A teacher recently arrested in Fairfield, Connecticut for abusing an autistic child made the little girl take off her shirt in class because she wouldn’t stop scratching. As a local police officer said: “You just don’t do that.” Well yes.
Perhaps we should adopt legislation calling upon teachers to routinely play strip poker in the classroom? I see several advantages to this:
- Children could learn a valuable lesson about the virtues of giving their clothing to charity.
- Kids could strut fake tattoos in preparation for their teen years.
- Teachers could take off their shirts and talk about evolution vs. intelligent design.
- The whole thing could be a civics lesson: “we’re all equal in our humiliation” etc.
Of course the story itself reveals the usual problems: teachers without sufficient training, an absent teacher’s aid, and who knows what other systemic suspects.
When I was a kid attending public school I was routinely humiliated by teachers who didn’t want a blind kid in their classrooms. I wrote about it in Planet of the Blind. I’m still working those feelings as a grownup. All children know the usual indignities of playground taunts and the ordinary business of antagonisms with teachers. Such things are the building blocks of consciousness to be sure. But humiliation according to a disability is a form of special cruelty. It should indeed be a crime.
SK
Planet of the Blind 
What might have worked a lot better is calling the student’s mom or dad to bring some benadryl cream to school. Or ask the nurse to look for a rash.
I’m sorry that your teachers did not treat you respectfully. My son’s teacher this year has experience both in special ed and in gifted and talented instruction, and he’s really blossomed. I can be one angry but controlled, letter writing, tornadic parent when others are unreasonable. Since my daughter went through first and they know I’m otherwise calm, they know it’s because of the disability issues specifically and can’t point fingers so easily.
I look forward to reading Planet of the Blind and a few other autobiographies by people with disabilities in a few months (after my birthday).
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