Personal Responsibility and Special Needs

A friend sent me a link yesterday to a message board discussing the situation of a special needs student at the university level. Obviously apropos to myself, given that I teach special needs students at the high school level, the debate proved interesting.

The situation was the following: the student has a condition known as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). [I will not even begin to debate whether or not this and other disabilities like it actually exist; anyone who does not believe in it should stop by my classroom sometime.] Given that most universities have policies for students with disabilities, this student was demanding extra time for his tests (up to twice the allowed time). Obviously, this is a difficulty for the person administering the test, and an ethical question involving the consideration of whether or not said student actually deserved the extra time because of his conduct during classtime. Plainly said, he didn't appear to be trying to compensating for his illness by sitting near the front of the class, visiting the professor during office hours, etc.

Regardless of what the answer is to the question, university policy exists and for good reason: there are students who need it. The fact that it is often abused (like so many other things) does not negate its necessity. There is nothing that the person administering the test can do-even if the student never attended class- but to grin and bear it. I don't think there is any review of policy or criteria you can put into place to make sure abuses don't happen.

However, ethically, we can debate this forever and a day. People have disabilities, this is a fact of life. To what extent can their disabilties be used as an excuse? It reminds me of the post I wrote on Fate (alas, the poor student was finally expelled; I wish him well). I would like to think that everyone is capable of doing much more than what they think they are capable of, if they would only try. Of course, again, my bias is that I am an educator and if I didn't believe that I wouldn't bother to help my students as much as I do. But just as I see so many people use their disabilities as an excuse, I see so many people overcoming incredible odds to accomplish amazing things.

"Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records."-William Ward