The situation of disability segregation at schools is so deep here that I got myself invited to an alternative school convention in 2023 as a guest after I contacted the hosts about my projects, and seized the opportunity to have a group of parents sit down and talk about this subject matter.
Schools in North America like to silo students into arbitrary categories and classrooms when it comes to special education. If it works for a certain group of peole, they can enforce it onto exponentially larger groups until we can no longer tell the difference. This normative mechaniusm is inherently socially harmful.
Someone mentioned to me:
"There are a lot of systems that like to shortcut the learning curve of teaching and individual, by forcing everyone into categories that appeal to arbitrary logic. If it's good for a set number of people, we can force it onto a larger and larger group. If you take the category of what they call, high functioning. Those are the people that theoretically should be thriving under the normalized condition. If they are high functioning like the system says, there should be statistically high amount of people thriving in society within that group.
But, many of the people amongst the high functioning category, are not doing so well under a pedagogy that's supposed to fit the average person. If the average person isn't thriving in what's designed for their success, that exemplifies the notion that not everyone learns the same in both autistic and non-autistic spectrums. There are intersections, where many of the same things can be understood by a ride range of people. But as the mind focuses, we find aspects of nature that are different within the fabric of unity. Same availability of notes, different compositions and configurations. As above, so below - similar to the periodic table in this way, multiple repeating units giving rise to a depth of oneness.
In an ideal pedagogy, individuals are assessed, examined, listened to. Then paired into a classroom or group that compliments the strengths and weaknesses of both students and teacher. The progress of learning is then also assessed, to identify teaching techniques that were successful, and then remove those that weren't. Which is all very capable under the current technology we have, just again underutilized in favor of what keeps corporations pumping"
So I gather a few elements from this. If you are of "good functioning" and aren't the type to be severely challenged, you still eat dirt because the system tends to give all the wrong attention to the mildest cases and neglects the most severe ones.
You can't compare apples and blueberries. And when you are under the age to quit school without legal repercussions (here in Quebec it's 16), you don't have much choice in where they put you - so you have to "deal with it", per se.
People think accommodations is giving extra time, giving extra breaks, having an audio recorder to take notes, etc. but it goes even deeper than this equation. When was the last time you wished you were or had studied at a Montessori school? Because of my byronic traits I tend to withdraw on myself and break down when I don't have very specific environmental thriving conditions, like a fragile plant.
Self-advocacy is so important, even though some may struggle at it.
We need to develop a more personalized and adaptive system that nurtures and encourages human diversity of experience. How about using various sensory modalities to teach, and semi-unstructured learning? This should become more integrated into public education.
