What is special educaton like?

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I never was put into it, i was suposed to but they to me for a shy NT and I did norma classes in school, what is special education different from normmal classes?

you dont learn anything...they teach the same stuff year after year, and they usually put the behavior ed with special ed thus you get bullied by the ones who have behavior problems.
The teachers are crappy and unqualified. They usually dont hire teachers with special ed experience, just first year teachers who are cheerleader coaches (at least that is my experience) Basicly they warehouse kids in there until they are old enough to drop out. I was the only one out of my entire school that was in special ed that got a high school degree, the rest of them either got a special ed diploma (which is what you get when you are not educated well enough to pass the graduation test and is not accepted by secondary education) or they dropped out. My math levels are about 5th grade when I graduated. Special ed is a scam on taxpayers.

I'm not going to answer that. That's personal. Also I have AS, not Mental Retardation. I respect people who have the MR label. They're people like everybody else.

It depends if you are mainstreamed or not. I was mainstreamed, I had therapist appointments with the school therapist from first grade on. I also went to occupational and visual therapy for two years after school. I was not put in "special ed" classes because I was determined to have normal to high intelligence despite having severe difficulties socially and fine motor coordination issues.
I could go on, but if they take the time to do a good IEP the results can be astounding, if they do not you can get stuck in poor special ed classes that do not meet your needs and are extremely problematic. I should note I am in the former category, while I had extreme bullying by NT kids from second grade and escalating in middle school, I also was able to eventually excel academically by middle school (went from average to above average) and eventually made friends in High School. This was in public school too, it really depends who is advocating for you and how well they can negotiate.

I should note one more thing, I have a professional doctorate and a professional job, by all means I am a success story at the end of the day. I got through college and graduate school on my own, with no help.

It depends on where you are from on how it is handled. I spent most of my childhood and early teenage years in out of district special education placements because my hometown school district did not know how to best educate me in some regards. In my sophomore year of high school I attended mostly mainstream classes in my own hometown high school and it was with mixed results. What I needed all along was to feel not alienated amongst my peers and to be in larger classes to observe social norms.

One of the major issues I had when I was growing up is I was always afraid to hang out with the kids down the street because I didn't go to school with them and that probably did a lot to not only ruin my self-image and self-esteem, but did much to inhibit my social growth and to boot made me feel like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The SEN department at my school was a bit like that. It was s**t and the ones who were badly behaved chav types ended up with the special needs kids, and that pissed me off because they don't belong there, they just didn't care about their education. People with actual problems got s**t off the badly behaved pupils, and they even bossed the staff around. The staff treated the aspie kids like walking textbooks and made generalisations, they spoke to the milder ones like me in the same high pitched patronising tone they spoke to the most severe people with. I hated the SEN department at my school, I didn't really have much to do with them, the only reason I saw them so much was because my friends and acquaintances were part of that crowd. I never had lessons with them, I was with all the normal kids (as far as I'm concerned I was one of the normal kids, not special needs at all).

Special education is not for students with mental retardation only, it's for kids who have other problems and need help. Many also mainstream it.


Anyway I was put in a classroom with special needs kids full time when I was six and seven. Kids in there had all sorts of problems anywhere from autism to mental retardation, learning difficulties or behavior problems. I was placed in there because of my speech delay. But instead in that classroom, I was given the same work over and over and never learned anything new. I didn't learn things normal six year olds would learn or normal seven year olds. I was given the same math problems over and over and doing my name and address over and over and I already knew my address because I learned it already. They never gave me anything new. So school was nothing for me, boring and full of play time and field trips and I thought that's what school was. This was back in the days when they stuck kids with disabilities in one classroom and they had no inclusion. They did assign homerooms for some of us and we go to a regular ed classroom for PE, music, or library and that was it. I can remember being eight (the year I was taken out of that class), these two six year olds would go to regular kindergarten for toy time. When I was six, my whole class would go to music with a regular ed class and we also went to another regular ed class to go to lunch with.

Then when I was put in a new school in regular ed, I mainstreamed special ed and I was given some reading and math and it was harder. I had to do first grade school work to catch up. I also did speed reading and speed math.

In middle school and high school it was giving me help with my normal school work. Lot of kids went in there to do their assignments or got help with their school work. But we didn't call it special ed, we called it the resource room. Special ed had a very bad stigma to it so the school district called it something else. It was a way to not make kids feel bad and have them feel like they were ret*d or dumb just because they needed extra help so they end up refusing it.

I guess I was mostly mainstreamed. I was in normal classes except for a couple subjects... In elementary school (where you have the same teacher all day) I just left and went o the special ed classroom when those subjects were being taught. In middle and high school, I was just scheduled for the special ed classes.

As far as what the classes were like... Um, they were really boring to me. Please forgive me for being blunt... I don't know a better way to say this... I felt like the smartest kid in the class for dumb kids.

My issues had more to do with how my mind processes information, than being intellectually challenged. I can't visualize anything in my mind (visual spatial issues). Of course spelling is harder compared to people that can just see the word in their mind. Words used to jiggle around on the page when I read, and reading made me tired really quickly.

I was taught phonics over and over again for 6 years... I don't think any of the teachers really knew why I was struggling. It seemed like there was a one-size-fits-all approach to each type of learning issues myself and other students had. Like... since this standard method of teaching didn't work, that means this standard special way is the only other possible answer...

I'm in mainly mainstream classes, but Special Education in my district is a joke for the most part, and is mainly filled with NT kids who aren't very bright but the school is trying to force through to graduate.

I was in special education and there were no ret*d kids in any of the classes. They put a lot of the kids with AS in the 70's and 80's into special education because they thought they had ADHD like me. My doctor said he found no signs of learning disabilities just Aspergers.

I don't know much about the upper grades, but from my experience as a parent of children in elementary and pre-school, public special education is very hard to navigate. If I weren't also working in a special ed school, I would be much more frustrated. When it comes down to it, there are not enough skilled staff, and the rate of turnover is too high. Adequate training for us un-degreed assistant teachers (as well as a livable wage) is rare. The parents that come across as disinterested (probably stressed by tons of other things) are chastised. Involved parents are treated like they are just looking for something to be "wrong" with their child. WTF?

The majority of teachers that I have worked with (or have met with about my own children) view ASD and learning disabilities as something to cure. Some actually think that if we teach the kids how to play party games at school, they will be prepared for when they get invited to real parties by the "normal" kids. That is the extent of their curriculum. Beyond condescending approach in my opinion. Why not challenge them more than that?

My (maybe unrealistic) hope is that as neurological research advances, so will the ways we educate children.

Heh, mine said the same thing. I was saying something about the SLD classes and she kind of barked out "that's one thing I don't agree with. You're not learning disabled!"

I responded to her "Well you weren't around then. Trust me, I had problems. But I've compensated over the years. I have no global learning disability, but that's because I've used the things I'm really good at to overcome the things I struggled with. The only reason I keep bringing this up is to illustrate neurological differences that were diagnosed in early childhood, so you don't forget it as evidence."

She agreed with that. I think part of her reaction was her trying to make sure I didn't underestimate myself. But at the same time, I was trying to not sound conceded about my IQ scores and current professional performance.

One of the major problems is "grouping" special education students. For one you should never put kids with behavioral disabilities with kids with autism spectrum disorders who have normal to high intelligence. Secondly it is best not to group kids who have intellectual disabilities with kids who do not have intellectual disabilities. It is one of the major flaws of the system. It is known for example to be okay to group kids with autism spectrum disorders (and normal to high IQ) and learning disabilities, but that's it. It is one of the largest underlying problems within the system that needs to be addressed. Alot of folks with ASDs who do not have intellectual disabilities literally need to be in a normal, if not advanced academic track. The reason why I state it is okay with Learning Disabilities, is it is the same case with kids with LDs in many instances. That is one of the problems that has remained persistant is this arbitrary grouping of kids who do not belong in the same classroom.
When it gets down to it, it really does rely on the knowledge of the parent of the educational system and their willingness to seek outside legal and professional help to negotiotiate on their child's behalf.

Glorified baby sitting

I felt it was important to make a point to the OP that kids in Special Ed aren't intellectuality disabled and I'd like to thank you for backing me up.

Terrible. If anything, I lost information in there.