children schmildren.
hoooowdy! since christmas time is upon us, i thought i would do a nice cheery little post to get us all in the holiday spirit. i read a news story recently that was basically four years old. clearly, yahoo news is on top of their shit. it was about various schools across the U.S. that were having a difficult time controlling students with learning disabilities, ADD, ADHD, kids with emotional problems, etc. if you’re a teacher and you have one of these kids in your class and they get out of control, it’s not like the good old days when you could just beat them.
altar boy boot camp
no no no….as controversial and mostly outlawed as that is, it’s just not enough. these teachers/babysitters of heathens need something more intimidating to scare unruly kids into being calm as hindu cows. the answers lies in…..seclusion rooms!
educators standing by to book your room now! ask for Triple A discounts!
in these little cells/rooms, kids take “time outs.” prison, anyone? states such as michigan state that children should not be kept in these “rooms” for more then 15 minutes at a time. 24 states accept them for use in schools and have written guidelines that tell schools the conditions for such rooms. one such room in murrayville, georgia (HA!) held a 13 year old autistic boy named jonathan king. according to his teacher, jonathan had some behavioral problems. was frequently sent to one of these seclusion rooms. was said by his parents to be an loving and happy child. another day goes by and his teacher sends him off for a time out. the normal person in charge of keeping an eye on the kids in seclusion is out sick, and there’s a sub in place. jonathan is wearing a cord on his pants in place of a belt to keep his pants up. while in seclusion, little jonathan hangs himself with his cord/belt. according to his teacher, he had been threatening suicide for a few weeks. so you send him off into seclusion with a device that could assist you in killing yourself. brilliant! this happened in november of 2004, yes it’s just now catching on as breaking news.
anderson cooper can suck my mic.
around every holiday time, a few years back, i used to reread catcher in the rye. it does take place during that holiday season, and is in no way holiday related, or cheerful for that matter. but for the first time in a couple years, i really have the strong urge to read it again. maybe it’s the idea of walking around a big nearly anonymous city having a nervous breakdown, but with absolute freedom. i would love to do half of that, only unpublished…..side note, the ducks in central park….where do they go?
hand sanitizer. never leave home without it.
wow, here i am thinking it’s easy street being a card shark….but apparently there’s even cooler jobs out there! and no, this isn’t the pathetic jon favreau from swingers…..you too could potentially be this cool! but just in case, update your resume.
when will 2009 hurry up and ring in so some nice decent cds can be released???? i know marco covered this topic recently, but seriously….i haven’t had a decent cd come at my way in quite sometime!
so in my (possible?) new years resolution, i hope to be more counterforce friendly, more informed, as well as a good student as that is to be my main goal for the next decade-ish. what will be your resolution, one that you actually intend to keep? i leave you with this kids, but hopefully with resolutions in place, you will be fucking sick of me in the new year……
don't measure, just chug.
Wonderful as always, Peanut. No one could ever be sick of you.
Clearly those time out rooms needs restraining tables that the kids can be strapped to, so they can’t hurt themselves while inside. Either that or the teachers should just carry tranquilizer guns to shoot them with if they’re getting too uppity.
…ah Holden Caulfield. what does it say about me that I never found him the least bit odd or abnormal and only learned later that the book was about him going crazy?
I think it says you’re normal, or that whatever the fuck is exactly wrong with you, I have a touch of it too. That book was perfect in that you were in Holden’s head, experiencing everything with him. Sure he was replaying the events for you, but during them, I doubt he felt “I am slowly going a little bit nuts here,” it just happened gradually, and it took us along with it. I don’t know, I could be wrong. That’s why I don’t ever tell anybody anything. Cause once you do, you start missing everybody.
we all started reading it when we were holden’s age and we felt the isolation that he did, and started to pick up on the stupid ways that people act and he seemed so much like someone we might actually want to be friends with and know personally. i know that’s how i got so wrapped up in it, he didn’t seem crazy, just an outsider. i can’t believe more people don’t get into this book….
as far as tranquilizer guns, don’t you think that’s a little extreme ben? i say just start putting shots of nyquil in their juice and let the little shit nap it off.
You should just issue them a flask of happy naptime juice.
You realize you were just writing about the kind of place I work at. We have a seclusion room which looks pretty much like the picture you posted. I’ve actually had a kid wrap the draw string from his pants around his neck, threatening to kill himself while covered in his own feces. Seclusion rooms are last resorts, only to be used when the kid is a danger to himself and the milieu. Once in there, he needs to be constantly monitored with a designee checking periodically to make sure the staff supporting him is doing so safely. Kids usually take their timeouts in the milieu and not the seclusion room, although they must demonstrate compliancy before exiting. Strapping kids to tables is super invasive and hardly therapeutic. One of my clients spent the first year of his life strapped down in a hospital. Unable to bond with his mother, he still acts like an infant at age 11. Sadly, in my experience, kids initiate insane behaviors because they want some form of proximity and contact from their caretakers since their life had been lacking in it and they don’t know how to get it in positive ways. I hate the idea of seclusion rooms and restraints and how it prepares these kids for prison, but I also see the necessity for them. The only real solution I can think of is coming up with better mental health interventions.
also if a kid is being self-injurious in the seclusion room, we are trained to physically restrain them until they are calm.