OPSEU 330 President Silvanna Petersen wearing riot gear…
Simcoe County needs a new school board. Outside of one hero, the remainder of the board took the coward’s route last night- not a single one of them would second the motion to ban the use of violent tactics against their Autistic students. Basically, they cowered to the threats of the Ontario Public Services Union (OPSEU).
Yesterday’s two proposals were submitted by a brave member of the school board who should be seen as a hero to all. She had the courage to stand-up against OPSEU’s bullying tactics and think of the needs of the children. The people of Barrie, Ontario should setup an honorary parade for this woman!
Common knowledge about working with autistic children dictates that, if the child gets upset, one must de-escalate the situation. This isn’t a big secret- all one has to do is a quick Google search and the results are apparent. So, either the remainder of the board are all Luddites, or they are too cowardly to speak out for the needs of these kids.
Either way, they should resign from their posts…
In typically weasel fashion, they came-up with a compromise. They are recommending that EA’s receive three days of training on how to better do their jobs. Three days- are these people kidding? If the EA’s already can’t do their jobs without using violence towards these unfortunate children, what extra will they learn in three days?
As I said in one of my first articles on this issue- the problem here is that the EA’s aren’t competent in their jobs. There are 1000’s of schools around the world who have autistic children and don’t recommend riot gear. The fact that the EA’s are demanding it seems to be proof-positive they aren’t prepared to do their jobs. Three days of training is pure window-dressing.
If you haven’t already, could I ask that you call the Simcoe County District School Board and register your disgust? It is totally unfair for children to have to grow-up in fear of their teachers like this- with your help, maybe we can stop this.
Phone: 1-705-728-7570
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2 comments
I respect and support you’re fight to oppose this.
As far as I can tell, this is sadistic corporal punishment—I suspect that the root problem is that the EAs etc. do not regard the autistic as “human.” I’ve heard this view from EAs and their family members with whom they speak—what I found most frightening is the amount of stock that one young man I met repeated this “fact”, that autistic people are not human. His sister had told him, you see. She works with them. She “looked into their eyes” and saw they had “no souls.” I am not kidding. Both him and his sister are University educated, high-functioning, well-dressed people. As is the case with the University Educated, they regard the “autistic” and others in need of assistance as inhuman cattle, whose sole purpose is employing degree holders.
Greg, can you post details of the “abuse” these EAs are suffering? My contacts in the Education system lead me to believe that the kids are getting smarter, and they’re physically attacking their captors. The captors are so mentally retarded that they won’t even admit that the kid is in jail and simply attacking to regain its liberty. To deal with this, they diagnose them as “autistic” (which is basically an art nouveau term for Schizophrenic) and disabling them pharmacologically. The actual attacks are things like being swatted with misplaced equipment. If the adults are going to imprison children, you don’t give them access to, for example, the metal rods used to open the high-up windows. If prison-staff allow prisoners to get access to rods, they don’t simply blame the prisoners for their moral depravity—they recognize that prisons are stressful environments where people are deprived of liberty and therefore not really within their own power, so it makes sense for prison staff to ensure that prisoners cannot access objects useful as weapons.
But EAs, Teachers and other “nice people” hate thinking that they’re gaolers. It causes them upset. They like to think they’re “helping out,” not sadistically capturing children, degrading them and psychologically abusing them until they desire post-secondary education.
So, any details of the “abuse” these EAs suffered would be good–and the quantified damage, e.g. “a wound an inch deep and three inches long,” not “i was so scared to go to work that I shit myself in my car every morning!” That is simply a sign that someone isn’t cut out for working with children.