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The story out of Tifton Georgia (in the Southern part of this state) is shocking to parents of children with disabilities, especially those with children who have autism. An 8-year-old boy was arrested and charged with battery last Thursday morning for biting a teacher.
Never mind that the boy has autism and is non-verbal. Never mind that he is in a self-contained school for children with severe emotional/behavioral disorders and autism – one of those “GNETS” like the one proposed for my daughter. A place, according to the school’s director, that is “ a part of Georgia’s network for educational and therapeutic support.”
I’m still trying to figure out what’s therapeutic about having an 8-year-old arrested. Does this help the non-verbal child with autism to feel more secure about his surroundings? Does this lessen the number of biting or other injurious behaviors he displays when anxious, provoked or frustrated? Does it some how “teach” him that biting is an unacceptable way of expressing his frustration or gaining attention? Or do these questions that seem obvious to me even matter to the powers that operate this program?
As if this news isn’t disturbing enough, last week the Tift County school board (same district) voted to fire a paraprofessional who had been removed without pay from a kindergarten class (in a general ed school, I might add) for biting a kindergartener. Their decision to go ahead and terminate her employment comes after someone within the system allowed her to come back to work in the system’s bus shop (where presumably she wouldn’t have much contact with kindergarteners.)
Is it me, or is there a double standard here?
Like so many, I want to believe that teachers are in their profession for the love of teaching students and that they love kids and love nurturing and educating them. I want to believe that special educators are a special breed themselves, with a deep understanding and compassion for children with disabilities. But if I go on believing that all educators are this way, then these stories can’t fit into my frame of reference at all.
Instead, what I sadly see are school systems that have little in place to help teachers handle the challenges of teaching children with autism and other neurological disorders. And I see teachers so overworked, stressed and pressured by administrators and the challenges of teaching children with these challenges, that when a child’s behaviors push them to the brink of the frustration cliff, they are not able to use positive behavioral interventions and overreact to the crisis that ensues.
Or I see administrators and systems that block even putting positive behavioral interventions in place, let alone providing adequate training for the educators working with children with these disabilities.
For some time, I’ve suspected there was a direct pipeline from these GNET schools to jail. I just didn’t realize it was happening to 8-year-old non-verbal children with autism.
I wish I were making this story up, but here are the links to these two news articles.
Autistic Child Charged with Biting Teacher
this is really sad….
as a teacher, we are often not given the support we need for the most needy students… and sometimes this is the step required to take before a child can get a better placement…
but I can say most likely some boss higher up won’t give the teacher more help… and so this may have been a last resort…
I have no idea why they don’t help instead of hurting this kids sooo much..