Aside from the usual promises to get my financial act together and otherwise straighten up, this year I have resolved to become (more) vocal about the ineffective manner in which our education system responds to the needs of students with developmental disabilities.
Yes, it is time to break free...to break free from the bonds of those four cement walls, that great Orwellian creation we know as "the classroom".
I could quote enough studies, papers, research and the like to fill the Suite 101 server, but I think I'll save that approach for a later date. For now, I will simply call upon the forces of logic and reason.
Talk to any parent of a student with developmental disabilities, or ask any adult with a developmental disability about their learning needs after age ten or twelve, and the message is loud and clear: social skills and life skills are job one. I don't think I would get much argument on that point from anyone.
Next, I ask that you consider just where it is that social and life skills are learned. For the most part, they are not learned while hunkered down over a phonics book, repeating "cat, mat, sat, rat". Yes, a child does learn some social skills in the classroom, but what they really learn is to be socialized to the classroom, a skill that does not always extend well to the real world. Ditto for life skills...we can simulate "real life" activities in the classroom, but it is still just that - a simulation!
So, where does that leave us? Not sitting at a desk staring at walls. I believe strongly that in the case of most adolescent-aged students with developmental disabilties, at least 50% of "class" time should be spent anywhere but the classroom. If you want to learn social and life skills, you must go where people are socializing and living! More on the "how" of this theory later.
Happy New Year!
Please feel free to comment on this column.
Keenan Wellar
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