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Reasonable accommodation or political correctness

by Miki Saxon

accessibility.jpgYesterday CandidProf wrote about what he’s expected to do as “reasonable accommodation” for his students with disabilities.

Many of these struck me as totally UNreasonable. For example, the additional 18 hours a week for just one student is ridiculous—even more so because the work is expected to be done gratis in addition to a normal professor’s workload. No corporation could get away with that.

And CandidProf’s situation applies in the majority of universities, colleges and even high schools across the US.

I realize that in many lofty universities, such as Stanford and Harvard, there are rock star professors who teach only a few classes and spend their time and reputations acquiring grant money to fund research, which, in turn, attracts more alumni donations and an ever larger endowment fund. And although much of that research is valuable and needed, that’s not the issue here.

The issue is the choices being forced on our educators in the name of politically correct and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)—but not on the educational facility.

Our educational system is continually being dumbed down in the name of “fairness,” initiatives such as “no child left behind” and laws like the ADA, with compliance tied to ever scarcer funding.

All mandated by the Powers That Be—mandated but never paid for. So the actual cost is pushed down from Federal to State to local to individuals, with, as usual, those who care, who haven’t been burned/burned out by the system, footing the bill through unpaid hours of work.

The more I read CandidProf’s posts the more depressed I become. I wonder how long he, and others like him, will choose to continue teaching, continue being put in the position of doing more and more for which they weren’t trained, aren’t paid for,  and never dreamed would be required.

What is “reasonable” when it comes to education? And how reasonable is it when that accommodation can have a ripple effect? Do you want an accountant doing your taxes who achieved professional status through a series of accommodations? How about your lawyer or doctor. Would you want your house wired by an electrician whose training was eased over because he had difficulty reading schematics?

How fair is it to the students who do all the work to achieve the same status as the disabled student who was “accommodated?”

Is it even fair to the disabled student? How fair is it to take that student’s money, tell them that they are qualified only to have the world and the law tell them that they aren’t?

Finally, before you tear into what I’ve said—

There are teachers in my family. My niece taught English and history in middle school for several years. Burned out from the constant battles with parents demanding better grades for their children and children talking about suicide as their only choice she returned to school for a MS in Library Science. As a librarian, she can focus on nurturing a love of reading. Her husband teaches college-level economics to high school honor students and runs afoul of the same problems as CandidProf.

As to myself, I have an 85db hearing loss—the typical hearing aid is designed for losses below 65 db—specifically in the consonant range of the human voice. Normal noise, coupled with today’s ultra-fast speech patterns, has eliminated my ability to do much out in the world. It has been years since I’ve attended a function and actually taken an intelligent role in the conversations; and forget podcasts and videos (unless they’re closed captioned). Even in a quiet conference (or living) room I can’t understand the back-and-forth talk between people. That’s why I switched my consulting to coaching via phone, instant messaging and email.

I can tell you first hand that it’s enormously difficult for people to modify their speech patterns and the majority don’t want the bother, which I can understand having been on their side in communicating with my mother.

What truly amazes me is that in spite of all this there are still people who want to teach.

What do you feel is “reasonable accommodation” in an educational situation? And how should it be paid for?

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: star-one  CC license

2 Responses to “Reasonable accommodation or political correctness”
  1. Jen Says:

    Miki,

    As an adjunct professor juggling teaching on a part-time basis along with a very demanding full-time blog and other pursuits, I would never have the time to spend an extra 18 hours per week helping a student. I do my best to help students who seem to have trouble, although one problem is that sometimes these students do not want to identify themselves as having a cognitive issue, ADHD, or a learning disability such as dyslexia that makes learning with everyone else in the classroom difficult.

    What’s the solution? I also have friends who are brilliant educators and colleagues, and some of them have disabilities. But as much as they know their strengths, they have also recognized and accepted their weaknesses. For example, a friend with tremors has not decided to go into surgery, and a friend with a vision deficit knows she wouldn’t be a good airplane pilot.

    As teachers, we should be as supportive as we can be of students, but someone along the way should be encouraging these students to capitalize on their strengths and not to expect everyone in the world to be as compassionate and accommodating as their professors are.

  2. Miki Saxon Says:

    Hi Jen, I agree that people should recognize their “unchangeable” weaknesses, i.e., those beyond their control, as your friends did.

    But we live in a society that teaches the reverse and insists “you can do anything if you put your mind to it.” Would that it were so!

    We also live in a society that has cast teachers in the role of parent, social worker, shrink, confessor, spiritual mentor, policeman, chief cool and bottle washer.

    A society that pays those who teach little money and less respect.

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