A Three Legged Wolf Can Lead The Pack

Though I can't find my original post, there is a mention here about when the school teacher in question got her job back.

But here is an interview with the mother of the 5 year old who got voted out of his class back in 2008. The family will be taking things to Federal Court. To which I say 'Hellz Yeah'.

The very concept of a teacher holding a vote to get rid of a child was disgusting. It was further disgusting to realize this was a teacher aware the child had certain neurological issues and who was meant to be part of the team of educators and assistants, along with the child's parents, to help said child do well at school.

But the mother goes into detail in this interview and frankly, it reads a lot like all the other articles I've read in the past year and a half, of teachers bullying and physically intimidating students who are not neurotypical.

And it reminds me of something my mother went through as a child. My mother was a lefty. That's right, was a lefty. She got beaten, had her hand spanked, had the pencil strapped to her hand and other tactics to turn her from being a lefty because being left-handed was just wrong when my mother was a child. I'm not sure if people actually believed it to be a sign of the devil, what with left being sinister. But it was wrong in the sense of not being part of a right life.

These days people don't do that to lefty's for the most part. Some people are just left handed, that's how life goes. Perhaps far enough in the future, it'll be understood that some people simply won't be neurotypical, some people will have disabilities, some people don't hear (and thus use sign) and some people don't see and that's just how it is.

But I know that acceptance now, doesn't change what my mother went through or how she was made to feel about herself. And as much as it may seem shocking to think of a child being treated in such a manner for being left-handed, which is not something the child controls - where's the shock that a child, nay, that children are being physically and emotionally assaulted for not being just like the majority of the children around them?

Why do some teachers get away with killing autistic children and saying it was merely over-restraint originally done for the child's own good?

It's just mind blowing to me that a society that continually claims itself civilized would be so barbaric to its young and to its differently abled, differently processing citizens.

When difference is cause for attacks, whether said difference is skin colour, or mental processing or sensory related; humans become lower than animals. Because even animals do not consistently attack within their own groups based on *superficial difference.

_________

* And it is a superficial difference at the start. It then becomes a different life experience because prejudices affect how the superficial difference is perceived and thus changes how that life is lived. Which is often the point missed by those who want to live colour-free and disability-free lives.