Well, it's been 3 days since graduation at Franklin for my last year of service and I am still upset that I was not able to be present there. I had my chance of saying goodbye to the kids taken away from me and am REALLY upset about it. I had trouble sleeping for two nights and went in on Monday to clean out my classroom. My supervisor, who was supposed to make sure that I got my stuff back passed it on to someone else, and I'm still waiting for it. She also asked me for some papers that the kids did. I will hold on to them until I get my stuff back. She'll claim I'm being petty or unprofessional (one of her favorite terms the past couple years) and that it's inappropriate (another of her favorite claims) for me to not follow directions like that and withhold the papers, but until I get my stuff back, I don't care.
I spent the past three years on probation with no written plan on how to get off of it. When I asked for help, I was told that they couldn't tell me what I needed to do and then wrote me up for not following through on my obligations, especially the ones I didn't know existed. I got written up for rules that didn't exist, and when I asked where they were written down, I got answers like, "I don't know why you're confused. This has been policy since you've been at Franklin," yet it was nowhere in writing in the Policy and Procedure Manual. When I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and gave them a letter from my psychologist with suggested accommodations, I was not given any of them, which was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. They even went so far as to say my perception was skewed and they didn't care why (it was the AS).
Now, for a school that has a mission of "Franklin Academy provides students with Nonverbal Learning Differences and Asperger's Syndrome the academic and social skills to become life-long learners, to pursue college and career goals, and to enjoy fulfilling lives," (quoted directly from their website: http://www.fa-ct.org/mission.html ), they sure don't offer employees with AS any consideration (did they actually say CAREER in their mission statement? They made me hate my job there, even though I loved working with the kids). Add to that the fact that for 8 years, since they opened to students, I have been a popular teacher and that, in the words of one employee of the school, I understood the students better than anyone else (maybe it's because I actually HAVE the same disorder that many of the students have...didn't they notice that in 8 years?).
That brings up a few questions in my mind. First, if they REALLY care about helping these kids with AS and NLD pursue college and career goals, why wouldn't they support a teacher that was diagnosed WITH the same disorder as the population they served, especially a POPULAR teacher? Wouldn't that have been to their benefit? What could they have learned from an adult with AS and the coping strategies this teacher had developed over his lifetime? If they don't care about the "skewed perspective" of someone with AS, what DO they care about? How are they helping these kids, by making them more NORMAL? Would they want these kids to lose the strengths they get from their disability, like the unique perspective and creative problem-solving strategies?
I think there is too much effort spent on making kids fit into a mold nowadays. When I was in school, we were all allowed to be ourselves. Now, they are told to be like everyone else. Let kids learn their own way and be who they were meant to be, not who everyone else thinks is NORMAL. They'll be much better off for it.
