While our son’s disabilities make it unlikely that he’ll be able to live on his own when he becomes an adult, he’s fortunate that he’s quite functional, unlike other young people who have more severe disabilities than he has.

I really feel for the families of those with severe disabilities, and I understand why many cannot homeschool their children. But sometimes I wonder what’s going through the heads of those who plan public school curriculum for these kids. Some of these educrats have many years of teacher training classes behind them, yet they seem to think something like this is a revelation:

Without knowing it, Mr. Adams’s efforts had touched on recent research in educating severely disabled children that focuses on using emotion and human connection to reach them. As higher functioning areas of their brains are underdeveloped, emotion moves them at a deeper level, lighting up the same part of their brain, the limbic system, as meaningful music, and possibly creating a bridge to greater intellectual cognition.

“We are so focused on teaching them skills, we don’t focus on the emotional part of the child,” said Rosanne K. Silberman, who coordinates graduate teacher preparation programs in severe disabilities and blindness at Hunter College.

Wow. You get results when you reach these young people on an emotional level. Who’d have thought? (sarcasm off)

PS Mr. Adams was the longtime teacher of the disabled young man in the article; after many years of working with the young man and developing a close friendship with him, he was reassigned to other students and now the young man has regressed. How sad. Way to go, educrats.