Are we keeping kids from becoming indaviduals?
With "problems" like ADD, ADHD, weird behavior,quirks that aren't the "norm" and other individual traits a person may have. These traits are seen a problems that need a cure, so the students can conform to classroom rules and standards. This way they can all learn the same information that everyone else is learning. My Question is, are we holding back some people who may be great thinkers who would think outside the box and discovery new things or look at things differently to resolve problems that the "normal" people have not. By giving them drugs and counseling to try to turn them into everyone else? We may be preventing them from ever becoming the people they could have been. I.E. weird/not normal people like, Newton, Einstein,Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright, and Alexander Graham Bell. The list is huge, this is a small example.
Getting a bit off topic here but when I think of the title of this forum as " are we keeping kids from becoming individuals?" I actually think about some of our parents who are extremely over protective of their children and at times they become the disability. We have had students complete our program and they are ready to conquer the world but their parents not so much. While I understand their anxiety as a parent myself, I wish I knew a better way to help them empower their children and focus more on their abilities. All suggestions welcomed!
Tim,
In your initial post you indicated that you "honor their IEP". I took that to mean that the school is providing the same accommodations at the college level as were provided to the students in K-12. The REASON that they provide adjustments to students in the K-12 system is to foster SUCCESS. The REASON to provide accommodations to students with disabilities in higher education is to assure ACCESS. Those are two very different goals, with policy and practice supported by very different laws (IDEA at the K-12 level, 504/ADA at the postsecondary level). If the counselor at your school is assigning accommodations based on the documentation of disability from high school (as you suggest above), that is something else altogether. "Honoring their IEP" and accepting their documentation of disability are not the same thing.
Dr. Jane Jarrow
It appears we are not on the same page. We have a licensed counselor on our team that writes an accomodation plan for the student based off the documentation from their highschool. My confusion comes from the "REASON those accommodations are provided". My opening statement confirms the need to help the students by giving them a level playing field and the success that I have personally seen. We have had students in wheel chairs, deaf, blind, PTSD and assorted learning disabilities graduate from our school.What would our institution need to do different?
Tim,
Continuing a student with their IEP is one way to go about supporting students with disabilities, but it actually suggests that your institutional administration either misunderstands the purpose of accommodation or is choosing the easy (cheaper?) way to comply with the law. The accommodations provided -- and the REASON those accommodations are provided -- is very different in college than in the K-12 system. Perhaps you can persuade the powers-that-be to take another look at their practice and consider hiring someone to handle this issue for them in a more appropriate manner. You are doing YOUR part in following institutional policy. I'm just not sure they are doing theirs!
Dr. Jane Jarrow
We have many students at our technical college that we honor their IEP from their High School. I agree that this accommodation allows them the opportunity to have a level playing field with the other students in this learning environment. I have seen many students go from being insecure with low self esteem to being confident, competent individuals that will be successful in the workplace. I believe that encouraging and supporting these students should be our main role to help them reach their potential and goals.
Edward,
I am not sure whether you are suggesting that making accommodations somehow squashes individual thinking/action -- but if that is your point I would have to disagree. If you were talking about Special Education in the K-12 system, I might be more tempted to support that thesis. At the K-12 level, they try to get students with disabilities to be just like everyone else. But at the college level, the purpose of accommodation is to help students who act differently to have the chance to produce the same, expected results. That doesn't limit them from going beyond those expected outcomes, or even from reaching those outcomes in unique ways. It only assures that they have the chance to demonstrate their strengths in a way that is appropriate to them.
Dr. Jane Jarrow
