It's the logical extension of classroom inclusion (and mainstreaming) policies for students with learning disabilities.
Expect to see more of it as it gained traction among in US colleges of education about 20 years ago - particularly in primary education departments.
On the bright side, at least it's not an MD.
Edit: I believe that in general mainstreaming and inclusion are a good public policy concept with a really thorny ethical issue attached. The thorny issue is, at what point you tell the student, "We were only kidding. You're not really smart enough to continue on the academic path with your classmates."
Both ideas gained a lot of traction in primary education departments in the early 90's [US]. Primary educators loved Mainstreaming because they were able to pretend the thorny issue didn't exist and let it be dealt with at the secondary level.
As with any bureaucracy, secondary educators have an incentive to continue to pass the buck and little to gain by kicking the mayor's autistic nephew out of AP calculus (so to speak).
It's the logical extension of classroom inclusion (and mainstreaming) policies for students with learning disabilities.
Expect to see more of it as it gained traction among in US colleges of education about 20 years ago - particularly in primary education departments.
On the bright side, at least it's not an MD.
Edit: I believe that in general mainstreaming and inclusion are a good public policy concept with a really thorny ethical issue attached. The thorny issue is, at what point you tell the student, "We were only kidding. You're not really smart enough to continue on the academic path with your classmates."
Both ideas gained a lot of traction in primary education departments in the early 90's [US]. Primary educators loved Mainstreaming because they were able to pretend the thorny issue didn't exist and let it be dealt with at the secondary level.
As with any bureaucracy, secondary educators have an incentive to continue to pass the buck and little to gain by kicking the mayor's autistic nephew out of AP calculus (so to speak).
I suspect a lot of people as disabled as Mr Hawking is never had the chance for anyone to discover they weren't cognitively impaired, let alone geniuses. People would take one look at the twisted limbs and stuff the poor kid off in a home, and let the kid's brain shrivel.
That's one of the ideas behind mainstreaming: put the kids into mainstream environments, with assistance as needed, in order to bring out whatever potential might be there. (Kinda like with 'normal' kids, expose them to art to bring out artistic talents, etc.)
Mainstreaming is not only about cognitive impairment. It's disabilities in general. Taking the deaf kid, the kid in a wheelchair, or the kid with a cognitive impairment, and putting them in classes with non-disabled kids, rather than isolating them with others 'of their own kind'.
I completely agree that mainstreaming is an appropriate educational strategy when used correctly. The issue is the competing interests of inclusion of those with cognitive impairment and upholding academic standards.
At the level of primary education, this competition of interests is easy for educators to ignore since many of the objectives are social rather than academic and primary classrooms naturally contain students with widely ranging levels of cognitive development.
However, at what point do you use absolute achievement rather than relative to the individual? Middle School? High School? Undergraduate? Graduate? Professional Licensing?
The article points to a case well down the slippery slope. Replace "PhD in Math" with "JD" and your at the bottom...unless of course, one advocates requiring courts to consider the cognitive impairments of an attorneys when evaluating the merits of their briefs.
The problem is that at some point the consequences of relative standards could seriously affect other people...that's why chiropractors aren't allowed to perform open heart surgery.
To cast it in terms of rights, my right to maximize my opportunities does not trump your right to maximize your opportunities, and vice versa.
Not in the usual sense, no. But his current state of communication problems would certainly be a "learning disability" in a typical school environment where things tend to be a bit faster paced, and teachers and students are often not as patient as people are with Mr. Hawking today.
A learning disability is NOT just "a disability which affects learning"
It's a specific thing. You're stretching the definition.
It's like someone says, "I don't have cancer, I have aids," and you reply, "Well, aids is a kind of cancer, since it gets into your body and then spreads like a cancer eventually killing you."
Expect to see more of it as it gained traction among in US colleges of education about 20 years ago - particularly in primary education departments.
On the bright side, at least it's not an MD.
Edit: I believe that in general mainstreaming and inclusion are a good public policy concept with a really thorny ethical issue attached. The thorny issue is, at what point you tell the student, "We were only kidding. You're not really smart enough to continue on the academic path with your classmates."
In the US its rise coincided with that of facilitated communication in the classroom for autistic individuals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitated_communication
Both ideas gained a lot of traction in primary education departments in the early 90's [US]. Primary educators loved Mainstreaming because they were able to pretend the thorny issue didn't exist and let it be dealt with at the secondary level.
As with any bureaucracy, secondary educators have an incentive to continue to pass the buck and little to gain by kicking the mayor's autistic nephew out of AP calculus (so to speak).