Re: advice about a teacher

[Guest guest]

In my own experience: You must change teachers even though change is hard. But living with a teacher who is so inept and cruel is worse than dealing with change. I have been where you are many times and also didn't want to upset everything by taking my kid out of a classroom just because the teacher seemed mean or not to understand his needs. I wish I had many times. By middle school with one ds, I listened to his sped teacher tell me how awful my kid was, everything was his fault and he did things on purpose just to annoy her, etc. His autism was something he could chose to turn on and off at will, just to annoy her, she said. lol. I was sitting there with my lawyer no less, listening to this. She began to read a paper where she had thought up ways to punish him. I couldn't believe her fix was to do that instead of thinking of ways to teach him. I had to leave the room because I was so upset at this point. Regaining composure somewhat, I told the team that he must have a different teacher that very moment and one was assigned.

Wow, a world of difference!! My ds was in the process of being put into more and more isolation throughout the day because of behaviors and inability to cope under this teacher's guidance (or lack of...) After changing his sped teacher to someone with a brain and a heart that both worked, he suddenly was mainstreamed into regular classes and not having to leave to spend hours shredding paper in a room by himself. Imagine that. At a meeting at the end of the year, everyone gushed at how much my ds had "grown" that year. lol. But he was the same kid he always was. He was just finally with someone who knew how to work with him. That was his "growth." And it made all the difference to him. So RUN RUN RUN from this teacher. If that is all she can come up with to work with him, shame on her, but get the heck far away from her. I would also put in writing what she has told you in a nice letter to paper trail what is going on. "I understand you feel the only way to work with my son is to...blah blah blah..." Document the situation because almost certainly, if asked, this teacher will deny she ever said it. And they might argue against moving him to someone else. So document nicely, then request to move him. And he will deal with the change - in fact, put that in the plans to help him transition. Good luck!

Roxanna

"I

predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Jefferson

( ) advice about a teacher

Hello my son has a teacher for three of his classes in middle school, he does not like her, she told me that if she does not yell or nag at him he will not do his work, she said there is no other way to do this, she puts him down all the time I was thinking of changing teachers for him but this would mean completely changing his classes, he does not take change well and was just finally starting to get used to the routine in his current classes, although he is still not doing well with these routines should I have him taken out of these classes with this teacher

[Guest guest]

this teacher feel that the only thing she can do is nag him

From: Cathleen Veloria <cathleen.veloria@...>Subject: Re: ( ) advice about a teacher Date: Sunday, January 9, 2011, 9:04 PM

If it were my son I would switch teachers. Have you tried talking to her about the yelling and nagging? It is inappropriate and not necessary. Our teacher knows Dylan needs help doing his work also, but she is very patient, but she has been teaching for 25 years and seen it all. She also has some training under her belt. Can you give her a book about Asperger's or Autism and she can educate herself? Just some thoughts.

From: <amandabeneteau@...> Sent: Sat, January 8, 2011 6:44:30 PMSubject: ( ) advice about a teacher

Hello my son has a teacher for three of his classes in middle school, he does not like her, she told me that if she does not yell or nag at him he will not do his work, she said there is no other way to do this, she puts him down all the time I was thinking of changing teachers for him but this would mean completely changing his classes, he does not take change well and was just finally starting to get used to the routine in his current classes, although he is still not doing well with these routines should I have him taken out of these classes with this teacher

[Guest guest]

Tokens can work in some cases. But I'd say you'd really need to do an evaluation to see what is causing the refusal to begin with. There were often different reasons why my ds would refuse to do work. It varied. One time, for instance, I realized later that the work was way below his ability level. He was in a class for "kids with behavior problems" and the work being given to the kids was for 2nd graders (he was in 6th grade at the time.) He wasn't able to tell us what was wrong. So he just stopped doing the work. In that case, a token system would have failed. There were other instances like that. One problem (quirk) he had was that he evoked that high squeaky baby talk voice from some women over the years. He was a cute little guy and many times, teachers would sing song talk to him like he was a little kid, something he either hated or couldn't stand listening to, or both. As soon as someone would talk to him like that, he'd shut off entirely and refuse to acknowledge that this person existed forever. Sometimes, just meeting a teacher or therapist would tell me why he was "refusing to do the work." Other times, he couldn't do the work being asked of him. Many times this was in Language arts as he has dyslexia and autism and could not come up with imaginative things to write about. So when he was asked to write a poem or something, he'd just sit there and not do it. He had no clue how to even start. In these cases, he needed someone to help him relate it to something more concrete and to also help him chunk it into manageable pieces.

Roxanna

"I

predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Jefferson

( ) Re: advice about a teacher

Hi,

I'm not going to comment on your son's teacher because that would be unprofessional.

I will, however, comment on the best way to handle your son's behaviour. The target is to get your son to willingly do his work as best as he can. The only way to achieve this target effectively is to insist on a reinforcement system, this is a system of rewards that your son will achieve for doing his work well and as quickly as he can. The rewards would have to be desirable to him, if he likes computers he might work well if he knows that he will get to go on the computer for ten minutes when he has finished his task or worked well for twenty minutes etc or he might prefer to paint or read or play ball etc. The only way for your son to learn this system and trust it is to always have it in place. It needs to begin with your son getting very frequent rewards then fade out so he has to work longer for each reward. This needs to be done gradually but you need to keep it constant so he desires to work. The teacher may be more willing to implement this system if it's poin

ted out that although it will take a little time to establish it'll make her job easier in the end.

PS: You son should have a token chart so he can see how well he's doing and how many more tokens until he gets his reward.

>

> Hello my son has a teacher for three of his classes in middle school, he does not like her, she told me that if she does not yell or nag at him he will not do his work, she said there is no other way to do this, she puts him down all the time I was thinking of changing teachers for him but this would mean completely changing his classes, he does not take change well and was just finally starting to get used to the routine in his current classes, although he is still not doing well with these routines should I have him taken out of these classes with this teacher

>

[Guest guest]

Hope you have an IEP so you can call a meeting to make some adjustments. If your

son is not doing the work maybe the problem is more than the teacher's

personality. Maybe the school work is not appropriate for the way his mind

works, maybe it needs to be adjusted a bit or broken down into smaller steps to

make sense to your son. Or maybe it is too easy for him and so your son doesn't

see the point of doing it. The teacher's response is not appropriate. Yelling or

bullying won't make a disability go away.