Mainstream outcomes
School is a very important aspect of my life in various ways. I met my best friends that I hang out with in the 9th grade. I'm excelling in every academic class I'm currently taking, not to mention I'm in the top of my class year. I've also been involved in various clubs, community service events, and other school activities that benefit me and the community since 6th grade. Of course, none of this wouldn't have happened without mainstreaming out of special education in 1st grade, 2nd grade being my first year in regular education. Since I didn't have any academic regressions (when the doctors found out about my disability and they tested me, they told me mom it wouldn't be surprising if I had to repeat a grade or two, or maybe even three, of course that was proven to be wrong by a long shot), I benefited greatly from regular education, since in special education (at least in my district), they would focus with both academics and other difficulties that I would have (social challenges in my case would be their prime concern). Of course, not everything in regular education is amazing. Their has been many incidents in which I felt terrible for being in regular education, many which are very recent. In today's blog, I'm going to describe how I felt when I started off in different schools throughout the years.
If you guys been keeping track of my blogs, you know that I won't begin with describing my transition from Elementary to Middle school, because I actually went to four different Elementary schools, each with a different reason as to why I kept moving. Starting with my first school, I was really only there for half the school year, part of the reason being that it was just too far away from my house (20 miles to be exact, I don't know why my mom even placed me there in the first place), but in my opinion, the real reason why I moved was mainly because I was bullied twice by other kids (one of them I remember was a group of kids who were in the 4th grade), and both times my mom got notified. I don't remember much from my first school (granted, it was only five months and I was like 4 or 5), but when I moved to my second school, I remember lots of terrible events happening. I was in that school from the second half of Kindergarten to 2nd grade, and it was the worst. 1st grade in particular was very bad for me, because I was still being teased by the kids in the class (if you were the only one running inside the classroom often, you are bound to get comments from people). Doing my papercrafts and presenting them to the class only made things worst for me, and eventually I had to be isolated from the class and I had to sit by myself (they were considering a class change for me at one point but the other classes were so packed that new students kept coming to our class often (that's how I met Renato for those who remember him). Besides all the being socially challenged part and getting made fun of the entire 1st grade, I excelled in academics and I would always come out in top (I eventually created a 'streak' of perfect percentages on my math quizzes). As a result, I was requested to mainstream out of the special education program onto the regular education one. By the time second grade approached, I began my new journey in regular education. Already on the first day however I didn't like it, as my only friend wasn't with me (he stayed in special education). I eventually found out about "the cage" which was basically a locked environment in our school that held all of the special education student via a fence. There was no way of getting inside besides a small door that all the special education students would go in and out, but that was on the outside of school. For the first month of finding out about the cage, I tried to find a way to enter during lunch because I wanted to see my friend badly. Eventually I gave up and every day during nutrition and lunch, I would sit right next to the cage and look inside waiting for my friend to get out of his class (their nutrition and lunch started 15 minutes after ours, so I only had a 5 minute time frame during nutrition and a 10 minute time frame during lunch to find him). That never happened, and I never saw him. At the same time, I began to question why the special education had less classrooms, a smaller playground, only one restroom and one drinking faucet. I got enraged at the fact that they were treating us unfairly and everyday, I felt bad that my best friend was being treated like a cage animal, having no rights and was told to do stuff everyday. As a 2nd grader with that kind of mindset, you know I already knew so much for my age.
I'm going to skip the other two elementary schools that I went to because nothing extremely crucial happened that really affected. Really, I moved schools on 3rd grade because I never made any friends, and after 3rd grade I moved cause my mom after so many years thought it would be better if I went to the same school my sister used to go to (way to go mom). I made new friends in the fourth grade ('friends' mind you, I don't even know where they're at right now, I hated them). RSP wise, they didn't let me enter accelerated classes because I was special ed (even though I excelled all the requirements), but that's pretty much it. When elementary school was coming to an end, I had one last IEP a month before school ended. My mom was more worried about my transition from elementary school to middle school than I was, and she was asking a bunch of questions like "will he still be in special ed?" "will he be safe there" "how will the teachers manage with him?" At this time, I discovered how stimming helped me feel more comfortable during situations like this, so I was scratching a eraser the entire time (I said help me, when it's really more like ignore everyone else in the meeting, I just didn't like being in IEP at all, or any special education areas). When I first made it to middle school, I didn't have any of my friends for any of my classes, so like any other grade, I was off to a harsh start. Rather than being in regressed classes like elementary school, I was allowed to take advanced classes, but I would receive RSP support three times a week in which I would have to go to a class and get 'help' on assignments that I didn't need help on. This is where more of the bad events happened in terms of speical education, because despite being labeled as special education had littile impact in elementary school, it was more emphasized in middle school for some reason. Lots of events started happening in terms of once a month IEP's (stimming was a life saver!), people judging me (school and family), and reports coming from the regional center. It was too much for me to handle. I didn't really show it at school (I got straight A's often), but when I would stay after school I would go to the restroom and begin to cry. I was desperate for help, an answer at the very least, as to why the more I was determined to excel the school, the more people wanted to discriminate me. The climax occurred during mid-8th grade when I was told I couldn't have advanced classes in high school because I was in special education (even though my middle school transcript showed that I was taking multiple advanced classes, passing most of them with A's and the rest were 1-2 B's). At that point, I didn't care about anything. I felt like nothing matter to me because people would take advantage of me being special ed. That's when my behavior started to change. I stopped going to the RSP classroom when I would be called and instead I would go to the restroom and hang out for a while. I started to show a attitude towards my 'friends' and they didn't like it. The worst part was when I would cry out of nowhere in classes and I would have to be excused for a few minutes. (I thought I was bi-polar at this point from all the trauma, but I'm not). I stopped being the nice person I was once, and I began to be someone that didn't want to be used or attacked from others. Eventually the district heard about the whole advanced classes situation thing and they held a meeting at their location where they did give me permission to take the classes I wanted. So by the time middle school ended, I decided to change for the better and by the time I started high school, I also started fresh. (notice how all the problems are happening because I mainstreamed?)
High school can be seen as my high point. I'm currently in high school, so I can only say about my past experiences right now (two more years and I'm attending a university!). First of all, people don't judge me anymore, which is really great. I'm treated more like an adult now (after I was found that my IQ was at superior level, why wouldn't I have adult conversations with adults?). I'm taking the classes that I need to graduate right now. In fact, I'm going a little overboard with my classes as I'm taking more advanced classes than I can do next year, but if I can handle it, it's worth it. Point is, now I'm sort of living the experience I wanted my elementary school and middle school years to be. Of course nothing is peachy and perfect at all. First, I'm still in RSP. Why I even still have the support at this point is beyond me, since I never use the help at all (I'm allowed to enter the classroom to have extra time on tests or quizzes, I never entered that classroom with a quiz or test once). My IEP's might only be twice a year now, which is much more relaxing than the once a month deal (more relaxing for me and my mom), but I still hate them. Also, I have no social problems anymore either, I have a group of friends that I actually like, and I hang out with them often and they enjoy my presence. It's just sad that I never had a normal childhood where I didn't have to worry about anything. My childhood consisted of worrying about family making fun of me, being able to take the classes that I wanted, actually having friends that I could hang out with. No one really had my back, everyone was just against me in one way or another. It was hard telling myself, I'm going to try to live a happy life, when I felt like crying in my classrooms because I was seen as inferior. Obviously, this is just my experience in school. You or your child probably never even cried in school, because they never had someone discriminating them for being in special education. For me, I never had a blanket of support or even just one person that made me feel like I matter. Worst of all, all of these problems, all of these people making fun of me, all these people saying, I can't, it all started after what I thought was the greatest day of my life, mainstreaming to regular education.
I know this blog was very long if you noticed, but I really wanted to go in-depth with all my experiences in school and how mainstreaming affected my future. Result, it affected more than just my education. Even though elementary and middle school wasn't my cup of tea, high school on the other hand is great and is really going well for me. If you enjoyed my blog, don't forget to comment any comments that you might have. Also, consider following my blog page so you can get notified of my newest blogs before anyone else does. As always, have a great day :)
Keep your head up and your expectations high, negatively is the least of your worries
I'm going to skip the other two elementary schools that I went to because nothing extremely crucial happened that really affected. Really, I moved schools on 3rd grade because I never made any friends, and after 3rd grade I moved cause my mom after so many years thought it would be better if I went to the same school my sister used to go to (way to go mom). I made new friends in the fourth grade ('friends' mind you, I don't even know where they're at right now, I hated them). RSP wise, they didn't let me enter accelerated classes because I was special ed (even though I excelled all the requirements), but that's pretty much it. When elementary school was coming to an end, I had one last IEP a month before school ended. My mom was more worried about my transition from elementary school to middle school than I was, and she was asking a bunch of questions like "will he still be in special ed?" "will he be safe there" "how will the teachers manage with him?" At this time, I discovered how stimming helped me feel more comfortable during situations like this, so I was scratching a eraser the entire time (I said help me, when it's really more like ignore everyone else in the meeting, I just didn't like being in IEP at all, or any special education areas). When I first made it to middle school, I didn't have any of my friends for any of my classes, so like any other grade, I was off to a harsh start. Rather than being in regressed classes like elementary school, I was allowed to take advanced classes, but I would receive RSP support three times a week in which I would have to go to a class and get 'help' on assignments that I didn't need help on. This is where more of the bad events happened in terms of speical education, because despite being labeled as special education had littile impact in elementary school, it was more emphasized in middle school for some reason. Lots of events started happening in terms of once a month IEP's (stimming was a life saver!), people judging me (school and family), and reports coming from the regional center. It was too much for me to handle. I didn't really show it at school (I got straight A's often), but when I would stay after school I would go to the restroom and begin to cry. I was desperate for help, an answer at the very least, as to why the more I was determined to excel the school, the more people wanted to discriminate me. The climax occurred during mid-8th grade when I was told I couldn't have advanced classes in high school because I was in special education (even though my middle school transcript showed that I was taking multiple advanced classes, passing most of them with A's and the rest were 1-2 B's). At that point, I didn't care about anything. I felt like nothing matter to me because people would take advantage of me being special ed. That's when my behavior started to change. I stopped going to the RSP classroom when I would be called and instead I would go to the restroom and hang out for a while. I started to show a attitude towards my 'friends' and they didn't like it. The worst part was when I would cry out of nowhere in classes and I would have to be excused for a few minutes. (I thought I was bi-polar at this point from all the trauma, but I'm not). I stopped being the nice person I was once, and I began to be someone that didn't want to be used or attacked from others. Eventually the district heard about the whole advanced classes situation thing and they held a meeting at their location where they did give me permission to take the classes I wanted. So by the time middle school ended, I decided to change for the better and by the time I started high school, I also started fresh. (notice how all the problems are happening because I mainstreamed?)
High school can be seen as my high point. I'm currently in high school, so I can only say about my past experiences right now (two more years and I'm attending a university!). First of all, people don't judge me anymore, which is really great. I'm treated more like an adult now (after I was found that my IQ was at superior level, why wouldn't I have adult conversations with adults?). I'm taking the classes that I need to graduate right now. In fact, I'm going a little overboard with my classes as I'm taking more advanced classes than I can do next year, but if I can handle it, it's worth it. Point is, now I'm sort of living the experience I wanted my elementary school and middle school years to be. Of course nothing is peachy and perfect at all. First, I'm still in RSP. Why I even still have the support at this point is beyond me, since I never use the help at all (I'm allowed to enter the classroom to have extra time on tests or quizzes, I never entered that classroom with a quiz or test once). My IEP's might only be twice a year now, which is much more relaxing than the once a month deal (more relaxing for me and my mom), but I still hate them. Also, I have no social problems anymore either, I have a group of friends that I actually like, and I hang out with them often and they enjoy my presence. It's just sad that I never had a normal childhood where I didn't have to worry about anything. My childhood consisted of worrying about family making fun of me, being able to take the classes that I wanted, actually having friends that I could hang out with. No one really had my back, everyone was just against me in one way or another. It was hard telling myself, I'm going to try to live a happy life, when I felt like crying in my classrooms because I was seen as inferior. Obviously, this is just my experience in school. You or your child probably never even cried in school, because they never had someone discriminating them for being in special education. For me, I never had a blanket of support or even just one person that made me feel like I matter. Worst of all, all of these problems, all of these people making fun of me, all these people saying, I can't, it all started after what I thought was the greatest day of my life, mainstreaming to regular education.
I know this blog was very long if you noticed, but I really wanted to go in-depth with all my experiences in school and how mainstreaming affected my future. Result, it affected more than just my education. Even though elementary and middle school wasn't my cup of tea, high school on the other hand is great and is really going well for me. If you enjoyed my blog, don't forget to comment any comments that you might have. Also, consider following my blog page so you can get notified of my newest blogs before anyone else does. As always, have a great day :)
Keep your head up and your expectations high, negatively is the least of your worries
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