This, from the foobiverse LJ made me LMAO:
Some actual Afterschool Special Titles:
My Dad Lives in a Downtown Hotel
The Boy Who Drank Too Much
Please Don’t Hit Me, Mom
I Think I’m Having A Baby
The Day My Kid Went Punk
My Dad Can’t Be Crazy (Can He?)
The Girl With The Crazy Brother
What title will this storyline take?
I Went To Lunch and a John Hughes Movie Broke Out.
I was in HS around the same time as you. When I was a sophomore, some jerk picked a fight with me 'cause he once saw me leave the special needs area.
OK, so that guy was a major asshole. I can’t believe it is so widespread in any HS that someone would be generally shunned or made fun of (by the student body as a whole) for talking to special needs kids.
What’s really sad, I think, is that these chastised students still don’t have any better idea how to relate to a differently-abled person. Shannon’s speech didn’t cover details like, does the kid in the wheelchair need doors held for him, or would he be offended? Are there words you shouldn’t use around the autistic kid? The kid who doesn’t look at you – are you making him more self-conscious, or should you keep talking? There’s more to understanding than just not making fun.
Sarahfeena, I was in a very snotty high school in the late 1970s and early 80s. I’m afraid that kids could and did make fun of a slightly handicapped friend of mine to her face. It seemed to my teenage self that they liked making her cry. She eventually had a nervous breakdown and left school. While she was able to keep up her school work and would have been able to graduate, she didn’t want to go to graduation because she was afraid kids would make fun of her. From what I’d seen, that was a legitimate fear. Not only did kids make fun of her in school, I saw them do it in church.
Now, that was a long time ago, and I hope things have changed. I gather they have. On the other hand, I read this week’s strip and cringed. You see, in my experience, speaking up made things worse rather than bringing a round of applause. Heck, in my school, it might even have got things thrown at you as well as calls of “Shut up!” My school was a particularly bad case, and it was known to be a bad place for kids who were different, although I didn’t find that out until over a decade after I graduated.
I suspect any school in which kids are rude and cruel enough to make fun of a handicapped girl to her face isn’t one which will cheer her on when she speaks up. My guess is the presence of a handicapped person disturbs the status quo and the illusion that we are all wonderful, perfect people to whom nothing bad can happen. Speaking up just disturbs the status quo further.
Still, my signature stands, and I’ll throw in a line by Meatloaf:
We could be standin’ at the top of the world
Instead of sinkin’ further down in the mud!
Now that this sequence of strips has wrapped up, I’ve gotta say – I liked it better 35 years ago, when it was an episode of “Room 222”. I think it was a lot subtler the first time. And there was Karen Valentine to look at.