I got a strange phone call today. “Hello, Mrs. Crow? This is Mr. (I’ll call him Smith), Kyle’s music teacher. I just wanted you to know that today I pulled him into the hallway and almost sent him to the office for swearing.”
And my honest response was, “Huh?”
He continued. “It wasn’t a real bad word, but it was a curse word, and he kept repeating it. I asked him to stop, and he refused. Then he got hostile with me so I took him into the hallway.”
I sat there for a moment in stunned silence.
Finally, I said, “Are you aware that Kyle is autistic?”
“Autistic? Er…no…I wasn’t.”
I didn’t say anything, but again thought, Huh?
I then went on to explain to him that Kyle never swore, and since we didn’t use profanity in our home, he likely wouldn’t even know the meaning of a curse word. But being autistic, he is vulnerable to other bullying students who discover his weakness and take advantage of him. “He might repeat a word if someone told him to say it,” I said. I went on to request that he keep an eye on Kyle, and make sure he was following along and that nobody was bullying him, even in subtle ways.
It made me remember an incident where Kyle got in trouble in his art class. The teacher heard the students at Kyle’s table laughing, and saw that he had been drawing pictures of naked people—rather obscure cartoons. She immediately contacted Kyle’s special education teacher, who contacted me. “Kyle is drawing naked people at school,” I was told. This was totally out of character for him. When I questioned Kyle, he was able to roughly explain that one of those students beside him “told me to.” And Kyle, who does what he’s told because he wants to do things “right,” had obeyed. So there were these crude drawings and Kyle was in trouble.
When I explained what I learned to the art teacher, she also seemed to be “unaware” of Kyle’s disability. And this irritated me. If a child with a disability is mainstreamed into regular classes, shouldn’t the teacher be made aware of the situation—that a child with special needs will be attending his class? Or is the point of mainstreaming that the child be treated exactly like all the other students? No favoritism, no breaks?
In my opinion, there’s got to be a balance. The goal is for the child to have as many “normal” educational experiences as possible. But there must be some accommodations.
I will be calling Kyle’s Special Ed teacher in the morning. Not only should Kyle’s other teachers in a mainstreaming situation be made fully aware of his autism, but Kyle should also be provided with a peer tutor, or proctor, or someone to help him stay on task and protect him from bullies.
As I continued my discussion with Mr. Smith, he finally realized something. “Wait a minute…” he said. “Is Kyle the one with the short haircut, who fiddles with a string?”
“That sounds like him.”
“I’ve called the wrong Mom then. I have another Kyle in my class.”
“Well, that would make sense.”
“I’m sorry to have bothered you. But it’s a good thing we spoke. Now I’ll look out for your Kyle and make sure he’s not being mistreated.”
“Yes, it’s a good thing we spoke,” I said.
Sigh.