Organization: Central Computing Services, Univ. of California at Berkeley
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.deaf-l
Date:         Fri, 20 Nov 1992 11:38:38 PST
Comments:     Warning -- original Sender: tag was SPGRAP@UCBCMSA
From:         "Richard A. Peters" <rap@UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU>
Subject:      Re: this and that from the teacher

On Thu, 19 Nov 1992 19:48:18 EST you said:
...
>  -  That is one of the major problems in America today.  Parents are not
>taking responsibility for their kids.  They are to involved in other areas of
>life and they neglect their children and their needs. IT IS NOT THE RESPONSIB-
>LITY OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM OR EVEN A PRIVATE SCHOOL SYSTEM TO BE SOLEY
>RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EDUCATION OF A CHILD.

I think that's exactly the issue.  Unfortunately not all educators
seem to hold this position, and that is part (but only part) of the
problem.  I think a position which is prevalent in my community can
best be expressed by the following example we had with our deaf child
who was being placed for preschool.  We wanted him to be in a signing
environment, but the school district did not have a program which
satisfied both his deaf-needs and his multiplicity of developmental
problems.

In a meeting with the head of special education for our district, he
took the position that our son's problems were sufficient that he
should be placed in the class for developmentally delayed children and
that all he needed to be exposed to was a half dozen "functional"
signs such as "sit", "stand", "stay", and "walk".  My quick-witted wife
responded, "I'm confused, are we talking about educating my child or my
dog?" Anyway, as the discussion progressed, the special education
administrator said (paraphrased), "I know what I am doing.  I have
been trained in special education and have years of experience,
whereas you are just a parent."

Unfortunately, I know many parents who have bought that message. They
believe that they do not have the skills to raise their children, and
therefore delegate the raising of their children to the school system.

I am not saying that there are not parents who just dump their kids on
the school system because of selfish reasons, and I am not saying that
most educators hold the "just parents" attitude.  Rather I am saying
that "just parents" becomes a self image problem.  Once a parent buys
the message that they are inadequate to raise their children, it is
very hard to overcome. It is passed from generation to generation, and we
are now beginning to fully reap the fruits of this attitude.

I agree with you that parents taking responsibility for the raising of
their children is critical, but to achieve this end we must remove the
inhibitors to parents self image which paralyze them and prevent them
from making good decisions for their children.

P.S.
For those of you who want to know how the story ended, during the
conversation we slipped in information which let the administrator
know that we knew the laws covering our child and that we knew the
names of local deaf support and action groups.  As we reached the
impasse (which we were expecting all along) we told him, "We will
appeal to Caesar (or at least to the state review board.)" Also we
provided him a compromise solution of providing a signing aide in the
developmentally delayed classroom.

Given the choice of working through an appeal which he knew he would lose
in the end or a reasonably cost effective compromise, he chose the
compromise. (We did not want the appeal process either which is why we
suggested the compromise.  The time lost to our son while the appeal
process went forward would not have been in his best interest.)

                                         Richard A. Peters
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