Living in Egypt

Denial is a powerful thing. It is also a very damaging and dangerous thing in education. Not necessarily just to the person in denial. Let me give you an example.

This year I have a student who is qualified as Special Education Service. However he also tests very high on academic aptitude tests, supposedly. According to his mother, who happens to be a doctor his official diagnosis is simply ADHD (that amazing catch all responsibility releaser of parents everywhere!... It is a genuine condition, but not to the degree and scope that people "use" it, and with few exceptions, definitely not something that should be medicated.) Having taught the kid and being in education for a while now, I'm pretty confident the kid at least is mildly autistic or possible a juvenile manic depressive. However, mother has told me and everyone else with this opinion (including other specialists, teachers, psychiatrists and physicians) is wrong and her son is brilliant and capable, he just needs a few "modifications" to augment an accelerated education program. Okay. This child does not get along with much of anybody, refuses to do homework on any kind of regular basis, often does not follow directions and is narcissistic to the point of classroom disruption. He is taking some mild medications for ADHD which do seem to help slightly. His mother has stated on several occasions that she is in charge of his medication. Whether she (as a physician) is actually prescribing her son's treatment or if she tells a college what to write for her this is completely medically unethical and only serves to prevent her son from getting the proper treatment and prevents us from teaching him effectively.

Today things got even better. Her son is in the lower majority math class. He has registered for next years' math classes. She e-mailed today to ask if he could be in the higher math as he is doing so well in his current class. This would be an excellerated honors program where students do two years of work in only one. It requires a lot of personal discipline, organization and the ability to take correction. She says he wants to take calculus eventually and go to Georgia Tech (Good luck, kid. No IEP's there and professor's aren't interested in your mother's opinion ... or even yours for that matter... in terms of what you can do, only what you actually do on your own, on time, correctly...). Now up to this point the denial is annoying, but not a problem. We can put him this class that she is deamnding and when he fails he's go back to the regular program. It might cost him an extra year of high school, but he's so socially immature it might be a good thing for him. The problem comes with the next half. The letter goes on to ask if seeing as so many of the kids in the math class her son is in are failing (typical of lower level math classes because that's where many underachievers and remedial students end up... Hence the lower math...) is it likely that her son's math teacher is simply a bad teacher. Further, said math teacher is a coach and doesn't that indicate a poor teacher to begin with? Now, I am neither a coach nor a math teacher, but I find this whole line of reasoning insulting. Her denial is now not only holding her own son back, it is being used to insult and degrade an excellent and dedicated teacher as well as a whole group of people (those who coach and teach). This woman even went so far as to suggest that she may call the school board and have this teacher "evaluated."

I can't wait for her kid to go to college. In three more years (or at this rate 4 or 5)!

My mom used to say that a person can fool themselves into thinking that a cow is a human as long as they want to. They may even find a few places that allow them to live as though it was true, but eventually they are going to run across a butcher and that's just the way it is. Several years ago I had a mother tell me that regardless of the evidence presented she did not believe her child was a thief and she would not accept any punishment of her child for that crime. I thought to myself, how nice for her, though I doubt that any judge, local or federal, will take her opinion into account before handing down a verdict or sentencing her child to prison for burglary. Further with her backing of the child, he is likely to remain unchanged in his ways until that interaction with the US legal system occurs. I feel sorry for whoever he will rob (and/or maim, injury or kill in the process). They will pay for that mother's denial.

I hope a teacher at my school doesn't end up paying for this mother's denial. The son may already be a lost cause.