Kurt Mitchell  

Did I miss something here? Did we forget about our promises we made to the parents of these children? What about the children themselves? I understood that the “mainstreaming” of students was proving to be in the best interest of the autistic child. I do realize that children with disabilities or special needs can be disruptive to class at times. Our teachers need to have some tolerance and understanding when dealing with these students.

What does this action say to the other students in that class? To me it says only one thing. We as adults tell our children to show kindness, consideration, and understanding to others who may have special needs. But when it comes down to actually practice what we preach, we are failing miserably. As soon as this teacher suggested the vote, it told the students that the autistic child was somehow not as valuable as the rest of the class. This single action shows how prejudice some people/teachers still are.

We have made the commitment to bring our special needs students into mainstream class rooms. We now need to make sure that our teachers are properly trained in handling this sort of situation. We try to take our culture a step forward by providing all we can for these students. When the people who are supposed to be in charge act in this manner, it can only be counter productive for the other students. So instead of taking the right step forward, we took a couple of steps back today!!