[rescue] Cluesticks (was Mounting and Dumping)

[nimitz at ns1.nimitzbrood.com]

> My problem is what we are doing now seems to be alot of holding the
> average and above folks back so the below average folks can keep up.  This
> seems like a bad idea.. Let me rephrase that, it would be the stupidest
> idea I'd ever heard if I'd never heard politicans or suits talk.  I don't
> claim to know the solution, that's the hard part.  Most folks seem
> unwilling to see what's going to happen in the next few decades as these
> badly educated folks flood the markets.  I'm not looking forward to those
> years.

I have several problems with this whole situation.  (Not to mention the memories of a scary SF story where everyone in the world was hampered in some way to make them all "equal".)

1) Not enough is being done to properly diagnose learning disabilities. There is a real tendency to over-medicate or even medicate unecessarily when an LD is found.

2) There is not enough being done to remove the social stigma of LDs.  The old "retard" slur is still alive and kicking.

3) There is not enough being done to place kids in the educational programs where their gifts are nurtured versus the cookie-cutter set of educational "requirements".

4) There is not enough money spent on education that ends up where the students need it.

Now - what do we do about all this?  I don't know.  No good solution to all these problems has presented itself tome.  Nor have I been able to find one.

Just FYI - I don't want my comments to seem like they're armchair quarterbacking.  My daughter is Autistic and I am a person with a functional LD somewhere between Autism and asperger's.  I've been through the unenlightened age and the so called elightened age of education.  Neither seems to be very good.

This thread should move to Geeks.

Mike Hebel