John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ROBYN MILLER IN CBC NEWS
'Kevlar in the classroom': Teachers turn to protective gear as violence escalates
Violent outbursts by students at Ottawa's largest school board double in 3 years
Larger class size would contribute, but the root of the problem is "mainstreaming" students who should not be in the mainstream.
The policy is cheap for Boards, cheap compared to other arrangements, and they all have a kind of politically-correct attitude about these matters. They can claim virtue about false notions of not having to "stigmatize" anyone.
Mental illness and serious emotional problems are as much a part of the human condition as severe physical disabilities. Or indeed, beauty or special talent of any kind. They come in a certain percent of every large population as part of the random way nature works.
So, if you have a system required to take all comers (our public schools) and insist for various reasons that they will all be accommodated in the same manner, you are going to have these problems. Automatically and indefinitely.
It should be a basic policy that any child proving highly disruptive and violent requires moving to a specialized facility, whether located in the same school property or somewhere else, a facility which has a high ratio of teachers plus the assistance of experts in mental health.
Of course, doing that right costs a good deal more and is far more work for administrators, but the average young teacher coming from teachers’ college hasn’t the least ability to deal with the task even though they may have been given a superficial course about “special needs.”
What we are really talking about is psychiatric cases being tossed into the classrooms by pretending everyone is the same, and it’s all lovely.
No teacher can both teach a normal class and act as a kind of warden.
And young teachers like the one in this story do not want to be identified for speaking to truth. It does not boost careers, for sure. Administrators do not take kindly to that.
The situation is not fair to anyone involved.
But school administrators, everywhere now, don't want really to deal with these problems which, of course, include matters like dealing with parents when they must tell them their child needs a special school environment.
That special environment, of course, should be the very best that it can be too, not just some human warehouse. Costs go up, of course, but willingness to bear costs is the real test of commitment to doing things right.
