What I found most interesting about that site was that in the FAQ section, “Riti Sped” said she loved her job and she would never quit, but if you look at the About the Authors section, you see that she did in fact quit (or perhaps was told to resign? I wonder) and someone else is writing the entries now. Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.
Although I usually appreciate crude, obnoxious humor, I think most of the stuff on the tard blog site is 1) just not terribly funny, and 2) probably at least partially fiction. It’s loosely affiliated with Tucker Max’s site, which is another one full of similar-sounding crap.
Here is a quote from her disclaimer:D
I think she sounds a tad annoyed, but I can see the points of the posters here.
Okay, I was an aide once and this site looks like a much needed outlet, and is pretty harmless since most handicapped can’t read well enough to make much of it themselves.
It is one of the toughest jobs, and thankless jobs, and it takes someone special to work day in and day out in a school especially with classes full of handicapped.
I found the school was kind of a daycare that tries to stimulate and teach those who can be. Others just kind of hang around and need lots of supervision (especiall fragile x cases).
Some of the handicapped that are ‘higher functioning’ can be taught simple math and reading, but even they are a handful at the best of time…and ssooooo stubborn!
While I worked I had boys and girls touch me inappropriately on purpose (grabbing my breasts or reaching between my legs), hug me to near death, bite me, etc. There are kids that have seizures, pull hair, or need diaper changes. It is extremely demanding with the diverse needs of the clients. You never know what to expect because they think quite differently and lack reasoning skills. Some are impulsive, explosive, and even sneaky.
I think this site has a purpose, and those who have never experienced working with the handicapped may not understand so much. I do feel it’s fine, and I’m actually laughing at some of the antics.
If anything it could be ‘educational’ to those who have never worked with the handicapped. These are daily happenings!!
Oh trust me!! I haven’t seen anything that looks like fiction!! In fact I could add some myself 
Like I said…this looks like a place to blow off steam and try to find the humor in frustrating day to day happenings.
With the lack of funding for office supplies, and ample funding for things like Kleenex instead, I can see how the file cabinet is still around!!
I used to have to ride the bus to and from the school…and the stuff I had to deal with!!! One kid had diabetes, and a mom let a girl go on the bus with a piece of toast and jam, well the kid has autism and has no understanding that eating the wrong kinds of foods can kill him!! He’s also extremely hungry all the time despite huge balanced meals and snacks!! He’ll eat sticks, leaves…
Oh the funniest thing!!! He grabbed a dog toy rubber ‘hot dog’ off the ground once and took a huge bite!! (he’s fast because he’s learned things get taken away since he’s not supposed to eat everything) The look on his face was priceless…OMG!!! He got very disgusted and chucked it!! This guy was like 17 years old!! LMAO
Anyway, back to the bus…he put his hand out like a striking snake and grabbed the toast!! The girl is screaming, he’s stuffing it all in his mouth…I have to try get it away from him so he doesn’t go into shock on the bus…
This distraction caused me to not have full attention on another kid that loves to grab hair, and hates screaming…so he grabs the screaming girl’s hair in a death grip!!
Sigh, we were late that day, and I had to report the toast eating so that the nurse could deal with him.
Let me tell you! This was not an unusual bus ride!!
I am ashamed to admit that I did laugh about some of the stories, though I agree that the word ‘tard’ is not an appropriate term to use.
Some of the stories were positive, I think that this woman is/was frustrated with her job because what she had to deal with.
Personally I want to write a blog about my experience working at a tutoring center. I’ve worked with some developmentally disabled children as well, though I didn’t have any problem with them once I understood their condition. It was the kids who try to get under my skin that really bugged me.
Okay, this one is so hilarious…and harmless, I just have to post it!! I have removed the offensive word and put HC for handicapped child instead.
Man, I wonder if they taught him how to ask for a drink of water instead
I’ve seen this before, and pretty much decided it was bullshit. I can’t imagine someone could really be a special ed teacher with an attitude like that and not kill themselves. That said, I must sheepishly admit that I thought it was funny as hell.
of course, I also thought our own(former) Reverend Mykeru(as well as his colleague the misanthropic bitch) was hilarious.
Well, she does say she drinks alot…and writing it may keep her from killing herself.
You think someone could just make that stuff up?
Trust me, the things I saw when I was an aide for only 6 months!
There was a girl in the senior class that masturbated practically all day long, she had down’s sydrome and her tongue was always out… and drooling, she’d reach out to one of the boys yellling out his names. The one guy she like the most had autism and never ever noticed her when she yelled out his name over and over…doing you know what. I never dealt with that crap, I let the teacher deal with getting her to stop. She spoke funny and you couldn’t really understand her most of the time.
She never did much else in class, she didn’t have the IQ of a squirrel! She scribbled sometimes.
That same boy she liked was obsessive about the washer and dryer in the same room that was also used as the kitchen at snack time. If the washer or dryer lid was open he would freak out (making noise and rocking back and forth) until he managed to get away from his aide (he had to be watched closely at snack time because he would and could gobble up everyone else’s snacks in ten seconds!) and run over and slam them shut!! This is the same guy that picked up the rubber hot dog. He was very memorable.
Another ‘senior’ kid would always lay on the floor for some reason. I never caught on to why, someone told me, so after I found out I would call his name and try to get him to sit back in his desk. He always had this white fungus stuff on his lips from the carpet on the floor too. Apparently that was a way of masturbating too. This kid never talked much except to repeat something over and over, he made wierd noises and liked certain teaches and would smile at them.
When these kids hit puberty it isn’t pretty!!
Another senior kid was molesting the girls on the bus (sticking his hands up their shirts, or under their bottoms), so I had to make him sit way in the back by himself. The handicapped girls didn’t complain because they liked it (if it feels good it can’t be bad!). He had this wierd thing on his back…like some huge fluid filled cyst. At home he wasn’t allowed to have a bath or wash clothes because they wanted to keep the utility bill cheap. His hair was extremely dull and ratty and coarse. You could tell he was malnourished! He stunk bad!!
I could go on and on…I dreaded the day of the week we went swimming and had to deal with poop in the water and had lots of towels handy for really snotty noses (the moisture loosens up all their mucus). The rubber hot dog guy who is always hungry would drink up half the pool despite reapeatedly being told not to!
They never show regular handicapped kids on TV shows, just the really articulate ‘higher’ functioning ones.
There was one girl I liked, until she lost her temper, but she was sweet otherwise. I could usually manage to convince her to go to the computer room and try to make that fun instead of ‘work’. Never call anything work, always call it ‘fun’, and she’ll go along with anything! If it’s work she has a temper tantrum and balls up in a corner, she’s 16. She was quite articulate and at least you’d know why she did something wierd because she’d tell you.
There was this other kid…if he bumped into something and it hurt, he would look around for the nearest person and blame them and try to hurt them back. If he fell out of his wheel chair because of something he did, well, you can’t help him back in if you were close by when it happened!!
This one kid had a hard time sitting down once. They took him to the doctor and found a toy up his butt.
I could go on and on!
Actually, I wouldn’t mind if you went on and on, Drabble!
Look, I understand that this is what special-ed kids are like, and I understand “Miss Sped”'s need to vent. It’s not the sharing of the anecdotes that bothers me; it’s her obvious contempt for the students. Like when she says she makes kids untangle the jumpropes as a punishment because she knows they’ll get frustrated and have a tantrum. There are just too many times when she admits to “pulling up a lawnchair”, as we say on the boards. She makes fun of the Christmas gifts they give her, for god’s sake! (Yes, I know it’s not to their face, but still.) And the anecdote where one of her kids was hugging her in the supermarket and yelling “I love you Miss [Sped]!” while her friend laughed and laughed and laughed…That’s uncool.
I wouldn’t say that the site overall is offensive, just that her attitude sucks.
Have to agree with Rilchiam. She “loves her tards”, yet quite consistently you see her insult them for being mentally challenged. And she is quite cruel- A kid with OCD(among other things) is made to pick up macaroni, something she knows bothers him very much as a result of his problems. She makes the wheelchair boy sit outside for 15 minutes alone, just him spinning his wheels. If she’s real, I hope she was fired.
Yeah, I just didn’t feel very good about the fact that I clicked on the link and started to read some of it. I think it’s outright mean, so I promptly stopped reading. I really don’t think there’s much funny about mental retardation.
I find it neither funny nor offensive. She’s blowing off some steam, big deal. The stories aren’t particularly funny, either.
I’m not sure how much is fact and how much is fiction, though. The stories for the most part seem very true. Somebody who was not a special ed teacher would probably not get the kids’ behaviour right, but this person gets it absolutely spot-on. On the other hand, the infiormation is SO specific that any parents of any of these kids seeing it would know who it was, so I’m surprised that if true, it hasn’t been found out.
I think that life in a developmentally disabled classroom could be excellent fodder for a hysterically funny blog, journal, or book.
This ain’t it. This is just plain mean.
I think she does display a lot of kindness to the kids. There are many stories in there where you can tell she really cares about the kids. And that job is HARD! There are not many people who can do it.
Okay, maybe she gives some of the kids a hard time sometimes, but it’s never out of the blue. I’m not saying that’s the best thing, but cut her some slack. After some kid has tipped over the blocks for the hundredth time, would anyone here still have the patience to treat that child just as nicely as the first time the blocks were tipped over? And would that even be useful? Shouldn’t all kids learn that there are negative consequences to their negative actions? Even special ed kids?
So yes, it would be great if she always treated those kids the way your grandma treated you when you came over for Sunday dinner, but people who can continually act that way don’t exist in the stressful environment of special ed.