For people who are in or where in special education, Why where you there? What was it like? How did you do later in life? And did it have any effect as a adult?
For a couple years at least, it sucked. It felt lonely in retrospect because most of the other students in the class were nonverbal. Any attempt to socialize with the teachers just lead to them telling me to “mind my own business”. The teachers were also just assholes in general.
I was in elementary in Canada early 90’s. My school was weird. There’s a large Mennonite community in the area where I grew up so a large percentage (more than 50%) of the kids in this school were Mennonite. For those unfamiliar, these are similar to Amish. Such farmers with strong religious views, most of them were “old order” meaning they grew up in homes with little to no electricity. They also finish school at age 12 regardless of progress. This meant that they were exempt from a lot of the classes my tiny public school had to offer. No French, computing, or Sex Ed. A lot of them were also in special Ed. I’m not going to sugar coat this. It’s forbidden from them to marry outside of their culture and only like 4 families came to the area. So there’s a lot of disabilities as a result of inbreeding with that community.
All this to say that my school had absolutely no clue how to deal with my undiagnosed autism. But they seemed to have decent funding due to the much higher needs.
I was in special Ed via French exemption status. This means I never learned french. I’d instead be placed in a room with all the Mennonite kids often in a corner trying to read. Eventually I was put into some kind of program. A neurologist should come by and do experiments on me. Nothing weird, just testing my fine motor skills. They (falsely) diagnosed me with “elementary tremors” a pediatric doctor upped this to a “removedation caused by mild down syndrome” (extremely wrong) after years of that nonsense they decided to use this crazy new fangled technology to give me a leg up with writing. I was given a Macintosh computer. I had a desk with tiny wheels and my 4th grade self had to wheel this from class to class (including “portables”). Of course this was pretty obsolete tech even for its time. My parents got me an Alpha Smart which was way better. By 6th grade I had a personal support worker to help get me caught up. I failed grades 3-6 but was ‘placed’ into the next grade anyway and never made to repeat anything.
Highschool was very different, no Mennonite, so way less funding. It was still a French exemption class but there were only about 5 other students in the class. It seemed to be less about education, or assessment of my condition. It was some watching videos and doing some analysis. It was mostly just a time to catch up on homework. Often there wasn’t even a teacher present.
Went to school. Was labled “removed” fell through the cracks. Hardly could read and write when I graduated.
I was pissed. Didn’t attend graduation.
Went to college. Had an awesome English teacher. Got me up to speed.
Proved everyone wrong. Being stubborn was a blessing.
Woah. How did that happen to you!?
Fell through the cracks. I don’t know what to say there.
A really, really common story honestly. I’m glad that you stuck with it, sometimes getting out is the first step to getting up.
30 years old now. Was put in Special Ed at age 9. Dysgraphia + What at the time they called ADHD, but my current psychiatrist and therapist believe is actually ASD.
Special Ed means different things in different places. In Brazil in the very early 2000s it meant I attended school with all the normal kids, but would stay in the afternoon for a bunch of mandatory extra stuff.
Consequences… ? Enh. I mean. I never learned how to properly study, given I had tutors for every subject and so was basically always in class. To this day I’m not sure how one studies on their own. Had quite a hard time through college, when I had to figure this shit out on my own. Still managed to graduate eventually.
But like. Some people who were in Special Ed report, like, major emotional trauma from it. That really wasn’t a thing for me, I guess I got lucky? At most I have an irrational dislike of colouring pencils because of all the colouring books they made me fill in, in hopes that would “cure” my dysgraphia (fat load of good THAT did).
I got emotional trauma from bullying, but I was already being bullied before being put in Special Ed. And it didn’t get any better or worse until I like. Changed schools.
Does alternative school count? We were made to feel like it was some sort of “special ed” in the derogatory sense.
No idea what I was a part of, but it is special Ed adjacent.
I was forced into a program in Jr. High because I had behavior issues (of course nothing was done to the bullies and attackers, just the person retaliating). It was like a 3 week program where they analyzed you (poorly because I knew all their testing methods and was not cooperating), stuffed you in a corner, and told you do homework for the day and then an hour for phys-ed. I stopped doing the homework after a while and just started playing my GBA.
It was humiliating, but I will say, the kids removed from the their situations were actually really great people despite being labeled as trouble makers or problems.
Anyways, I changed schools, and then changed schools, then got expelled and changed schools again, and eventually I graduated highschool. I then attended university and completed two programs.
Now, over 20 years later, I am actively unpacking and working on these issues from school because I fell through the cracks and was actively punished for being a victim.
