What does it take to get rid of a teacher who only wants perfect students in her classroom? Apparently it takes A LOT in Florida! In 2008, teacher Wendy Portillo was suspended for teaching for one year after after allowing her kindergarten students to vote a student with autism out of the class...survivor style!
Well, Wendy Portillo, along with a couple other teachers in her school are at it again. This time refusing to wear an FM system used by a student with a hearing impairment. This is the same type of system worn by my daughter Angela, and that I have used while working with MANY students over the years. They are EASY to use! They take 5 minutes to train the teachers to use. (Check the batteries in the morning before school starts. Turn it on, turn it off, clip the microphone here. That's about it!)
When did it become acceptable for teachers to ridicule students; to model that behavior to other students? How are we, as parents of disabled or non-disabled kids, supposed to feel o.k. sending our kids to school every day, trusting that our children aren't being taught this way?
When my boys were in high school a few years ago, Tyler came home from school one day fuming mad. Apparently one of his teachers liked to use the r-word quite a bit, and when Tyler asked him to stop the teacher laughed at him for being so sensitive about it.
I remember an incident while working as an interpreter for a deaf student, who happened to be African American. It was an art class, and a lot of the artwork this student chose to do was related to famous musicians. The teacher would joke with the student inappropriately about the musicians, but because the student was deaf, and English humor isn't always funny in American Sign Language, this student didn't realize this teacher's "jokes" were derogatory racial slurs, and very insulting. They were things this teacher never would have said to an adult. He actually said things like, "I suppose, since you're black, you can really move like the rest of your people huh?"
Back to Portillo...I don't understand how Portillo can still have her teaching credentials. She has no heart for teaching. She has no heart for children! She has no compassion! She seems like one of those teachers who has her few "pets", but is otherwise evil hiding behind the desk of a teacher.
1 comment:
How can a teacher be allowed to do that? Even in Israel (or Hungary, as a matter of fact), where integration is not as widespread, teachers can't and won't reuse to use these great and simple gadgets. I completely agree with you!
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