Have you ever been sitting in an IEP meeting or some other school-related meeting when someone from the school staff says something so utterly ridiculous that you are left speechless?
I read an article in the Virginian Pilot newspaper yesterday on the subject of advocates assisting parents in the special education process. One of the advocates featured in the story, Cheryl Poe, began her journey to advocacy because of one of those ridiculous comments made to her about her son. The quote from the newspaper was "For Poe, her activism was spurred by her own experience. About six years ago, while trying to get diagnosis and treatment for her son’s learning disability, she said a school speech pathologist told her she was the problem, that she must have been speaking black English to him at home." Say WHAT????
Although I've heard many ridiculous comments at the IEP meetings for my children, the worst was when, following a triennial review, Ashley's teacher announced to the team that Ashley was a "visual and auditory learner." Say WHAT?? ASHLEY IS DEAFBLIND!!!
So, what inane comments have you heard?
Your post just reminded me of a meeting we had with E's history teacher. He had a student teacher that did not teach. AT ALL. He merely put up PowerPoints that the kids had to copy. Period. E was getting C+'s in a class where she should have been making B+'s or A's. We had a meeting that included the student teacher, the teacher, and the dept. chairman. We were trying to be nice and explained that E is an auditory learner. Most students are a combination or strongly visual and this style of "teaching" was putting her at a disadvantage. After a lot of discussion the teacher asked me if I thought E had a photographic memory. Er, no. Spit for brains???
ReplyDeleteI can not believe the teacher said that! Oh my goodness! I would have been speechless for sure. I love advocating for parents. I miss it. Every meeting I went too people would say things that left me gasping for air. Never ceases to amaze me! Some day I would like to get back into advocating. Sometimes I wish M was in school just so I could go to the IEP meetings. I really enjoyed them. Is that weird? Probably.
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