Charlie receives a number of services that are not “educational,” strictly speaking—and without which he floundered in a previous school district and became a “behavior problem.” With these services in hiw current school placement, Charlie had a very good day at school (after an entire week home sick): Charlie now has P.E. every day at 11.30am and both the physical exercise and the timing of it (right at the midday, right before lunch) have been very beneficial for his learning. (And, he likes gym a lot and is good at it.)
I am myself a teacher, of college students: Today I taught my Elementary Latin class about the four different Latin participles and my Elementary Greek class about the three types of accent marks. It was a lot of grammar and, most of my students being accounting, education, and nursing majors, I am not sure how much of that grammar (in Latin or in classical Greek, in particular) they will actually use or retain. But there is something else going on in my classroom: The students are also learning skills of attending, thinking logically, even memorizing, knowing to take careful notes, knowing not to use one’s cell phone during class…….. These are not exactly “educational” subjects.
But I would not consider my students well-educated and prepared without them.
… A team from the school determined that the student was not eligible for special education services because there was “no ‘adverse impact’ on her academic progress.” …
This is something that I’ve been wanting to write about for awhile. I find school districts at their most horrendous when they do these things. Any person looking at the situation knows that if the student does NOT get additional services that they are never going to be functional in society, no matter how well they do “academically”.
And though local districts and states would like to believe otherwise, the Federal government, thru IDEA 2004, specifically recognizes that students need to be provided more than the “three R’s”.
From Wrightslaw.com, one of my favorite sites for special ed legal news and opinions, we see that
… In IDEA 2004, the phrase “to the maximum extent possible” describes the requirements to meet the developmental goals and challenging expectations established for nondisabled children, to prepare children with disabilities to lead independent and productive adult lives, and to improve their academic achievement and functional performance. …
So, as we can see, schools are to provide much more than services to further academic achievement. Although no special ed cases are easy, even I can see the holes in this state’s case.
“…These are not exactly “educational” subjects.
But I would not consider my students well-educated and prepared without them.”
And these are skills that can not be assessed on a standardized test.
We are fortunate that Brendan’s school (& so far, school district) understand that his acedemics falter when his other needs are not accomodated. If this poor kid doesn’t qualify as “disabled” then who does? Whose resources are she “depleting”? Are they interested in giving her a chance for success in life or what? I thought that that’s what providing an education was all about…
I was very struck by the description of the AS student in the article; it made me think of a tendency I’ve noted to equate academic success with “mainstreamability” (word?…..). I recall conversations with parents who would be eager to say a child is doing “so well” and the district then cuts services….
Hhmm… maybe it’s just me, but I’d say a student who stopped studying, was cutting herself, and tried commit suicide does indeed have an issue that adversely affects her education. Please pardon my sarcasm, but if the student had been successful in her suicide attempt, wouldn’t that make her completely incapable of academic progress? I’d say she would be completely incapable of leading an adult life at all, let alone leading an adult life that would be independent and successful.
From a standpoint of resources, it makes even more sense, at least to me, that this child get some services. I would speculate, that the likelihood of a person holding a job, and therefore being a taxpayer, is frequently related to that person’s social skills. While I don’t mean to say that a person with poor social skills is completely out of luck, and will never hold a job, I do believe that in many cases, better social skills correlate with more successful employment.
Please pardon my sarcasm, but if the student had been successful in her suicide attempt, wouldn’t that make her completely incapable of academic progress?
You’ll have to pardon mine, but if she had been successful, then she wouldn’t be costing the school district anything…
Not sure we should complete that thought …….
And then you have our problem, in which our guy’s new school refuses to work on academics until our son has mastered social niceties. They pull him out of class for endless talks with counselors and infantile social-skills sessions, and then complain that he lack self confidence. They refuse to accept the idea that, if they indulged his geeky disposition and let him work on science, math and English, he would feel comfortable enough that his social behavior would improve. — Which just goes to show that you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
This was the situation my son was in for a long time. He made no progress on any academic and IEP goals for a couple of years because it was always “he has to get these behaviors under control first.” The behaviors got worse and worse and he got more and more bored…….
And then you have our problem, in which our guy’s new school refuses to work on academics until our son has mastered social niceties.
Put our district down for doing that, too. The only reason Buddy Boy learned anything was because my wife, Liz, worked with him before and after school on academic subjects.
When I read Tony Atwood’s “Asperger Syndrome”, I was struck, not by the descriptions, but by the example of what/how to teach Aspie kids social skills. I was struck because he described exactly what someone should have taught me, but everyone just *assumed* I would pick up automatically. I definitely don’t think I should have been keep behind academically for that (I was academically at the head of the class). But what I do think is every person (nt, autie, aspie, etc.) could greatly benefit from a social skills class. But I guess that would just costs to much…