The Golden Rule

I have problems with the Golden Rule for a number of reasons. One of them is that although they teach it in schools for children to use interpersonal situations, they do not seem to ever apply it to the adults themselves.

Adult.

Function: noun
1 : one that has arrived at full development or maturity especially in size, strength, or intellectual capacity.

Maturity. Hmm, there’s a concept that Wendy Portillo has apparently never heard of. This demonstrated of course by her actions against a five year old boy who is in the process of being dxed with Asperger’s Syndrome. He was a student in her class. She let all of the students in the class say something that they didn’t like about him, and then made them take a vote on whether or not they should vote him out of the class.

Now, what I propose we do is let her peers all do the same thing to her. They can all stand in a circle around her and tell her everything they don’t like about her. Then they can take a vote and see if they would like to vote her off the island out of the school. Seem fair to you?

Oh, and if you really feel like getting pissed off, there is a comment section on another version of this article here. Go read. If you didn’t understand why aspies often don’t like NTs, this is a really good example of why.

For example, here are a few of the comments:

Funny how when I was growing up, there weren’t all these syndromes or disorders to make excuses for bad kids.
If I was bad, I was sent to the principles office with a cricket type of paddle and then when I got home I got it again. Funny how we all survived and became good citizens unlike the “time out” punishment the kids get today and the thugs they become later on.
The world is full of excuses for bad parenting when the truth of the matter is bad kids are the result of bad parents.
Keep feeding your kids drugs to control them because you have no spine for a good whack across the butt with a belt.

Oh yeah, and that’s why so many adults are on antidepressants now. Right. You’re real bright. Good job on spelling “principal” wrong too.

The student is a constant distraction. How are other kids supposed to learn? It teaches the kid that his own peers don’t approve of his behavior either. That’s why we have a nation of whimpy children…boo hoo, he got kicked out of class. Too bad. Learn how to act appropriately and you won’t have to worry about people voting you out.
Why would you sue? That’s absolutely ridiculous. Don’t you want to teach your child how to act in school? It’s a lesson. Let the kid learn from it.

Yeah, let’s teach this generation of kids how to be bullies too; just like their parents.

Smack the living hell of the kid. If any of you self-esteem, give every f&(n kid an award, Hilary Clinton bangers disagree. Look how Fucked up our society is because you need to give you kid affection instead of discipline.

God forbid we try to love our children, right?

The teacher should be given an award for attempting to establish some discipline in her class. Even a five year old knows that bad behavior has consequences and maybe this five year old will finally get the message. Obviously the parents haven’t been doing their job. Keep up the good work!

I wish I could tell you all that I was making these comments up. Unfortunately.

No she should not be fired. Maybe if more teachers were like this, the children who refused to obide by the rules of the classroom would learn that it is not acceptable and that it upsets everyone. Bullys and mischeivous kids need to be better discipled by their parents. What have the parents done to teach their child to respect his teacher and classmates. Obvioulsy not enough if the child has to be taught by the teacher. Wake up parents…the buke stops with you…not the schools. It is about time the parents accept responsibility for their childrens actions rather than trying to blame the teachers or the school system. So your child was humiliated in front of the class…maybe if he were a good listener it would not have happened in the first place. At least now he knows the truth and hopefully will start behaving as he should.

Oh, I understand now! Paddle the bullies! So let’s paddle the teacher, huh? Who gets to do that? I vote for the mom, personally. She seems like a reasonable type.

10 to 1 if this kid had been a rich kid, she wouldn’t have gotten away with it either.

Oh, and btw, I’ll go one step further. I did the research (I always do, don’t I?), and here’s the kindergarten page for this school: http://www.stlucie.k12.fl.us/mse/staff/kindergarten.html.
This is her email address: portillow@stlucie.k12.fl.us. Feel free to write something.

HERE’s the link to the administration page. Mrs. Marcia Cully. She’s the principal who didn’t do anything to help child who was wrongfully abused at the hands of WENDY PORTILLO.

It’s always this way. They claim to love children. They claim to want to help children. They claim to be for the children. But only certain children. Only the ones that they feel like helping. Only the “normal” children.

Hypocrites.

BTW, I’m not the only one who is pissed off. Join in.

I’m compiling a list of all the posts I can find on this. If you did one and you’re not on the list, let me know:

1. Whitterer on autism
2. Leftbrainrightbrain
3. Action for autism
4. Asperger Square 8
5. Maternal Instincts…Flying By the Seat of My Pants
6. The Joy of autism
7. Drive mom crazy
8. Whose Planet Is It Anyways?
9. Odd One Out
10. Cogitamus
11. Odd Time Signatures
12. Stop. Think. Autism
13. Along the spectrum
14. Andrea’s Buzzing About
15. Foggyrock
16. The Diaper Heads
17. Memoirs of a chaotic mommy
18. Life with Joey
19. The Rettdevil Rants
20. ASAN
21. Livs Journey
22. Big white hat
23. Ballastexistenz
24. Aspie-editorial
25. Being ammey
26. The Anthill
27. Thinking in Metaphors
28. Lone Wolfs Den
29. Jonathan Turley
30. Lyndon
31. Retired Waif
32. Lorem Ipsum
33. Digital Journal
34. Disability Studies, Temple U.
35. Mommy life
36. Panic’s Deep Thoughts
37. Are You Going To Be This Way The Rest Of The Time I Know You?
38. Charming Bitch
39. The Adventures of Leelo and his Potty-mouthed Mom
40. DC Metro Moms
41. Enter the Jabberwock
42. Incertus
43. Eric Berlin
44. Awalkabout
45. The Gimp Parade
46. Man, or Maniac?
47. Autism Vox
48. Apple Tree
49. Club166
50. A Room of Mama’s Own
51. The Strangest Alchemy
52. Suspect Device: The Blog
53. Huzzah!
54. Beartwinsmom
55. Pipecleaner Dreams
56. The Squiggly Line of Thought
57. Highboldtage
58. Dvorak Uncensored
59. Social Skills and Asperger’s Syndrome
60. The Quaker Agitator
61. Bohemian Booklover
62. The Church of the Apocalyptic Kiwi
63. How This Old Brit Sees It
64. Stirring the Pot
65. Disaboom
66. Midlife and Treachery
67. Celebritique
68. Sanabitur anima mea
69. To Be Great Is To Be Misunderstood
70. I Can Only Imagine
71. Up On Eagle’s Wings
72. A Life Less Ordinary?
73. Kaleidoglide
74. Cripchick
75. Daily Kos (full of a lot of information)
76. Marla Baltes
77. Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
78. Perseveration.org
79. Fatherhood Examiner
80. EditorMom
81. It’s Atypical Neurolognorosis I Tell Ya
82. Wheelie Catholic
83. Free Falling
84. The Lawdog
85. Sheila Schoonmaker
86. Knitting Clio
87. Squeaky Wheel Seeks Grease
88. Mamita Mala – One Bad Mami
89. Chaos Theory
90. Candy Basford’s Weblog
91. Just An Ordinary Day
92. The Quirk Factor . . . Resistance is Futile
93. Planet of the Blind
94. Victoria’s Corner
95. This Little Light
96. Space Cat’s Garden
97. Daughter of the Ring of Fire
98. Thismom.com
99. My Life As A Platypus–Goldie’s Quest for Identity
100. Stoneleafunfounddoor
101. Discussing Autism

Plus a discussion or two:

Democratic Underground
Wrong Planet Barton Discussion
Soap Zone Barton Discussion

And a petition:

Petition against Wendy Portillo

I just got wind of an email from Melissa Barton, Alex’s mother. She said that the thing to do here is to contact:

Office of Governor Charlie Crist
State of Florida
The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001

Citizen Services Hotline: (850) 488-4441
Executive Office of the Governor Switchboard: (850) 488-7146
[Office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time]

Fax: (850) 487-0801

For individuals with hearing loss or speech disability:
1-850-922-7795 (TTY)
OR
711 (Florida Telecommunication Relay)

ASAN – Autistic Self Advocacy Network has also issued a statement on this. In particular, I highlight this section:

Please be polite yet firm in your comments, pointing out the unacceptability of such actions when aimed at any student, as well as the need for this school to adopt policies to prevent this from happening in the future. This is an opportunity to drive home the message that we will not stand by while one of our own is abused. We ask that you please cc: info@autisticadvocacy.org in your e-mails to the school district so we can keep track of the strength and sources of this response. Remember: abusive messages hurt our cause – please be respectful in your comments.

I guess this really emphasizes the quality of that thing which NTs refer to as empathy. And they say that we’re unaware???

~ by lastcrazyhorn on May 25, 2008.