K-12 EDUCATION - My Experiences In Each Grade

      As a child with Asperger's, I had a variety of types of education throughout my school years. These included self-contained, special education classes, mainstreaming, a special school, and resource room support. In this section, I will relate how my education worked for me from kindergarten to Grade 12. To protect the guilty, I will not mention the names of any of my teachers, only the initials. For the same reason, I will avoid giving the names of my schools.

KINDERGARTEN
      I attended my kindergarten year in Tempe, Arizona, in 1974-75. After attending preschool classes the past couple of years, I was placed in an elementary self-contained classroom under the advise of the school district personnel and a doctor who assessed me. This classroom accommodated Grades K-2 and included 10 children with learning disabilities, one teacher, and one teacher's aide. It was highly structured and flexible, and my kindergarten was more like a pre-first grade than a quintessential kindergarten class - I did academic work, including math, reading, and spelling. In addition, there were free time activities at different stations in the classroom, e.g., a colouring table, a Lite Brite, etc. I spent most of my free time at the colouring table, but I also liked playing with the Lite Brite. The teachers were highly supportive of me. They did expect a lot of me and they resorted to "pushing" if they felt I could put more effort into my work, but they were among my best teachers throughout my schooling. We earned prizes for good work, and earned points for good behaviour, good listening, etc. The teachers focussed on my independence by giving me responsibilities, such as taking letters and notes to the administration office, taking books back to the school library, and taking things the teacher borrowed from the secretary back to her office.

     At this age, I didn't respond much to other children. I enjoyed playing in the sand at recess. I did, however, relate better to the kids as the year progressed, and I actually had a friend from this class, Shane. Shane lived in our neighbourhood and was abused and neglected at home. He came over to our house a lot. He tried hard to be a good kid, but he had a tendency to get angry easily. Over the years, I've often wondered what happened to him.

     I was also very weak in participating in group activities. I would tune out and was unaware of what the group was doing. I also had no idea that eye contact was important, so it indeed looked like I wasn't paying attention. I still have trouble in large groups, with so many people talking beyond my comprehension level.

     But colour was very stimulating to me at the age of five. In my kindergarten class, I loved playing with the Lite Brite because I was attracted to the bright colours that lit up on the board. Bright colours were very soothing to me, and I was as drawn to them as moths are to light.

GRADE ONE 
      In the summer of 1975, my dad got a job as a psychologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. I missed my school, teachers, and friends in Arizona very much, and I sincerely wish we had stayed in Tempe for maybe a couple more years. The education system in Saskatoon wasn't nearly as good. At the start of the school year, I had to be tried out in a regular classroom in my neighbourhood school before I could be eligible for a special classroom, according to school board policies. My evaluation records from my school in Tempe were no good. Therefore, I was in a regular classroom without support for about three weeks. I couldn't keep up with what the class was doing. That's all I can remember. But fortunately, at the end of September, I got eligible and went to a learning disabilities (LD) classroom in a different school, where I was bussed to and from each day.

     My LD teacher, Mr. J, was not particularly flexible, especially when it came to dealing with kids who were bright. He was a traditional, old-fashioned man teacher who told kids how to do their letters and numbers even long after they knew how to do them. If I did them a different style instead of the way he assigned, he'd accuse me of not doing them "correctly", no matter how neat and legible they were. If I did my numbers road-sign style or did my lower-case a's and g's the hard way, he'd reprimand me for not making them correctly. Similarly, Mr. J wouldn't let us do cursive writing in class even if we knew how, because traditionally, kids don't write in first grade, they print. Once, I wrote my name in cursive on an assignment and Mr. J raised his voice at me, stating that "it wasn't writing, it was printing." He didn't sound the least impressed that a six-year-old could write in cursive! My mom still refers to Mr. J as a "dimwit", especially because at Christmas, he wouldn't let us be in the Christmas pageant, or even watch it, because "he didn't know what we could do there." She had come to my school to watch me and she sat through the whole darn thing waiting for her little boy to come up on the stage, and when we didn't come, she came to my classroom, and there we were, doing assignments.

     Strictly speaking, Mr. J didn't have much imagination and probably didn't like to go places very much. We didn't go on any field trips at all that year, or even to the school library. I've often wondered what his personal life and his childhood were like.

GRADE TWO
      Just before Grade 2, we heard about a privately run special needs program, run by parents who didn't like the special programs in the public schools. This program was called FOCUS (I don't know what the letters stood for). So my mom and dad enrolled me in the program, because this group of kids looked like something I'd fit into. Unfortunately, we had a physically abusive teacher, Mrs. I. I think she liked children and was interested in them, but she didn't have the required patience and couldn't control her temper. She'd hit us on the head if we got wrong answers or screwed up on our assignments.

     Similarly, if I was asked a question that required abstract thinking and I felt I didn't know the answer, and in many cases, I didn't, Mrs. I would make me stand in one spot until I got the answer, claiming that "I did know", and she accused me of not thinking. I often did guess what the answer might be, but I kept getting it wrong. On these occasions, I was hysterical and in tears. Mrs. I said I would have no lunch and that I couldn't go home until I answered the question correctly. So I was afraid that I would be kept captive at school and never get to go home, although this never happened. I eventually got the right answer, though sometimes this was because a kid told me when Mrs. I was out of the room.

     We kids either were afraid to tell our parents about Mrs. I's abuse or just had difficulty of what to say. But after different kids told parents bits and pieces of information about how Mrs. I treated us, the parents found out and she got sacked. That summer, Mrs. I and her family moved to the Yukon and I never saw her again.

GRADE THREE
      I remained in the FOCUS program for third grade, but we had a different teacher, Mrs. E. She was a very nice Filipino woman. It was a real relief not to have Mrs. I anymore. This class was a challenging bunch of kids and many were hyper. Mrs. E did her best to hold in her temper. She really liked us and was very good to us (she wanted to create a peaceful atmosphere, and banned making guns when playing with Plasticine to prevent kids from getting wild with war games), but she found teaching very stressful, and in January 1978, she resigned from teaching because she felt she couldn't handle it anymore. But then, we got K, who we called by her first name. In fact, many of the FOCUS teachers were called by their first names. K was motherly and very affectionate with the kids. She was a mentor as well as an educator. We had her for the rest of Grade 3 and all of Grade 4. As well, K was very big on holidays and we had parties at Halloween, Valentine's Day, and Christmas. In addition, we had birthday parties whenever it was someone's birthday.

     We also had a teacher's aide for Grade 3, D, who was also on a first-name basis with us. She was probably my best T.A. That year, I was integrated in the regular third grade classroom at the public school where FOCUS was. D went into the classroom with me and another FOCUS classmate. I was integrated for math, reading, spelling, and music. This was an accepting bunch of kids and I got along well with the majority of them. By May 1978, I was conversing with several of them and referred to them as my friends.

GRADE FOUR
      Grade 4 was a year of contrasts for me. During the 1978-79 school year, I was integrated into the regular fourth grade classroom at my school without a T.A., for math (one hour per day). I did very well the first half of the year. My integration increased and included two hours a week for science and two hours a week for music. I worked on math at my own pace, and when I caught up with the rest of the class, I was to begin integration for spelling and social studies. I was really excited about this. However, in January of that year, when I was caught up with the rest of the class, I found out that I had gotten a majority of my math answers wrong. I was so discouraged, and my Grade 4 teacher, Mrs. S, didn't have the initiative to give me the attention and guidance to keep me going. As a result, I broke down in both the Grade 4 and FOCUS classes. My integration didn't increase because, according to my teachers, my behaviour deteriorated, though I hadn't noticed it at the time. So I stopped working hard in the classroom, because, since my integration wasn't going to increase after all, I stopped trying. I no longer cared about my progress. In fact, there was more than one thing that caused my behaviour to go downhill the second half of my Grade 4 year. There were lots of hyperactive kids in the FOCUS class who did unruly things, like chasing each other, tearing pictures and posters, being destructive, and just plain showing disrespect. I got negative role models from this behaviour. In addition, my parents' marriage was rocky and, in the spring of 1979, they broke up. That was really hard on me.

     In April of that year, my integration in the Grade 4 classroom was discontinued except for math, because Mrs. S couldn't give me the necessary attention, which I so much needed. My classmates coped with my behaviour pretty well, since this was a good bunch of kids. That happened right around the time of my parents' breakup. As a result, the spring of 1979 was a very hard time for me. Fortunately, even though K and the other FOCUS teachers were unhappy with my change in behaviour, they understood what was going on, and I think I taught K a lot about how contrasting mainstreaming can be. At the end-of-year report in June, K mentioned my plans for attending my neighbourhood school (I had reached the upper age limit for FOCUS). K noted that she was concerned about my going to school there, but that she felt that I would probably function well if I had a T.A. in the classroom, and have the individual attention I need without having to be enrolled in a special class where negative role models from unruly children were likely to be a problem, as well as the possibility of not having any peers in my class.

GRADE FIVE
      In Grade 5, I started attending my neighbourhood school, which I attended for four years (because elementary school in Saskatchewan goes from kindergarten to Grade 8), because I had reached the FOCUS age limit. The school personnel had told us that there would be help for me, especially resource room support, but also, we felt that going to my home school would be most suitable, since I was sick of going on long bus rides to and from school each day and, more importantly, the kids we knew in our neighbourhood went to that school.

     However, I was put into a regular classroom without special support for the next four years. I had trouble understanding directions, and I still do if they're not structured, if information is omitted because the people who write the instructions assume one would know it, if abstract words are used, etc. Most importantly, though, my teacher, Mr. G, was little more than an educator and school authority, as so many regular teachers are. I couldn't believe how he rarely socialized with the kids, never asked us about our holidays or showed interest in our lives, or even showed an ounce of concern when we had surgery or illness, etc. Mr. G didn't give mish-mash when we were distressed if, for example, we failed a test. I often lost my temper in class that year because of lack of individual attention. And I was dismayed to learn that birthday celebrations typical of FOCUS were not usual in regular classes. They were completely ignored.

     You can say that I showed a number of FOCUS-style behaviours during my Grade 5 year. In addition to losing my temper, I hid under my desk at one point, I think because I was nervous (Kids crawled under desks a lot in FOCUS), and I found out I couldn't do that!

     And not to mention how much homework we got. We got more than I had ever hoped for in FOCUS. During my first couple of months in Grade 5, I would run out the door at the end of the day to escape homework, but at a parent-teacher interview, my mom asked Mr. G why I wasn't getting any homework and when she got the explanation about my running out the door, she put a stop to it.

     As well, I didn't get to play with my neighbourhood friends at recess because they were one grade lower than me, and society frowned on kids of different grades spending recess with each other. It was one of my greatest disappointments. You can read more about grade segregation, homework, and teachers' lack of mentorship in my other essay, "Discipline Schmiscipline."

     Physical education was another problem. For most of the year, the only game we played was dodgeball, or "king's court", as we called it at the time. When I got hit with the ball, I was shocked when, instead of saying, "Are you okay, Will?", Mr. G explained to me that players were supposed to hit other players with the ball, and if they got hit, they were supposed to move to the other team. He stated that "that's what the game was like." For most of the year, I didn't participate in phys. ed. I usually played and ran about by myself.

GRADE SIX
      Grade 6 was no better than Grade 5, though I was losing my temper much less due to maturity, and I acted less surly to the teachers than I had the previous year. The Grade 6 work was difficult and Mr. P gave no quarter in the class. However, I passed with average to slightly below-average grades, though the only subject I failed was French, my weakest subject.

     I have trouble with vocabulary and always have. On one occasion, we were given an assignment to do an interview with our mothers. At that time, I thought an interview was a report, so I did a short report on what my mom did. As a consequence, I had to stay after school for about half an hour.

     On another occasion, we were given a creative writing assignment. I didn't understand what we were supposed to do, so a kid who was trying to help me told me to write it in my own words. I thought that meant we were supposed to write what it said on the assignment in our own words. I did that, and when it came time for kids to read their stories, I found out I had done the assignment wrong.
I must say Mr. P did overdo discipline a bit. He yelled at us if we did assignments in green ink, discredited us if we did our work in pencil instead of pen, and he fined us push-ups or sit-ups if we did things like saying "Can I" instead of "May I", etc.

     However, Mr. P did have good points. For the most part, he tried to understand me. During my first couple of months in Grade 6, my behaviour was still somewhat out of sorts, but Mr. P suspected something was wrong, so he called my mom over for an interview. My parents' breakup had had a lot of effect on me, but the worst part was that my dad moved to Rochester, Minnesota in the summer of 1980, so I could no longer commute with him on a regular basis, though I went down to visit him every Christmas, summer, and Easter.

GRADE SEVEN
      Come Grade 7, my academic progress was really starting to go downhill. We had two main teachers, Mrs. W and Mr. B. Mr. B, who taught us math, social studies and science, was almost impossible to learn from. He was grouchy and always yelling at the kids and pounding his fist on the teacher's desk. Despite this, most kids liked him, and the reason is beyond me. When my mom explained my condition to him, he didn't give peanuts. He made fun of us a lot, too. As well, he believed in students "showing" their work in math and discredited us and got mad at us if we didn't, no matter how right our answers were.

     On one occasion, for math, we were supposed to draw triangles for homework, something to do with geometry. When I did the assignment, I thought I did it right, but the next day, I found out we were supposed to measure the triangles, and I saw that the kids had put arcs on the corners indicating the degrees of the angles. I didn't understand that we had to do this! Mr. B was disgusted with me for screwing up on my assignment.

     Mr. B's assignments and tests were very complicated, and my report cards showed that I "needed to improve" in math, social studies, and science. By the spring of 1982, my mom felt I needed a tutor to help me with my studies, so she hired one for me. Unfortunately, my tutor, Mrs. L, didn't know how to do the stuff, even though she thought she did, so she helped me wrong. The next day, during correcting, when I gave my answer, Mr. B was once again disgusted and the kids thought I was being stupid. When I explained that that was how my tutor showed me how to do the work, Mr. B thought I was making an excuse.

     My relationship with my classmates was declining as well. They had been reasonably tolerant of my characteristics in Grades 5 and 6, though some students had always teased, bugged, or taken advantage of me. But now, they were cussing at me and welcoming me into their recess games like Rudolph's fellow reindeer did.

     Mrs. W was a traditional teacher, but she was a very good music teacher. Throughout Grades 5, 6, and 7, she taught us really good songs. Many songs bring me back memories of that time in a positive way. Music can really touch people's lives during hard times. Mrs. W did, however, underestimate me when it came to playing the ukulele. She taught us how to play in a group and I couldn't follow along. When my mom asked her if she thought I could play some sort of musical instrument, like the piano, she said no. However, I did take piano lessons, one-on-one with instructors, and I can play with ease up to around the Grade 6 level.

     My biggest strength in Grade 7 was creative writing. Mrs. W let us write stories out of our own imaginations, and my stories were popular.

GRADE EIGHT
      Whatever enjoyment and good progress school brought for me had well and truly palled by Grade 8. Mr. N was a rigid teacher and vice-principal who gave no quarter in the class, and his assignments and tests were very complicated. Even creative writing was very regimented in this class. Throughout Grade 8, I had a resource room tutor in math, but she wasn't very patient and I didn't care much for her.

     Most importantly, I was a big target for teasing and bullying that year. Kids threw things, i.e. pencil chips, at me, would call me dirty names when I came in contact with them, and sometimes even gathered around me and chanted obscene limericks at me.

     Alas, Mr. B did a fair share of the teaching again that year, so I still had to endure his complicated assignments and his rowdy, insensitive character. Up till then, spelling had been a very strong subject for me, which I passed with A's. Now, I passed with D's. In fact, spelling was the only subject I passed that year, and I failed every other subject.

     Mr. N did act compassionate with my mom, and I thought he was sympathetic at the time, with his (seemingly) upset feelings about my being teased and doing poorly in school. However, a few years ago, a substitute teacher at my school told me about how her son was bullied at his old school. Mr. N was now a principal there. This woman even mentioned violence from the other kids and said that Mr. N did nothing to stop the teasing and bullying, but claimed he'd been devising bullying programs. When parents found out about his dishonesty, he immediately left the school system to teach classes at the university. Come to think of it, I don't recall Mr. N doing anything to stop the kids from tormenting me. And yet, he ruled the class with so much of that poppycock that people call discipline, including all our work having to be done in pen, as well as demanding kids stay after school to do their work, stating that "he didn't care if their houses burned down or if their dogs died."

     In most cases, I would have failed Grade 8, but I was allowed to go on to Grade 9 because I was being enrolled in a special school for the fall of 1983. More about this school in the Grade 9 section of this essay.

GRADE NINE
      For Grades 9 and 10, I attended a special high school in Saskatoon. Students were presented with academic materials at a lower level than in a regular high school. My mom had looked into regular high schools for me, but they had little in the way of special programs other than resource rooms, in which students spent a limited time, and during the rest of the day, they were in regular classrooms without special support, and had to learn at the pace of their neurotypical classmates.

     Many people may think of the special high school I attended as, what would have been called in the old days, an EMR school, or a school for mentally retarded kids, but was really for students who had had trouble in regular schools and needed to catch up on their academic progress. Many of these students ended up graduating from regular high schools. No matter what, they could always enroll in high-school-credit courses afterwards and eventually get a GED, which is an equivalent of a high school diploma. GEDs obviously existed in the 1980s and even before. IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT, WHILE "RETARDED" WAS A COMMON TERM FOR PEOPLE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS ABOUT TWENTY, THIRTY, OR FORTY YEARS AGO, THAT TERM IS NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE.

     In this school, we did academic materials at approximately the Grade 5 level. The work was much easier than I had experienced in recent years, and I felt much more secure. I was placed in a remedial classroom for English, in which I worked at my own pace. The teacher was great, and she got a real kick out of me. We also worked at our own pace in math, but at an assigned pace in social studies and life skills. Social studies was a subject of contrasts for me. I had a head for geography, but had trouble in history and was very weak in political behaviour.

     All in all, I had very good relationships with my teachers at this school. It was a small school, with about 175 kids. so most people knew each other. Unfortunately, the majority of the kids had behaviour problems, and were the kinds of teenagers you hear cussing on the streets in the middle of the night. They were the kinds of rough kids who hang out on the streets and in washrooms. They didn't accept me because of my "odd' behaviour. They called me the kinds of names you see written on washroom walls and toilet stalls. The bus stop was worse, since it was completely unsupervised, so I would go to one where there weren't many kids. I was disappointed because I had hoped to make friends with other kids with special needs who were like me.

     But on the whole, I was much happier in this school than I was in my old school because of my rewarding relationships with the teachers and because the work wasn't so bad; thus, I felt secure.

GRADE TEN
      For Grade 10, I was placed in a vocational program at this same special school, because it was evident that I needed more catching up to do, since I had fallen so far behind in Grades 7 and 8. The plan was that I eventually return to the regular classes at this school and, possibly, take classes, i.e. math, in a regular high school.

     I had as good a relationship with the teachers as I had the previous year. I also had positive relationships with a couple of students who I'd consider nice. The work was around the Grade 5 level. When I excelled in math, the teacher placed me on a higher level math text, the one that was used in this school's regular Grade 10 program.

     I also did a work experience program during my Grade 10 year, though this wasn't a very good program. Each student did four-week placements. I wanted to do my placement in a daycare, because my rapport with young children was already recognized, but for some reason, I couldn't. My first placement was a caretaker at my school, which I found to be a drag. I didn't want to do a cleaning job! Students didn't get paid for their placements because "this was part of the school program." Duh!

     My second work experience placement was even worse. I worked as a busboy at a restaurant. I was into restaurant work at the time. I especially wanted to be a waiter or a cook, but I didn't want to spend the whole time cleaning. I hoped that, when the restaurant manager saw how good a job I did cleaning tables and washing dishes, that he'd promote me to waiter, but forget it. Day after day, all he had me do was clean tables and wash dishes. I was bothered that my work wasn't rewarded.

     The manager also could have treated me better. He never gave me free meals or snacks or anything, or any breaks during a three-hour period. Grandma and Grandpa were visiting us from Texas that time, and they came to that restaurant for a cup of tea once. They were very upset with my boss for the way he treated me. My dad was, too.

     Around this time, my divorced parents were having conflicts about my education in Saskatoon, and after a custody battle, I went to live with my dad and stepmother in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in the summer of 1985, and would be finishing high school there.

GRADE ELEVEN
      In the fall of 1985, as I entered Grade 11, I was enrolled in a regular high school in Oshkosh. Since this was the U.S., I was a "junior", as Americans call eleventh graders. For people who read this who aren't American, in the U.S., ninth graders are freshmen, tenth graders are sophomores, eleventh graders are juniors, and twelfth graders are seniors.

     In Wisconsin, I was in special classes for math, English, basic science, and shop; and regular classes for physical education and U.S. History. My mom was extremely wary of this program, because she felt it would be like the unreliable programs in Saskatoon's regular high schools. But it turned out that the program worked well for me. My homeroom teacher Mr. L, who was the special needs teacher for math and English, was a very knowledgeable and sensitive man, and I did well in those classes.

     I did have trouble with U.S. History, though, as the materials were abstract. However, this class was taught by a teacher who had experience teaching special education, and the teacher's aide, Mrs. D, was a big help to me. We really would have liked a special program for this subject, but U.S. History was required by law in the U.S.

     I have always had some trouble with words with multiple meaning, and on one occasion, when we were given homework for U.S. History, one of the questions we were to answer was, "On what grounds did Truman fire General MacArthur?" My answer was "On the grounds of the White House", thinking they meant geographical grounds. But it turned out they meant "Why did Truman fire General MacArthur?" So why didn't they simply say "Why?" Why do textbook authors have to write books like instruction manuals?

     But on the last period of the day, I would return to Mr. L's room for study hall. He and the teacher's aides in charge, including Mrs. D, would help me with my notes if needed. As a result, I passed U.S. History with C's on my report cards. I did get a few F's on my tests, if it was written in a different manner from the way I'd studied, but if it was less complicated, I'd get a B.

     So on the whole, the special education in Wisconsin was very helpful. I did find it difficult adjusting to the regular high school environment, including students being accused of being late if they walked into the classroom as the tone of the bell was just dying away, having to have a hall pass when in the halls during classes, those nosy hall monitors, etc. You can read more about this in my "Discipline Schmiscipline" essay.

     One of the best things about this high school was its intolerance for harassment and bullying. While there were certain kids who teased or took advantage of me, the majority of kids accepted me well.

     At this time, there were plans for me to spend another year in Grade 11, because I was still somewhat behind in academic progress and I needed to master more credits than one year would allow me. So I did Grade 11 over the course of two years. Unfortunately, we had to move to Iowa in the summer of 1986 because my dad's job was transferred. So in September of that year, I was enrolled in high school in Fort Dodge, Iowa, only twenty miles from my stepmother's relatives.

     That fall, I attended special education classes for math, English, physical education, and Career Explorations, and regular classes for Perspectives/Global Studies and biology. In many cases, however, the education in Iowa was nowhere near as good as it was in Wisconsin, but more traditional. The English class was very assimilating and focussed on students with reading and writing problems, because those were the majority of the students in that class; thus, we had to do cursive writing assignments that are done by second and third graders.

     I did, however, have some good teachers. My best ones were my Perspectives/Global Studies (Mr. C), Career Explorations (Mrs. N), and physical education (Mr. M) teachers. Mr. C played us films that taught me an awful lot about the social aspects of the world and was open to any questions; in fact, he was very happy if I went out of my way to ask him questions. Mrs. N made sure I got the kinds of work experience placements that I liked, and Mr. M ensured that kids behaved themselves, though he was very understanding; not at all like the sergeant-type gym teachers typical of the 50s and 60s. When I took biology, the class was difficult and Mrs. H was tough and gave no quarter in the class, but I passed with B's and C's on my report cards. It helped that I was much more adept at studying by then.

     I did sometimes get teased at this high school. Sometimes a kid would sneak up behind me and yell "WILL!" in my ear. However, there were many kids who accepted me. I had two friends from this school, Jason, who had epilepsy; and Candy, who also had special needs, and who I went on a couple of dates to movies with. I hung out with Jason and Candy regularly. Jason and I had a few sleepovers, which was the first time I even had them.

     Again, rigid policies typical of American high schools got to me. In Oshkosh, students were allowed to leave the school at lunchtime, but in Fort Dodge, they weren't. That was a problem for me, because I couldn't go for walks in the surrounding neighbourhoods. Also, students had to be in the cafeteria or the students' center, so I couldn't go into the quiet hallways or the library when I needed solitude, but had to cope with the loud and rowdy kids. Sometimes, though, I was able to sneak past the hall monitors and relax in the library. But lunch was only 25 minutes long and there were no breaks in between, other than time to go from one classroom to another, so I didn't get to recuperate when I needed to. High school can be very nerve-wracking, especially if you have autism or Asperger's.

     Another problem in Iowa was the washrooms. At lunchtime, kids could only use certain washrooms nearest to the cafeteria, and believe it or not, the toilets didn't have cubicles over them! Some other washrooms nearby did, and although students weren't allowed to use them at lunchtime, I used to sneak into them. I've always found bathrooms very relaxing, because they provide solitude.

     But here's another good thing about this school. During the second semester, it was deemed that the English class was too easy for me, so with the advise of the special needs staff, I enrolled in a regular English class, Basic Composition, and I got B's in that class. For math, their learning materials were too easy as well, so I did math at the Grade 8 level at my own pace in this special needs teacher's social studies class. And at the end of the year, my report card grades were average to above average.

GRADE TWELVE
      I did my last grade at the high school in Fort Dodge. I hung out with my friends Jason and Candy a lot that year. I took World Geography, and baffled my teacher, Mr. G, with my knowledge, and sometimes even corrected him. At first, when he told us about penguins in the Galopagos Islands, I didn't believe him, but it turns out that there are. They also have species of penguins along the coasts of Australia and South Africa.

     My knowledge in geography also won the respect of another student. Once, he said I was dumb, then I asked him trivia questions about world capitals, how to spell "Czechoslovakia", etc. He didn't know the capitals of Albania, Honduras, etc. and I did, and afterwards, he stated that I was "smart".

     I took mostly regular classes that year, but had a special teacher for math. Mrs. M, however, was supposed to teach me algebra, since I was already at that level of learning, but didn't comply, even when reminded. After a battle my dad and stepmother had with the school, I was removed from her room and placed with Mrs. C, who got me through a large part of algebra.

     I also had a teacher's aide in my computers class, but she didn't know how to use the computers, so she wasn't much more help than the "help" key.

     I took Government that year, which is required by law. I had some trouble in that class and, for a while, my grades slid, but luckily, the teacher offered extra credit assignments and I did them all. So I passed that class with A's and B's. Other teachers, however, didn't give extra credit. My grades slid in some of the other classes too, but with painstaking effort, I passed all my courses and graduated from high school on June 5th, 1988. I was nearly nineteen. After graduation, I returned to Saskatoon with my mom and stepfather.

SUMMATION
      All in all, what helped me most throughout my K-12 education was self-contained classrooms, which involved learning at one's own pace, but resource room support also helped if that meant having access to teachers and teachers' aides who could help me with my assignments and my note-taking. This type of resource room support was most prevalent when I lived in Wisconsin. As well, mainstreaming worked IF I had an aide in the classroom who was warm and knowledgeable, and if the kids were accepting and tolerant of differences.

     Strictly speaking, I don't think there should even be curriculums. Instead, I think that schools and classes in general should be designed for students to learn at their own pace. That way, the slower learners wouldn't have to struggle so much and the faster learners could work ahead and wouldn't have to wait; and the fast learners could teach the slow learners through peer tutoring. If kids did poorly on assignments and tests, they could retake them again, as many times as needed, until they got a good mark, and it wouldn't be dismissed as a "poor" grade. No time would be wasted through teachers' nonstop lectures and kids could work on their assignments in class, instead of for homework, so they could have more time for fun and rest.

     With students learning at their own pace, homework could be optional. I really don't think kids should have to do school-related stuff outside of school. And busywork should also be optional; possibly as extra-credit assignments. That could even help boost kids' self-esteem. So schools and school boards, PLEASE consider my idea of independent study vs. curriculums! In other words, make the philosophies in public schools like in the Montessori schools!

     If a child needs a teacher's aide in the classroom, make sure this person is caring and interested. I know a T.A. who is cold and stern, and I sure wouldn't have wanted someone like her for a T.A. when I was a kid.

     Bullying and harassment should be taken very seriously. If there are kids who are different in the classroom, talk to the other kids about this kid's condition and make sure they treat this kid nicely. You need to be very firm with them if they don't. Please remember that kids harassing other kids is as serious and as wrong, probably even more so, than disrespect to teachers.

     Also, if kids in special programs don't have any peers in these classes - and it's very likely that they won't - then integration into the regular classrooms may be considered. But if this is the case, have a teacher's aide go into the classroom with the kid if necessary, but PLEASE! Make sure this T.A. cares and is interested, and is willing to mentor the kid, rather than just discipline. And then teachers can explain to the kids in the regular classroom about this kid's condition and make sure that he/she is accepted well. As well, consider the above if a certain kid doesn't have anything in common with the other kids in the special class.

     If resource room support is the key, then it should be designed as I've described in the first paragraph of this summary. Don't just entitle kids to so many minutes of this and so many minutes of that. That's not helping. You have to be flexible. You can't just deny kids certain services because "the majority of the kids don't need them". Assimilation is just plain unrealistic!

     And school boards, if keeping down expenses is more important to you than the welfare of the kids, think again! Where I live, about ten or twenty years ago, the public school board claimed that there wasn't enough funding for special services for kids, but then they made plans to build a fancy school board office out in the hinterlands. So I wrote to them and said, "If you don't have funding for special education, how can you possibly have funding for a fancy office building?" They must have learned that someone was on to them, so they could no longer get away with their lies. Many other people protested like this as well, but I suspect that my letter helped to cause a breakthrough.

     You can read more about how kids should be taught and disciplined in schools in my "Discipline Schmiscipline" essay.