are "time-out" rooms in schools abuse?

Why, you tell him again.

NPR just had an hour on behavioral challenges in the classroom. The focus was time out rooms and restraint for physically dangerous (to self or others) students. Heavy bent towards prevention of trigger situations.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104391490

I think that Dyslexia is talking about some very extreme cases and that many of the rest here are talking about mainstream practices.

yes, thank you.

Uh -- I'm just reading along here, and I'm really not trying to pick a fight or anything -- but this is certainly not how I understood the very broad statement in Dys's initial post:


Dys, would you like to clarify when you find time-out rooms to be child abuse, and when you don't?

and a thank you to you, Mr. T.

Ah shucks! I'm just doing my job as an A-Team intellekchewal.
Anyway, you're very welcome!

-- Mr. T

dyslexia wrote:

Just speculatively musing here:
if I were a professional teacher of juvenile students,
what shoud I do if a fight breaks out, or if violence is threatened?
As I ponder the possibilities, it seems that I coud:
1. pretend that I did not see nor hear the trouble n ignore it
2. agree with the offender, to calm him down, trying not to step in the blood
3. command him to get out of my classroom n go elsewhere
(hoping that he'll forget that he owns the place, if its a public school)
4. drag him to a jail room in the school, unless he goes voluntarily
5. call the police with the request that he be dragged away in chains
6. try to pass the buck to the principal
7. insist, on pain of death, that he learn fonetic spelling, no matter WHAT
8. teach fonetic spelling to the police when thay arrive.

Those r all the possibilities that occur to me at the moment.

Which of those do u prefer, Dys ?





David

Here is the link to the article I sent to Dys. I failed to include information on where it was published.

http://www.examiner.com/x-9926-Chicago-Special-Education-Examiner~y2009m5d20-Study-on-restraint-and-seclusion-of-special-education-students-frightening

That IS frightening.

Does this imply perpetual cycles
of telling him to go to the "time out" room
and he telling u where to go and stick your head ?



`

dlowan said:

Yes. Despite my first thought when I saw that steel door with the grated window that those probably weren't seclusion rooms used in the public school system - that fact makes no difference. It's horrible that this sort of thing is happening to people with special needs anywhere at all.

I read something a few weeks ago, in one of the weekend supplements about a residential 'home' for nonfunctional young adults - it seemed most of them were mentally incapacitated in some way - either because of learning disabilities or brain damage or mental illness.
Anyway - the recreation for the staff at night - and I mean apparently EVERY night- was for them to get two of these people to fight- like in the movie Fight Club. And they'd stand on the side and watch and place bets and if one of the people ran away because he didn't want to fight, they'd drag him back and make him.
The only reason these people got caught is because one of them lost his phone and he'd taped some of these fights between these people to watch again and show other people.

Again, the problem is the people who are being employed to work with vulnerable people.
And if you don't pay a decent wage for what is a very complicated and demanding and difficult job - you can't get people with training.
Unfortunately - compassion and nurturing sometimes can't be bought at any price (or wage).
It's very sad.
Knowing what I know and having seen what I've seen, if I had a vulnerable family member - I think I'd find some way to keep them home and care for them. I wouldn't trust any institution.

A few years ago, I was hospitalized (admitted) on an emergency basis,
without time to plan nor select an optimal hospital.
I discerned that there were 2 distinct kinds of nurses,
like oil n water:
one group was sincerely dedicated and honestly
concerned with the well-being of their patients.

The other group was recognizable by its members loudly declaiming
and bellowing the different kinds of work that thay refused to do
(like going under a bed to get something); a point of pride.

I wondered whether thay were equally loud
in refusing to accept their paychecks.





`

littlek wrote:

I think that Dyslexia is talking about some very extreme cases and that many of the rest here are talking about mainstream practices.


dyslexia wrote:

yes, thank you.


Uh -- I'm just reading along here, and I'm really not trying to pick a fight or anything -- but this is certainly not how I understood the very broad statement in Dys's initial post:

dyslexia wrote:

When I worked in child protection I told every teacher I came in contact with that I would file abuse charges if I ever found a child in a "time-out" room. (emphasis added -- T.)


Dys, would you like to clarify when you find time-out rooms to be child abuse, and when you don't?

Yes, an over-broad statement on my part, my jurisdiction included 5 school districts; only 1 of those districts implemented (time-out) rooms and only at the request of a specific teacher for his/her special ed classroom. This was not a time-out methodology but rather a constructed isolation room, a structure within a classroom with the only criteria being "a student that was being disruptive" there was no criteria for supervision or time limits. In my total
experience there were 4 teachers who had these "rooms" constructed, and it was those same 4 teachers that I stated to that use of those rooms would be construed by myself as well as the state/fed government laws as child abuse.

That helps, Dys. Thanks!

absolutely agree

I've spoken here often about mainstreaming and the promise vs. the reality -- my particular angle is that deaf children are often quite stranded in a mainstream environment, while they are in a rich language environment if they are at a Deaf institute. I've talked about this stuff often enough that I was hesitant to jump in to this discussion 'cause it'd be repetitive.

However,

Doubly unfortunately, this is not common in NON-mainstream environments, either. Institutions for these kind of severely disabled children have too frequently turned out to be really scary and horrible. Not all of them, by a longshot. And that's part of why I mention my support for deaf schools in the beginning -- I think they can be good and can be the best option.

But the base problem is that it's pretty rare to find people who are talented and capable and willing to work with this population. (The really severely disabled kids, especially behavior disorders.) I agree with you that better pay for the professionals who deal with them would be a good start.

The pendulum swung from institutions to mainstreaming partly because so many of the issues that are being bemoaned here were problems in institutions. It's not a pure mainstream vs. non-mainstream issue -- it's about how very difficult it is to deal with these kids in any setting and how difficult it is to find capable, qualified people willing to do it (and the bless people who do and who do it well, because the difficulty doesn't mean it shouldn't happen -- we can't just abandon these kids).

My school has a SIR (Student Isolation Room)
People go in for days at a time.
Abuse?
Of course. To paraphrase slang terms: "Prison for kids" "YOH (Young Offenders Hell)" "Never to leave"
Schools are meant to teach, not to give up and imprison students with no attempts at empathizing.

How the Enlightenment engendered the doom of Society:

It's all right because it can never be always wrong.

Soz said:
That's exactly what the issue is. And I don't think that people who have never done it or observed people who are trying to do it, have any idea of what challenges are inherent in dealing with 'students' with these sorts of issues every minute of every day. Because you're not only trying to manage unmanageable and self-abusing behavior - you're also supposed to be trying to educate. And there isn't just one student in the room - you may have five (in a self-contained classroom) and thirty if the child has been mainstreamed.

I don't think the time-out rooms in and of themselves are bad ideas. In fact, I've worked in settings in which I thought they were absolutely necessary, for the students' mental health and well-being as well as for the teachers'. Sometimes we all need a break from all the stimulus around us, and if you're autistic and that stimulus is torture - a break from that can be as necessary as food and water.
But I've never heard or seen any student being left alone in a classroom for three hours. Apart from being abuse - that's just stupid and asking for trouble. Even with typically learning kids - I wouldn't leave a kid alone in a classroom for five minutes. You, as the teacher, are responsible for that student and that classroom. If anything were to happen to anyone or anything- even if you stepped out to use the bathroom - you'd have to answer.

But we know that there are abuses of vulnerable populations, and we should be smart enough to figure out that this is more likely to happen when people feel that they've been thrust into a role they are not trained to handle and resent having been placed in.

It's not a perfect world, but some of the decisions made in public education, make it more imperfect for the students and teachers alike.

I think the people who do this job well and for their entire career are heroes.
However, they're never the ones who get any attention at all, much less accolades.
I did it for three years, and it broke my heart. I couldn't continue to watch these kids suffer the way they do every single day (just living- I never saw anyone abuse anyone in a public school-I was lucky enough to work with really good people).
But I also couldn't continue to go home with bite and scratch marks all over my hands and on any part of my arms that weren't covered (that got infected because the kid then touched my hands with his which had faeces on them). It was physically and emotionally exhausting. The adrenalin never stops - unless the child falls asleep, you're constantly on the defense. It made me realize what people who are living with an abuser must feel like.
And I realized then that the people who do this job well, and even moreso, the people who parent children with these issues appropriately, are nothing less than heroic.
Because every day, I left at 4:00, exhausted, happy to have made it through another day and thanking my lucky stars that I was going home to my 'normal' children.

But you know - they don't pay these teachers any more than they pay anyone else. They stick these kids (and the teachers) in an out of the way classroom, down in the basement somewhere and then expect them to work miracles without bothering any of the 'real' teachers or students- and they call that mainstreaming. Or they stick one or two of these kids in a regular class and call that 'the least restrictive and appropriate environment'.
How can what is appropriate for an eight year old who can read, write, multiply and divide also be appropriate for an eight year old who can't read, write, multiply or divide? And how is one (or two if you're lucky) human being supposed to make that classroom equally appropriate for both of those children and twenty-eight others with varying degrees of normality?
Finn said:

There has to be another and better answer.
If it seems all wrong, you don't stop working until you find a way to make it right.

I worked in Public Education for years, After reading Finn's post, I will never read another one of his without remembering that he did a hero's job.

Education in the USA has always evinced strong opinions, How do we educate?
What are the goals of education?

Many forget that Public Education did not really begin in earnest until the time of Horace Mann in the nineteenth century.

The affluent usually had their children tutored. Illiteracy was rampant.

Now, everyone sends thier children to school and, since most parents are highly invested in their children and most concerned about their futures, many problems arise.

When beginning a discourse about education, I believe everyone should keep two basic ideas in mind to serve as principles.

l. Children's achievements will be rated as being above the median or below the median. The range between the top and bottom may lessen but at least half of the class will be below the median by definition.

2. Parents find it difficult to accept the fact that their children score below the median or have problems which place them below the expected social mores.