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High school yearbooks that labeled special needs students ‘mentally retarded’ recalled
Yahoo! ^ | 22 May 2012 | Dylan Stableford

Posted on 05/22/2012 9:07:52 AM PDT by shove_it

A Texas high school has recalled its yearbooks after special needs students were described as "mentally retarded" within its pages, angering teachers, students and their parents.

Mesquite High School's yearbooks were initially distributed on Friday, but were recalled by school officials within hours.

"They told the entire class that they have a slight mistake that needs to be fixed," a senior at the school told Fox's KDFW affiliate.

An introduction to the "Special Education" section read, "Some of the disabilities the students in the Special Education Program have are being blind, deaf or non-verbal" and described two students as "both blind and deaf, as well as mentally retarded."

[...]

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: texas
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To: shove_it; BuffaloJack
Even to those who despise political correctness, it might be "retarded" is a little harsh. The trick seems to be to use something that impinges easily on the ear. Late Developer seemed to be ok, when I gained employment in the sheltered workshop area as a supervisor. Then that sort of nice term was wiped out. The reason given was that parents of the children who were late developers were misinformed. The parents (it was claimed) thought that eventually the child would catch up and be equal to the average child. Hence mentally challenged.

I attended a conference of the affairs of the Physically Disabled in Toronto in 1975. Resolutions were put forward. One was to stop using the description 'Crippled Children'. Later this was put to a very middle-class lady at a meeting. She was a person in the charitable field.

She rolled her eyes in mock horror. We would lose half our donations without the words `Crippled Children` she said. What a put down. The fund continues to this day. I will have to check on what percentage of the dollar goes to the kids.

41 posted on 05/22/2012 10:54:16 AM PDT by Peter Libra
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To: Politicalmom

“I would assume it was for them to learn. Helen Keller was deaf and blind, and graduated from Radcliffe.”

But she wasn’t also retarded. Throw that in the mix and there is no reason to waste tax money putting them in school.


42 posted on 05/22/2012 10:55:56 AM PDT by Beagle8U (Free Republic -- One stop shopping ....... It's the Conservative Super WalMart for news .)
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To: Beagle8U

“Wouldn’t Negro be more correct?
Few are truly ‘black’”

“Negro” means black, so I don’t see your point.


43 posted on 05/22/2012 11:02:18 AM PDT by Tublecane
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To: Beagle8U
The real crime was calling them ‘students’, furniture would be more like it.

I see that the dignity of human life means very little to you. Such a shocking statement that I am speechless at its cruelity.

44 posted on 05/22/2012 11:04:43 AM PDT by Publius Valerius
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To: Beagle8U
If they were mine I wouldn't have put them in school.

No. But fortunately, if they were your kids, the state would have found you unfit and taken them away long before they reached school age.

45 posted on 05/22/2012 11:06:26 AM PDT by Publius Valerius
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To: Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer); cripplecreek

From the article: “The yearbooks will be redistributed this week, school officials said, without the offending pages.”

So the treatment of this self inflicted wound by the school administration is to confiscate all the yearbooks and rip out the “offending pages” thereby leaving the “special needs students” out of the yearbooks completely. Sounds about right for public education.


46 posted on 05/22/2012 11:25:21 AM PDT by shove_it (just undo it)
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To: shove_it

“...confiscate all the yearbooks and rip out the “offending pages””

And this situation was made worse and more insulting.

How truly awful.


47 posted on 05/22/2012 11:44:19 AM PDT by Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)
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To: shove_it

Mental Retardation was recently cured - didn’t you know this? With a single stroke of his mighty pen, Obozo eliminated Mental Retardation (through an executive order, no less). Now we are to refer to the status of the mentally retarded as Intellectually Disabled.


48 posted on 05/22/2012 11:45:57 AM PDT by SoldierDad (Proud dad of an Army Soldier who has survived 24 months of Combat deployment.)
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To: Monterrosa-24
Today one can be accused of being a “special needs” person so I wonder what the next acceptable term will be to describe those of lower IQ.

Liberal???

49 posted on 05/22/2012 11:52:40 AM PDT by SoldierDad (Proud dad of an Army Soldier who has survived 24 months of Combat deployment.)
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To: gdani
While the term “mentally retarded” has fallen out of favor the past several years . . .

Fallen out of favor??? Obozo signed an executive order which eliminates from use the term mental retardation within the medical and education fields. We (in the education field) are now required to refer to mental retardation as "Intellectual Disability". The state of California is presently drafting legislation to do the same thing on a state level.

50 posted on 05/22/2012 11:57:43 AM PDT by SoldierDad (Proud dad of an Army Soldier who has survived 24 months of Combat deployment.)
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To: SoldierDad

Liberal???

That would get my vote.


51 posted on 05/22/2012 12:28:19 PM PDT by shove_it (just undo it)
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To: shove_it

WHY would there even be a special section for the “Special Education” students?????

This is nuts.


52 posted on 05/22/2012 12:34:13 PM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: Beagle8U

Even mentally retarded children can still learn. The upper limit of their abilities may be much lower, but their parents also pay taxes and these kids have the right to an education just like the other kids.

Proper education can prepare many of these kids to live a fairly independent life, which will be a blessing to them, expecially in their older adult years when their parents aren’t around to take care of them any more...


53 posted on 05/22/2012 1:03:59 PM PDT by Fletcher J
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To: Publius Valerius; Politicalmom
My socialist spouse (bless her) is always concerned about my choice of politics. Lord knows why she took a chance on me and came from London, England to Canada.

She went for her interview with four years of teaching college and two years at elementary school - they grabbed her quickly. Finally she got the job she had dreamed about. Special Education. The classes were Senior, Junior and Primary. Ages were from two or three years old up to thirteen years. She is very charitable to those who have never really had the experiences of these children. I had diplomatically mentioned that there were some "misunderstandings" here.

Some things she did for the apparently severely disabled were dabbled their fingers in jello and other tactile things. Putting their feet in a puddle and see them chuckle and laugh. I would gather from what she has said it is the stimulation of the senses that gives them some measure of well being. Somebody cares and they know this.

On the more able cases, they were tutored at every possible academic level. Some went on to earn a living and compete in this life's journey. Things have changed though and now the mentally challenged, who are considered more able, are integrated into regular classes. Mixed feelings about this, the kids can sometimes be unkind. Certainly not always though.

54 posted on 05/22/2012 1:06:53 PM PDT by Peter Libra
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To: pfflier

It’s made worse by the non-PC term, but this isn’t completely about being politically correct...

The point is why label the kids at all? Why not just a picture of the kids and their name? This approach was just silly, unless the yearbook staff wanted to be fair and label everyone with their associated problems. I bet half the kids could be labelled in some way: ADHD, learning disability, dyslexic, eating disorder, depression, crippled, stutterer, etc.


55 posted on 05/22/2012 1:16:49 PM PDT by Fletcher J
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To: Fletcher J
I taught high school for 16 years. All kids have different abilities. If those differences are defined clinically or medically its for a reason.

In my class all kids got the same opportunity. What they did with it was what got them a grade, not their labels. However, their labels defined how I presented their opportunities.

BTW you can bet all parents wanted the labels "gifted", "advanced" or "accelerated".

56 posted on 05/22/2012 2:08:02 PM PDT by pfflier
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To: Beagle8U
And when all those pieces of “furniture” are dining with Jesus in the Lord’s house, you will be Satan’s footstool, and , most likely, his demure and passive sodomite.
57 posted on 05/22/2012 2:32:29 PM PDT by LanaTurnerOverdrive ("I've done a lot of things in my life that I'm not proud of. And the things I am proud of are disgus)
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To: SoldierDad

I picked up a school book at a library sale in Mississippi named “Building Citizenship.” Copyrighted from 1933 to 1939. Originally from the Pittsburg schools. The author is R.O. Hughes who says:

The feeble-minded are of three classes. The moron may have as much intelligence as a twelve year old and is sometimes hard to distinguish from an ordinary “slow-minded” person.

The imbecile never gets any further mentally than an eight year old child.

The idiot is always an infant mentally, not passing the mental age of two or three years.

He adds, “The feeble-minded are not particularly dangerous, but are often a nuisance to normal people.” - He cautions that they should not be allowed to marry because their children tend to be feeble-minded also.


58 posted on 05/22/2012 3:13:48 PM PDT by Erda
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To: Tublecane

“Whatever you call the mentally retareded will inevitably be pejorative, since it’ll never be a good thing to be retarded.”

It has to do with intent. If the intent is to hurt and insult, then yes - it’s pejorative (as would be the case with any other insult given to someone), but if the intent is to describe a condition (a chronic slow mental development/late development), the term is not pejorative. I was speaking of a time when the latter usage was still openly accepted and not viewed as inherently “insulting”. Otherwise, I agree with the rest of your post.


59 posted on 05/22/2012 7:03:42 PM PDT by JLLH
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To: Fletcher J

Agreed on that. PC nonsense is a hot button issue for me and I got sidetracked. I agree there seems to be no reason whatsoever to slap a label on these children - in a yearbook no less. What would be the purpose? Bizarre - and unkind regardless of the label used.


60 posted on 05/22/2012 7:11:41 PM PDT by JLLH
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