Some of you are going to disagree

with this but I am going to say it anyway. We do need some special schools.

This morning's paper has a story about a child who was given "time out" for an entire day because he fought with another child in the classroom. His mother is up in arms about it. The school principal has been "counselled". The media is suggesting it was "inappropriate". I could go on. 

I do not know the circumstances so I cannot comment. However I have just been having one of those quick conversations with a local dog walker. He had read the article before I had and wanted my opinion. I was cautious about responding but he was not cautious about his own views. His grandson is in the same class as another very disruptive child. 

"My daughter says the kid is autistic. If he is then he needs to be somewhere else. It's not fair on the other kids."

I know this man's daughter and I have heard about the problem from her. I have seen the child in question, although not in the classroom. I have seen him more than once in the shopping centre with his mother. Yes, he is a problem. His behaviour is bizarre. In a classroom it would be very, very distracting for everyone. His teacher is doing an amazing job coping with it for short periods each day. The rest of the time it seems he is "wandering" around the room interfering with what the other children are doing or he is "one-on-one" with a teacher aide who is really there for three classes, two of which have children with other very special needs. 

There is no other school placement available for this child. There is no "special" class, unit or school available. It is all too easy to say he is "better off" in a regular mainstream classroom surrounded by children who behave "normally", that he needs to be there for his own benefit. The question surely has to be "what about everyone else?"

Even if this child is given one-on-one attention all day what if he is still shouting and lashing out? Is a mainstream classroom really the right place for him? Does he find the situation as confronting as others find it having him there? Is this what it is like for the child who was given "time out" all day?

School is a very different place from the schools I attended and even the schools I worked in. Education methods have changed dramatically since then. I am not sure they have necessarily changed for the best. Countries where methods are more "traditional" do seem to have higher levels of achievement - and I am not referring just to places like China. It might just be that the way schools are functioning now simply does not suit all children, that there are children who find the situation simply overwhelming and that those who would once have found it hard to function in a regular classroom now find it impossible. I know I could not work in classrooms I have seen in recent years. They seem noisy and chaotic to me. If what is going on inside your head is noisy and chaotic too this must make it worse.

Would providing a small, well regulated and quiet learning space actually be a better thing for some of these children? Would it be better even if it isolated them from the mainstream and treated them as "special"?