Abuse is the Standard Treatment, and Objections are Punished

What the young woman in the following video is reporting is typical and reflects the common standard. What is highly unusual as well as admirable is that this woman's personal standards are such that she sees the victim's welfare as top priority, and she's willing to act based on principal.

The school is acting on behalf of their reputation and willing to sacrifice anyone's welfare in order to preserve the system. This is how it got so bad in the first place. Until the entire system is seen as promoting an environment where abuse is inevitable and their deceit is questioned by more people who will face the consequences of reporting it, this will continue.

 

Abuse of Children With Autism in School

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Interverbal]

Assuming everything she said is true and that nothing important was ommitted:

The University is clearly trying to get rid of her. This likely has less to do with
autism/disabilities and more to do with maintaining a working relationship with local districts/schools. Cost of getting rid of one student teacher = one hurt young lady with Aspergers.... cost of alienating a mid sized district = a loss of 5-10 student teacher placements per semester, and a equal sized loss of placements for practicum students. So a loss of placements for 30ish people per semester.

They will tell her she must repeat the year, but then throw deliberate obstacles in her way. This is what education programs do with people who flunk their student teaching. She needs to do a gut check and figure how far she is willing to go.

1. If she is willing to initiate legal action, she should get a lawyer and get them working.

2. She can also contact the University Ombudsman (mediator), and file a formal grievance.

3. If she doesn't want to do either, then she should voluntarily transfer to another institution. Because, it ain't happening as is, period.

Provided she told us the the whole story, she did the right thing here. Time for her to do the right thing again.

[Ed]

This has to do with autism/disabilities. Although schools don't like to accept that their funding is provided due to the public believing they provide for people with disabilities, it is none-the-less something they can be held accountable for. As I said, this is a reflection of standard values and the treatment for disabled students and their teachers (including teachers with disabilities) that results from those values.

What is sometimes disguised as pragmatism by this system does not consider the welfare of anyone but the senior faculty (and their seniors, and so on....). Protecting the budget so they can continue educating people when they have to stop educating them to do it (and abuse the students in the process) is contradictory to why the public was told they received the funding.

There's no room (from an ethical standpoint) for anyone to question whether she told the whole story or whether she's telling the truth. Of course there's little room for ethics in that system at all.

The school has means, motive, and abundant opportunity to be deceptive and can effectively get away with it. They are clearly showing their willingness to do so. Although she has no reason to lie or not tell the whole story, her integrity will be questioned in order to protect the school's lies. The victimization continues.

The price this school (as well as the system it is part of) continues to pay is that these children and this woman will no longer feel as safe and the abusive treatment has again been protected. This is a temporary victory for the school that society will pay dearly for in financial as well as many other ways.

For providing advice, this teacher can be reached by leaving a comment on her video as she has asked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No1Z8KOeW7o&feature=player_embedded

[Ed]

sorry Jonathan, I deleted the comment. My apologies:

here's the comments

Interverbal said:

Hi Ed,

“This has to do with autism/disabilities.”

Frankly, I can see this just as easily happening in a Head Start program that didn’t involve kids with disabilities. That’s what my “having to do with” statement means.

“What is sometimes disguised as pragmatism by this system does not consider the welfare of anyone but the senior faculty (and their seniors, and so on....). Protecting the budget so they can continue educating people when they have to stop educating them to do it (and abuse the students in the process) is contradictory to why the public was told they received the funding.”

I agree in the broad sense, but I am willing to bet that school boards and local communities would quietly (or possibly loudly) back that pragmatic view too.

“There's no room (from an ethical standpoint) for anyone to question whether she told the whole story or whether she's telling the truth.”

I have always been of the opinion that knowing the full truth is the first step to making an ethical decision. One can decry abuse (that question is clearly answered in this case) and still be careful about commenting on a situation where one doesn’t know all the facts. And while only offering support in the absence of knowing the facts might be well intentioned…..I seem to recall a saying about good intentions.

“The price this school (as well as the system it is part of) continues to pay is that these children and this woman will no longer feel as safe and the abusive treatment has again been protected.”

The video said the investigation was validated against that teacher. That question at least was answered.

Thanks for the heads up, on the where to leave advice. And thank you Ed, it is very gratifying to read a post where I find far more to agree with than disagree with.

[Ed]

Interverbal said:

Also, before I forget. Thank you for posting this. Maybe by identifying individual instances of abuse we can help counter the systemic enablement of it. I will post a link to it from my blog.