FUCK ABELISM
Things I experienced today as a Special Education Paraeducator
1. I told one of the people that I work with that I'm really grateful that the teaching certification program I'm going to is only 1 year because I couldn't have done another 2 years of college, I barely made it through my BA which took me 6, and that I had to do another 2 I'd have dropped out. She insisted that I'd have been fine.
So, I reminded her that I have ADHD and that doing my BA was extra hard because of my ADHD. I explained that I was changing majors all the time as well as schools. She told me "all young people do that," I told her I attended college between the ages of 20 and 26 much older than your average student. She repeated that it wasn't my ADHD it was just because I was young.
She's wrong, it absolutely was due to my ADHD, you don't repeat classes because you don't understand the course work just because "you were young" you also don't impulsively change schools because you're tired of the one you're at because "you were young." You also don't almost flunk classes because you couldn't do your final paper because it was too much work in one chunk and you waited too long to get started because "you were young"
Like fuck off Karen (that's her actual name) and shut the hell up your opinion has no bearing on my lived experiences.
2. Same bitch insisted that the kid with CP whom I've been working with for 4 months couldn't have deliberately refused to eat solid foods until I informed him that his mom told me he could eat solids and I would no longer be blending his food because "his brain doesn't work like that, he's not capable of premeditation".
Like really Karen, REALLY. Because first of all Cerebral Palsy is a PHYSICAL disability and while some people with CP do have cognitive disorders there is nothing in this student's file to indicate that he does. Not to mention that while he's not capable of speech he is completely capable of following directions and answering grade-level reading questions.
So you're telling me that a 3rd-grade boy didn't think he would get away with not chewing (something that's physically challenging but important for him to do) as long as he could because he had a new teacher who didn't know better just because he has a PHYSICAL disability? That's what you're telling me?
3. Overheard her comparing her Autistic nephew to Rainman and talking about him as if he was 10 when I asked how old he was she informed me he's 47.
This bitch is getting a teaching degree with a special education endorsement, she wants to teach Special Education...like WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK!
She seems to think that because she works in sped and likes kids with special needs she'll make a good special education teacher but no bitch FUCK NO!
You can't just like special needs kids, you have to ADVOCATE for them, you have to treat them as EQUALS, you have to respect their autonomy, and you have to see them as INDIVIDUALS capable of complex thought and motivations.
Just fuck you, Karen, no wonder kids hate school, and no wonder adults leave special education with horror stories if this is the kind of mother fucking cunt getting teaching positions.