With respect to Tom’s post:

It just didn’t register because it seemed completely irrelevant. That’s probably because I read Krysten’s post before I started writing.

Martyr? In what way did I express myself as a “martyr”? I do what I have to do for my family. I do what I have to do because it is the most important work I can do in my life. I do it because I am most happy and most fulfilled caring for the people I love. I have never been happier in my entire life.

My actions are entirely selfish. They have always been selfish, but they now encompass the lives of people I can’t live without. Every day I wake up next to my wife, I help my children off to school, I greet them upon their return and help them with their homework: those are perfect days. There are many and varied perfect days, but they are always about my family. They are always about my wife and my two curious, furious, dedicated and frustrated children who are SPONGES of knowledge for the world around them. Krysten would know, but it is apparent you don’t: my children are the greatest gift I’ve ever received, and they’re the surest proof I’ve ever received of benign deity in the world.

I am unhappy when I’m away from my family. I am unhappy when I have to fight for what’s best for them, or argue with nitwits who don’t undertand autism. I am angered by people and circumstances that don’t fully appreciate what autism is and means. I am infuriated by a system that seems indifferent to distinctions that are becoming more and more relevant as time goes by; and that’s not just for me, but American society in general (review the figures of autism diagnoses over the past thirty years).

And Tom, you just annoy me.

Tom,

Or what? You’ll stick me in the corner? Prosecute ME? You presume to judge the behavior of the teacher and student in this case on the basis of what little you’ve bothered to read in the press, but you take insult at someone judging you on the basis of what you write regarding your position on an issue you know little about? What a bizarre concept. Of course, what you probably mean to say is “how DARE you be critical of me, now let me criticize you for being judgmental!” Did I happen to mention you’re a hypocrite? Perhaps I should define the term for you.

I made no mention of a need to criminally prosecute the teacher, I merely pointed out that your defense of the teacher on the basis of what was known was inexcusable. I mentioned Megan Meier because you trot out the same shopworn moral equivocation that was used to defend HER persecutors. You can take issue with my judgment if you choose, I honestly don’t care; but why are you so concerned with what I think of you? It seems to me you should spend less time worrying about that and more time buttressing your outrageous claim that your “heart goes out to the child.” Nowhere in your posts do I find any evidence of sympathy for Alex. Moreover, you’ve already drawn conclusions based on information that isn’t in evidence. That, by the way, is why I called you an ass: you are led by the nose to beliefs based on OTHER people’s beliefs and not on the facts (AFT is the American Federation of Teachers, by the way).

My point about the amount of work I do (and have done) wasn’t to lay claim to some higher moral authority. Rather, my intention was deflate yours. I don’t claim to be perfect, far from it; but it would still be inexcusable for me to treat ADULT students in the way Ms. Portillo treated this kindergardener.

In the shadow of the looming edifice you’ve built to commemorate self-esteem (yours, not Alex’s) and being “fair” to all sides in an argument (ditto), I reiterate my prior assertion:

You, sir, are an ass.

There, I’ve dared.

Don’t you dare to presume to judge me. You know nothing about me. You may choose to disagree with what I have written, but don’t ridicule my compassion for the child. You are so busy patting yourself on the back for being such a great example of what teaching should be and bashing other points of view that you are insufferable. My point about there being a crime was that many of the contributors to this thread called for the criminal punishment of the teacher, when as you say the was no prosecutable crime. As to what I know about his experience in the school room, I don’t know much, AND NEITHER DO YOU. You can play the martyr if you choose, and attack an argument I did not make about your having an easy life. I said you find it easy to be judgmental. I stand by that.
OK, if it is more than 30 hours a week, you reinforce my point. I also thought your ad hominen attack calling me an ass tells a lot more about you than about me. I do not know what the AFT is, so I can’t be reciting their talking points, unless by coincidence. Yeah, Megan Meier is dead. Since I had nothing to do with her death, I wonder why you chose to write it. BTY, who am I excusing for bad behavior or incompetence? I do not excuse what the teacher did, but I see how it could happen to someone not as steeped in perfection as you seem to be.

REALLY????

Explains a lot.

Amelia:

PPD is an unavoidable consequence of birth for some women. I don’t know of anyone who argues the solution to PPD is entirely internal (except for scientologists). Post partum, there really isn’t a solution to the basis of the problem, only therapy (and possibly medication) to provide relief from the symptoms.

You didn’t have to stay in the education environment.

If you found yourself incapable of teaching, you should have stepped away. You did, and that is to your credit. That you equate PPD with your situation isn’t.

I was the one who suggested you were using excuses for your failure; and what does it suggest that you didn’t bother to read the commentor’s name before you remarked upon my posting?

You gave the kid time-outs. You ignored his problem until it went away. Wow. How proactive.

No one likes to hear it; but did you consider the possibility that your critics were right? That you were/are lazy? Do they continue to do the job you found yourself incapable of doing (and presumably wanted to do)? What do you do now?

Tom:

I suppose, in the end, there is no prosecutable crime. What is your point?

Is it actionable? Absolutely.

People don’t get imprisoned for slander, but they do get sued. People don’t spend time in the pokey for their “oontributions” to the Superfund sites, but they are liable.

Megan Meier is dead.

I’m tired of hearing excuses for people who behave badly and/or incompetently.

Yours’ seem particularly interesting:

“One child sucks all of the oxygen out of the room. One child who demands 99% of the time as well as physical, mental and emotional resources in the classroom. Why was this child in a mainstream classroom? Why did the school allow him to disrupt everyting for everyone else? Oh and did you notice that the parents are thinking about suing the school. Its not enough that most of the resources in the class were already being consumed to handle their child. Now they want to get more.”

I can see how your “heart goes out to the child.”

His fellow students criticised him for picking his nose.

What do you know about the circumstances of his experience in the classroom?

People like you dismay me. I spend most of my time in the classroom working to unwind the bullshit and received “wisdom” of years of public school education. I tell my students again and again to think for themselves, to look at the numbers and reach their own conclusions. Most of the time, I get a book report.

You’re reciting a litany of talking points from the AFT. You’re an ass.

“I find it very easy for you to be so judgmental about other teachers who are in the classroom 30 hours a week handling problems that you never face.”

When you’ve spent a year teaching 300 students at three different universities in Tashkent for the CEP, organized Central Asian student and faculty conferences and set up web pages for the same, and managed publications… you can tell me about your problems. What is it, exactly, you find easy about my life that you know nothing about (setting aside the immediate issue of having two autistic children)?