Just Deserts UPDATED

We gave an award to one of our students just because she's mentally handicapped. 

That's a very blunt statement, probably unattractively so for a lot of people, but that's the simplest way I can think of to get my topic across.  Here's the back story:  We have an end-of-year award assembly for the whole grade, where each department gives out awards based on specific criteria (grade point average, overall improvement, etc.). Then we had an assembly for just our team, where we gave out awards for more subjective qualities like friendliness and citizenship.  We chose those recipients by consensus in a team discussion with all our team teachers present.  One of the students on our team is a girl with significant mental delays and physical handicaps*.  As I've mentioned before, because recent court decisions have stated that life skills classes are not considered fully mainstream education, these students now have to be placed in regular education classes and the coursework modified to their ability levels.  This quickly becomes very tricky when we're dealing with topics that go beyond basic knowledge and recall.  How do you explain concepts like "personification" and "metaphor" to someone who is not capable of writing a simple declarative sentence?  Or teach how to calculate mass and area to someone who can't look at a coin and tell you its worth? 

Over the course of the year, this student did participate in the regular classroom as much as she could.  However, since a lot of her work was very simple, and she could not attend to it terribly long, our special education teacher and classroom aides spent a huge amount of time with her one-on-one, taking her for walks, going to visit other people in the school, spending extra time in the gym, and so forth.  She got a lot of special consideration and extra attention in the course of the year as well.  It was pretty much a given that if anything fun or different was happening on our team, she was going to get to participate.  So I was a little taken aback when I heard that one of my peers was upset to learn she didn't get an award from the team, so much so that we had to make up a last-minute award to give to her at our team assembly.  We did it to keep the peace, but I'm still not altogether comfortable with that. 

Here's my beef:  The awards we gave out weren't of the "everyone gets a trophy" ilk that the phrase "middle school" usually evokes - we gave out a total of maybe 20 or 30 awards to a team of 120 kids.  We already had discussed the award titles and possible recipients in detail, because we wanted to acknowledge students who had honestly stood out in some way. In fact, a number of students won awards because they had been so helpful and patient with this girl throughout the year, offering to be her partner for academic activities where her presence was going to generate more work for them, for example, or looking out for her in the halls and between classes. Furthermore, this student got the gold-star treatment all year, as described above.  She definitely was given more of those opportunities than any of the regular education students received, certainly more than anyone would get through random chance.  In terms of positive strokes, she received those in spades every day, from staff and students alike.  Even taking her limits into account, she didn't stand out as being above average for helpfulness or persistence or any of the other qualities we were awarding that day.  So why did she have to get an award on awards day? 

Then the voice sitting on my other shoulder chimes in, making me feel ashamed for being so curmudgeonly as to begrudge this girl what is, in the end, just a piece of paper.  After all, the vast majority of kids on the team are going to grow up, learn to drive, graduate high school, move out, and otherwise reach all the milestones of which memories and Hallmark moments are made.  This particular student and her family don't have those same experiences to anticipate.  Generally, students as severely handicapped as she is live at home or in community placement after they age out of the public educational system.  These years in public school, then, are going to be the one point in this student's life when she gets to spend the majority of her time with neurotypical peers in her age cohort.  And I'm no expert on the severely handicapped; maybe the fact that this kid shows up to class and completes the five- or ten-minute activities designed for her DOES demonstrate outstanding personal qualities that are worthy of recognition.  For all I know, getting that award was the pinnacle of her year, and I'm just being a contrarian jerk.  

Suffice it to say, I'm undecided if I'm taking a stand here against rampant political correctness, or if I'm being callous and uncharitable.  Any thoughts?  Insights from people who have experienced the other side?  Brickbats and rotten tomatoes?  Make sure you make them known soon, because I'm not fully comfortable leaving this post up indefinitely.

* yes, identifying details have been omitted to protect the student and preserve my professionalism

EDITED TO ADD: 

The commenter below did a much better job of putting some of my qualms into words, especially this part:

I personally wouldn't want a sympathy award ... nor any award that wasn't for merit, that wasn't earned. It's hollow praise (?) ... or worse than that ... it's a reward that underestimates and patronizes.

She put her finger right on what was bothering me.  The award we gave our student was basically a Good Job Just Being You! award, which was tacked on as an afterthought to the 'real' awards.  If we were giving out a lot of you're-the-best-"you"-you-can-be awards, that would be a different matter (and this would be a much different post, because I find those kind of awards to be complete sham, once the recipients are over the age of three).  The fact that we were told that this student had to get an award, and that we couldn't think of a specific award-worthy quality other than making up a general "good classmate and decent human being" kind of citation, makes me think that the award we gave does fall into the hollow praise category.  As any student of mine could tell you (or at least, I fervently hope would tell you), I don't give praise lightly, and only those who earn it receive it. 

Comments

[PaleMother]

Well, I think you make a good point in your disclaimer about, "I'm no expert on the severely handicapped; maybe the fact that this kid shows up to class and completes the five- or ten-minute activities designed for her DOES demonstrate outstanding personal qualities that are worthy of recognition." I feel the same ... it's always good to acknowledge that you might not know/understand what you don't know/understand. Maybe the award gives invaluable encouragement/positive reinforcement. Maybe. ??

That said, I also agree with your point about rampant political correctness. I personally wouldn't want a sympathy award ... nor any award that wasn't for merit, that wasn't earned. It's hollow praise (?) ... or worse than that ... it's a reward that underestimates and patronizes. How can that be a good thing?

As a parent, I remind myself that you can cripple a child with unrealistic expectations and that the world will not swoon unconditionally over my kids the way that we do just because they belong to us. They say spoiling is a(n insidious) form of abuse and I believe it. You can't teach kids that hard work is a bad thing, something to be avoided ... because life is full of hard work and challenges and only people who can meet it head on have the means to be happy. It seems to me that a handicapped individual has ~so~ much more to overcome ... I don't think there is anything curmudgeonly about raising your respectful concern and at least asking the question. I think the question is ... what really serves the child's best interest?

Also ... what are the adults modeling to the other students about handicapped individuals? Is that in their interest?

Cheers.

[Drunken Housewife]

If I were to give an award to her, I'd have made up one for "completing the grade despite the greatest challenges."

In this setting, where most kids were not getting awards or recognition, giving her one devalues the other awards. On the other hand, it does feel mean to begrudge a severely handicapped child anything.

On the topic of awards, I went to the end-of-year assembly for the first time at our k-8 school, and I was appalled that they give out multiple awards for "greatness of human spirit" but not a single academic excellence award. I had no idea we were paying that money to worship at the shrine of the human spirit. I might have put her into an ashram instead if I were shopping for a human spirit academy.

[Drunken Housewife]

Hey, I had another thought to share. I picked up the vibe that you were thinking that middle school might be a highlight of this girl's life, that going on to live in a group home would not be a happy ending. That may or may not be the case.

My husband's youngest brother was severely mentally retarded and had some physical challenges as well. I think he was more retarded than the student in this story. He never learned to read. In his thirties, his cognitive function was lower than that of a toddler's.

He lived at home with the family until after my husband's father passed away and my husband left home, at which point my husband's mother found a group home placement for him. My husband saw that his brother did much better in the group home than he had at home. It was in many ways a better setting for him. I met one of the caregivers, who came with my husband's brother to our wedding, and she was a warm and lovely human being.

[Caroline]

That's fortunate, and yes, I was thinking that middle school might be an apogee of sorts, not quite the "highlight of her life," but the last time she will spend most of her time with neurotypical peers. Next year she will be much more segregated, just by the nature of high school itself (even the Supreme Court hasn't gone so far as to force "mainstreaming" of AP Calc and the like). Actually, I think a lot of group care situations *can be* very beneficial for all involved; unfortunately, anti-warehousing movements have closed a lot of those facilities - which is another post.

[Drunken Housewife]

I'm skeptical that mainstreaming is so great for all disabled. I read a spellbinding article in the Wall St. Journal quite some time ago about high school students with Down Syndrome who are mainstreamed. They were happiest during the brief times they could be with the other special ed students; it was stressful being so different in the regular classrooms. It was their parents, pushing and pushing, trying to get them to be as normal as possible. I can't judge those parents -- Lord knows what I'd do in their position -- but it was clearly very difficult emotionally and intellectually for their kids.

I can't imagine how hard it must be to the only severely intellectually impaired kid in a classroom.

[Jennifer]

I agree with a previous commenter, it does feel like her award devalues the other awards given.

But another thought I have is these sort of awards, in general - many, many students have disadvantages that go unnoticed and unseen. Where are there awards? The kids that are being abused or neglected or whose parents are addicts or under the poverty line or any other hardship the middle schoolers can be going though that aren't as obvious and apparent as a mental or physical handicapped child. More often than not, those children aren't really given the "gold star" treatment, are they?

[Samm]

As the mother of a child with Down syndrome, I believe that you're looking at this wrong. Every little thing a disabled child does is amazing. And yes, doing 5 or 10 minutes of "simple" work to her was probably like studying quantum physics for hours on end for us. She probably doesnt have the capacity for helpfulness. She is expending all her mental energy on doing these "simple" tasks. I make a huge deal when my daughter puts her coat on the right way, as much as another parent would when their children get all A's. Her teachers should have been consulted on the idea, as you said that you don't have much experience with special needs kids, and made the decision based on whether she was performing above average for her skill set. She may have been. I mean if she could attend to a single subject for up to 10 minutes, she probably was.

[Caroline]

I agree that it is as challenging for this student to do everyday tasks as it is for others to learn calculus. I want to reiterate that my chief complaint centered on the fact that this student already got lots of accolades, special consideration, and inclusion in unique learning opportunities. If there was a special assembly, opportunity for participation, or extra activity outside class with limited availability, this student got to go to every one of those, while many neurotypical students I had that year didn't get to go at all. This child got treats and awards on a regular basis, so I felt she had already been recognized extensively throughout the year, and the award for what was supposed to be cumulative, yearlong achievement was redundant.

[Japeprops]

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