AS boy voted out of classroom by classmates

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The same way your avatar hurts the eyes of anyone who isn't a masochist.

Okay, this thread has gotten way off-topic. Here's an update: the teacher has been reassigned and is no longer working with children. I'm not sure if she will eventually be fired or not, though. Alex is doing better. He hasn't been back to that school and I don't know if his mom will ever take him back there. I know I wouldn't, and I don't think she will. This story is apparently all over the blogosphere, especially the autism blogosphere, and it was a featured story on CNN and the Daily Kos, so hopefully the school won't drop the ball on this.

The teacher was punished for doing the right thing, and when people are punished for doing what they should be doing, that really pisses me off.

She didn't do the right thing. She traumatized a little boy and taught a classroom of children to get rid of people who you don't like, to discriminate against people, and to call people names, none of which is practical in the real world and none of which is acceptable behavior. Even if he wasn't working well in the classroom, they should have moved him to a different classroom instead of letting the teacher use the students to get rid of him. That's horrible and uncalled for.

In the real world if people behave inappropriately they are either avoided or sent to prison, and/or won't be able to get a job.
In real life peoples' behaviour is evaluated when they get out of line and if their presence is determined to be detrimental to the workplace environment in any way they are fired.
What happened here is an incident that was intended to prepare a child for that reality.
Given all that I'd say it was very well called for.

OMG! He's freakin five years old! Give him a break! Believe me, he has plenty of time to learn that, and he can learn in a way that's a lot more gentle than getting voted out of a classroom. He can't do anything now that will get him thrown in jail besides maybe killing someone, which I'm pretty sure he wouldn't do, and, in this case, he didn't do. If anyone needs to learn the things you're talking about, it's the teacher.

This is horrible.

First of all: This child is not an adult, he isn't even in an age with 2 digits in it. He is five years old. So to prepare him for the workplace is not exactly a priority.

Second: There surely would have been ways to deal with him which are not so traumatic for him. What this teacher did will probably be one of the things, which will haunt him. I can not imagine that this kind of treatment is healthy for him.

Third: Where does this idea from that everyone needs to adhere to a written-in-stone standard? I don't know how he disrupted people, but I know that people here said without these standards, people would wear inapproriate things. I do not see why this is an issue. In a saner world, it'd be okay to wear more things than just suits and costumes for the job. Why don't people realize from what times their prejudices concerning clothes come from and are deeply ashamed of being so irrational? Sorry for the Off-Topic

Yeah...

I was taught those so called lessons and all it did was made my hatred of people even more intense.

NewsReport & Interview with parent:

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=30430

You're the only one who's complained about it...

Just a quick note of factual clarification: Examples of Alex's "disturbing behaviors" seem to include spinning, hiding under tables, and eating paper/crayons. This is from Melissa Barton, and the school district has said nothing further. There is no indication whatsoever that Alex posed a danger to others. He needs help to better deal with school, but this has nothing to do with being a "disturbance" and everything to do with ostracizing people who are different. Again, this is kindergarten, and "disturbances" are to be expected. If a teacher can't handle that, then he or she probably shouldn't be teaching at all, and definitely shouldn't be teaching kids that young. I wonder how many other kids, special needs or not, have suffered because of her intolerance.

He also seemed to have echolalia from what I saw of the interview. That could also be a disruption. (Not saying there's anything wrong with echolalia, I have a form of echolalia myself, just saying that it could be considered disruptive in a mainstreamed classroom.) I don't know why it's taking him so long to get diagnosed. He seemed like an Aspie to me.

I think the right thing to do would have been to ask the child to go to the nurses' station (if he was being particularly disruptive that day), and speak to the parent about placing the child in a setting that could deal with whatever special needs he requires. If the socially accepted "right thing" is to ridicule and taunt children to teach them that school is a place to fear, then I don't see how Autistic behavior could be considered social unnacceptable, unless of course he was considerate to his classmates.Being fired would be equivalant to expelling him from the school, NOT ridiculing him and making his expulsion a public specticle. More to the point, you need to read up on the American's With Disabilities Act (for the US, other countries have similiar). "In real life" people not only may not be "fired", but are also protected against being singled out for discrimination (i.e. ridicule) for a disability. If I were treated this way at my place of employement, I would sue the socks off them. (see http://www.sunpublications.com/articles ... 822605.txt)

Those people just make me sick, even more so than pirates without good reasons. If I were there, I'd use psychological methods to get everyone ELSE out of the room.

I don't like school for this very reason.
I had hellish teachers through grade school.