School apologizes after boy with autism given ‘most annoying’ award

[paloftoon]

Yeah...that's pretty stupid... not to mention it'll whittle down a persons near non-existing self-esteem... my high school never had any of the special ed kids (myself being one such person) on any of the honors lists or anything like that until like... Grade 11 when there was a little meeting about it?

Another thing too is I hope that the School Board does some sort of investigation into this

With all the publicity, even if they don't want to investigate, they have to. No worries there.

 

[paloftoon]

There are probably plenty of laws, regulations, and local ordinances already in place. All those rules depend on people to enforce them. If the people in charge don't exercise good judgement, it all falls apart.

I'm glad this article was published. When stuff like this makes the news, it shames those people back into behaving.

This situation was caused by extremely poor judgment on one teacher's part. Can't determine how people will stupidly make bad decisions, but we can control how we deal with such situations. I hope this teacher learns from his/her mistake. Very likely would lose their license permanently with all the publicity.

 

[paloftoon]

Slightly unrelated, but I just read this morning about how Gary is one of the poorest ghost cities in the US. It used to be a big...steel? center, but now all the white people have moved away leaving only those who couldn't afford to move to deal with the urban blight.

...So I imagine that their public school teacher was probably not educated in dealing with autistic students. Not an excuse, but perhaps just a sad reality that American society continues to neglect and cannibalize its most vulnerable even while the economy supposedly soars.

Good for this family for getting out, too.

Interesting you mention that.
Apparently, not "all" the white people have moved away because the family of the award affected has a Caucasian appearance.

Your statement does indicate that lack of resources lends itself to lack of knowledge and breeds lack of common sense. That could have an affect of the people the district has been able to hire. There is so much knowledge through the Internet as a resource that even people's minds overall in Gary can be changed. The "grit" impression that comes from a town being formerly industrial such as steel gives off a vibe that many people in the community could become quality tradesmen at professions such as plumbing and repairing cars.

 

[SeanDIdgeridoo1996]

Another item on my comprehensive list of "why I hate society."

 

[oregano]

Actually, the steel mill that Gary was built to house workers for is operating today...albeit with only 20% of its peak employment back in the 60s due to technological advances. The mill is owned by ArcherMittal, a company based in India that is run by zillionaire Lakshmi Mittal, who some may know for his 21 story skyscraper house in Mumbai.

The workers that work at the mill live in distant suburbs and drive to the Gary waterfront each day to work. The only way to get to the mill is to drive down Broadway, which today is a creepy four lane boulevard of 100% abandoned commercial buildings. Pix can be had easily online, take a look, it's creepier than Detroit in some ways. The pix I've seen show buildings that are mostly intact, unlike Detroit, but completely abandoned, as if a plague or neutron bomb killed all the people and left the buildings untouched.

American industrial unions refused to allow for upgrades and improvements to factories, since that would mean layoffs and thus fewer dues paying union members. So the companies simply closed the factories and moved them to Asia. Instead of having 40% fewer members, the unions wound up with 100% fewer members. Utterly stupid.

And yes, I doubt that excellent teachers would want to work in someplace like Gary. Gary does have a couple small pockets of whites and Latinos.

As for The Music Man, that movie shows that Gary was a joke even 50 years ago before US Steel went bust. The main character claims to be "Class of 1905" from some technical school (can't remember the name) in Gary. Gary was founded in June 1906.

 

[Crossbreed]

The main character claims to be "Class of 1905" from some technical school (can't remember the name) in Gary. Gary was founded in June 1906.

That was part of the scam in the play/movie.

Spoiler

Marian tore out that page so he wouldn't be found out.

 

[novart]

I wonder if they had a "most anoying female" award since that specifies male. In such a case the teacher may not have been even picking on him for being disabled (at least outright), but more focused on singling out the gender. Bad regardless obviously but I am curious.

 

[grimmy]

Maybe we should start a petition so the school gets a "least understanding award"