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What One Knows Ahead of Time
This is an excerpt from Ask Ms Class.
Dear Ms. Class:
You can say what you like about students being more the same than they are different, but equality is running amok in my district. My district has delabeled students. You liberals can claim that all children should be dumped in the same classroom melting pot, but as an experienced teacher I know that the emotionally disturbed children coming this fall will poison the soup. I believe in being fair. I will give these children a chance, but this place is already crazy. I can't imagine what will happen when they bring in the certified crazies.
--Albany, NY
Dear Albany:
Ms. Class agrees that the outlook is not bright.
But on the matter of labels, she would caution you to consider David Rosenhan's classic study On Being Sane in Insane Places. A group of people, including a graduate student, three psychologists, a pediatrician, a painter, and a housewife, got themselves admitted to twelve psychiatric wards by claiming to hear voices. Once they were institutionalized, however, these people behaved "normally." They did not impersonate mental patients in any way.
Although a sizable number of patients on the wards quickly caught on to the ruse, no member of the professional staff suspected that anything was amiss. Several "patients" took notes of all that was happening; another conducted therapy sessions with fellow patients. All these actions were interpreted as insane by the professionals. All the pseudopatients were treated as schizophrenics throughout their hospital stays, and all were discharged as insane persons who were temporarily "in remission."
Ms. Class happens to have very strong feelings about the misuses and misapplications of wholesale mainstreaming, but at the same time she is ever humbled by the knowledge that one's observations and teacher savvy are ever colored by what one thought one knew ahead of time.
— Susan Ohanian
Ask Ms. Class
2009-08-20
http://www.amazon.com/Ask-Ms-Class-Susan-Ohanian/dp/1571100253/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250769358&sr=8-1
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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