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Joanne, and others, community college question


amy g.
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I have a question, specifically about the Study Skills class that you have taught at Lonestar.

 

Last fall, my 18 year old who has classic Autisim as well as a math and a spelling learning disability started at Lonestar.

 

She had to enroll in study skills because of her extremely low math scores.

 

Her study skills teacher knew that she has autism, because she showed him her testing report and asked him who she should take it to to request modifications. He told her that teachers don't usually see a diagnosis, but told her how to get to the special Ed office to get the modification forms.

 

The final in the class was a service project/group project. The group that she was assigned to chose "helping poor autistic children" as their goal.

 

The problem is that they completely froze her out. They wouldn't correspond with her, they wouldn't even respond to her texts or emails, even the one requesting that they at least change the title to "underprivileged children with autism"

 

She did a huge amount of work, passing out flyers in the student union, getting signatures for a petition, creating a Facebook page about Autisim education.

 

They would not add of her work to the power point presentation. Or the presentation at all. They wouldn't even like the Facebook page.

 

She did go to the teacher and he said they could have 15 minutes before the presentation to get it straightened out. However, they still refused to include her at all.

 

She handled it by giving the professor hard copies of the visuals she had prepared and rocking her presentation and turning in her typed 3 pages of research and notes she had prepared for her presentation.

 

After he read her work, he told her she was way too smart to be a farmer, to which she replied, "Really? You want to eat food raised by stupid people?"

 

So after the class, she sent him a message asking what she should have done differently. She sent him dates and content of every time she tried to contact her team members. She told him that she had been homeschooled all of her life and had no experience with group projects, and also that her Autism makes it tricky sometimes to know how to communicate with her peers, but that she was sure to encounter more assignments like this and would really appreciate his advice on how she could change her actions to get better results next time.

 

After that, he saw her in the hall, and said,"I got your message, and I'm thinking about how to respond to it. "

 

It has now been 6 months. He never responded to her at all.

 

The thing is, my kid is fine. She will be taking honors classes there next semester. She has become empowered by the research she did on Autism for the assignment, and has found like-minded advocates online. She could not care less about what happened.

 

I'm a former public school teacher, it really infuriates me that someone in charge of helping at risk kids would feel like it is appropriate to just ignore her request.

 

I need perspective. Am I being unreasonable in being upset about this? Am I blowing it out of proportion?

 

I appogjze for writing a novel. I just could not see how to ask for perspective without including a ton of details.

 

Thanks!

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Can it be that he just forgot? If he teaches multiple classes, he may easily be swamped with email messages, and it is entirely possible that it got moved out of sight in his inbox.

 

I would recommend that your DD talk to the people in the Disabilities Office (or whatever it is called at her school). They are the ones who set up accommodations, and they are the ones who can assist students how to work around issues that may arise because of their special situation. The instructor is not usually trained to deal with this; his expertise would be his subject, and maybe dealing with more typical issues that arise in group work. If her problems have anything to do with her autism, he may simply have no idea what to do.

 

As instructors, when we have students with special needs, we receive instructions from the disabilities office on how to accommodate the student. I have found it helpful to ask the office about specific situations to get a better idea how I can assist the student (I am not entitled to knowing a diagnosis, and I am not sure how helpful that would be anyway)- but I have no expertise. Sometimes the student shares details with me and tells me specifically what might be helpful beyond the accommodations on his form, but aside from that, I have to rely on the counseling center and disabilities office. So, I could imagine that the instructor might honestly not know how to address the issue if it was indeed caused by her autism.

 

(Since I do not have group projects in my classes, I do not know to what degree college instructors typically micromanage the group interactions of their adult students. I could imagine they simply expect the students to be able to cooperate and are not used to playing referee.)

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More later, because I am on my phone.

 

What campus?

 

My quick guess is that the Professor is over the semester, feels your dd is fine, and has moved on. It is probably not personal. While not super, it is also not a terrible fail.

 

Your dd ( and her mom) appear to be awesome women!

 

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Very good points. I would not usually expect a professor to help her with this, but that is the CONTENT of this class.

 

The class is to help at risk students understand how to be successful in college.

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Your dd is awesome. I heart her answer about being a farmer. I will gladly purchase food from her.

 

My thoughts as a former adjunct professor are that the prof forgot, just as regentrude and Joanne suggested. New semester came, and the old one was out of sight, out of mind. Academia has such a fast turnover.

 

Re: group projects (as I have assigned quite a few of those as an instructor in mental health courses) - The students are expected to be completely on their own in the way they manage the group project. That is part of the experience.

 

Mom to mom - if dd is fine and has moved on, I think it is okay for you to let it go. At this point, dd is a young adult and it sounds like she is navigating these situations pretty darn well.

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