Special Populations?!

[Rafnul]

This is the last straw... I get a letter today in the mail that tells me I am officially part of the "Special Populations" at my school(A politically correct form of Special Ed). I'm assigned to a guidance counselor and everything.

WTF!?

I'm the same kid who is the only to have college credit as a Freshman, the only one who took geometry in 8th Grade, one of 4 who took Algebra 3-4(Algebra 2 in most places). The same kid who got the 5th highest ACT score in his class.

These people... AMAZE me.

[Beldaran]

LMAO government beaurocracy DOES NOT WORK.

[cyberkitten]

our school had a special needs group for students who scored way above average and who weren't challenged enough in regular classes. just because you got labelled as special needs/populations/whatever doesn't necessarily mean they're putting you there b/c they think you're not smart. maybe they think you're too smart! :D the only thing i could ever tell that it did for me was give me extra homework. but i got to skip some classes, so it all worked out eventually.

[Jigglysaint]

No, how it works it this: You might be the brightest kid in school, but because YOUR learning style is not supported, and since most kids are too dumb to have extra challenges, they shove you in a class where your intellegence is insulted half the time, and the other half makes you feel dumb because you wonder why you never understood it earlier.

I've been in special classes since grade 2, with only a few years where I have had help on the side instead of a class setting. Let me tell you, it can suck, but if you are smart enough, you can soon have a cult following of kids at your control in no time. That or you start to make friends because it's easier to get along with people who don't think you are a retard. Then again, this is what happened to me so I can't speak for everybody else.

Edit: My thing only applies to people like me. You are more like my brother who was placed in the "advanced" class.

[AtmaWeapon]

CK is correct. In my school district, both gifted and "speschul" classes are bugeted as special education, so both are called so. Your school probably put you in some kind of advanced classes and used that terminology.

[inori]

Ditto my school; I went through the same experience. Both the top and the bottom of the school population got the same "special education" funds, the same quarterly reports, etc. It was kind of bizarre, but I was in the program because I was at the top end of the curve, not the bottom. Don't let it offend you.

[Samson007]

if they dont put you in a special class for "special" people then it shouldn't matter. But if they did then you need to get things straitened out with that school. Go see the principal and ask him WTF is wrong with him.

[teddyboy420]

There's nothing wrong with that. I scored really high on my sats, was in AP classes and ended up in Special Ed. My classes didn't challenge me enough and I had a different style of learning than most other kids, and they didn't know what to do with me b/c I was always in trouble. So they put me with the Child Study Team, the CST were a group of teachers and doctors who studied special case students.

The moral of the story is that there's nothing wrong with " Special Ed ", it's really a large classification that has just gotten a bad rap.

[Hermit]

I wasn't labeled by any "special" classification. I was just advanced. Once you realize that you are more brilliant than most of the staff who teaches there, you may come to see it in a different light ;)

Maybe you have a different way of learning, or maybe you're just a genius. Either way the regular teachers don't know what to do with you because you've apparently far surpassed the average child and are out of a regular teachers range. Sweet ;)

[zfreak2004]

The only problem with the low end of the special needs curve is that they don't really do much to help the kids that need it. They insult they're intelegence and instead of trying to get them back up to speed they consistently keep them a grade level or two below everyone else.

[Rafnul]

You don't understand. This is like a personal thing against me. I have the list of people in the same group. Not the above-average people.

Last year I went through this big thing with my school because they had no accomodations for gifted students(required by state law). Evidently they think this will help me. BLAH. They know my position on this. I know the administration at my school very well. I have a "PEP" Personalized Education Plan, which states that Teachers must flex their curriculum so that I can learn stuff in otherwise boring classes.

They have this strange attitude that a Counselor needs to do all the work...

Also, I can learn under any teacher, especially hard teachers. I don't have any learning style. I am completely open to every perspective. That is why my school is doing this I am sure. When I know more about American History(MY most hated class) than the teacher, there is a serious problem.

I'm very nice to everyone. I don't have any behaivoral problems. However, the administration always has a strange watch over me. Like they know I am going to do something meritting punishment. I think outside the box. I prefer to chose the perspective most radically different from everyone else, because it is so damn fun.

[Cyclone]

Well, at least my college chose to insult my intelligence, instead. I mean, I took all of the high school math courses (even the dreaded Calculus, which you would be best to NOT ask SB about unless you want to be here all day), and I stilll got shuffled into Math 124 in my program, or - as I like to call it - Beginner's Math. The very first lesson: Order of Operations. :odd:

What sucked is that I was forced to attend every fucking class as part of my mark. I mean, that was the only class I've had like that since I started college (besides Phys. Ed. that term, where it kinda makes sense). I was forced to give up my valuable time which could have been used on programming assignments (I was in a computer programming-based program back then) to sit there like an idiot being told, for the umpteenth time in my life, about BEDMAS and exponents. :odd:

As for special ed.; I ended up in something like this. It was kind of silly, because I had been gifted in math ever since a young age, and in later grades, actually ended up in special ed. with the principal, of all people, during what would have been my French class. The bright part of this is that I didn't have to take Grade 9 French. :D

Cyclone

[EIHoppe]

I hear you. Being smart basically means: 'You are a smart person who will get put in a special program which most people (whom I call "Sporters", because that seems to be all they care about) think are for the mentally challenged. You will probably have few friends who will understand you, and the only ones who will respect you are the teachers (if that, even).' I find myself lucky, though. They call it the Gifted and Talented program at my school. But here I am, the only 8th grader to be taking trigonemetry (Good god, I hope that's how you spell it), (unless they shuffle some other kid into the mix), having about 3 friends because everyone else thinks I'm a nerd, correcting most of my teachers frequently (except for my math one, because I'm not exactly 2-3x smarter in math than my teacher). The only reason school doesn't become a chore is because of the excitement of going to school each day, knowing that I'll be able to correct someone, somehow, proving my intelligence. (Oops, got a little carried away there) Back on topic, though, in the 'Special Ed' classes here, it seems that they are helping a lot, but sometimes the kids don't get it. 1 thing that bothers me, though, is that they seem to pay most attention to the subject you're best at, while leaving the boring-ness of the rest of the subjects. :shrug: I guess it's worth it, though, as you'll end up coming on top of everyone else in the real world.

[SSJ3500]

heh, I will never need to be in any form of a special class, not smart enough or dumb enough.