Unpopular OpinionsI

[ArgyleEnigma]

Jan 29, 2016 20:08:57 GMT -5 soultrane said:

I have one that may be unpopular. You know those "feel good" stories that tend to go viral on social media? "Student with special needs scores winning touchdown!" "Cheerleader asks student with Down Syndrome to prom" They always make me uncomfortable, because they usually seem to be borderline patronizing to the person with special needs.

It also goes back to my point yesterday that so many people do nice things or charitable things for the recognition. It's bad enough when someone donates to an organization and feels the need to blast their good deed all over social media, but when it involves another person it makes me really uncomfortable.

I don't think this is going to be unpopular.  Those things are always more about the typically-developing person feeling good than actually benefiting the supposed recipient.  I bet in real life they often are nice little acts of kindness--maybe that kid really did love getting the chance to play ball, or the cheerleader and her date were friendly and it was a nice date, I can see it going either way--but once it's blasted on social media as "Wow, how nice of the normal people to give their precious attention to those poor lessers!" any charm is horribly reversed.  

[txmommy14]

Jan 29, 2016 20:08:57 GMT -5 soultrane said:

I have one that may be unpopular. You know those "feel good" stories that tend to go viral on social media? "Student with special needs scores winning touchdown!" "Cheerleader asks student with Down Syndrome to prom" They always make me uncomfortable, because they usually seem to be borderline patronizing to the person with special needs.

It also goes back to my point yesterday that so many people do nice things or charitable things for the recognition. It's bad enough when someone donates to an organization and feels the need to blast their good deed all over social media, but when it involves another person it makes me really uncomfortable.

I never really thought about it but I agree with this. If they are really your equal or truly your friend, you wouldn't be receiving so much praise for treating them like a valuable person. But I know that's not the intent, and I always found myself proud and surprised by the few students that would stop by my classroom and actually invest in my students' lives, but maybe I should be more angry that there are so few who did. I had one girl in my "Circle of Friends" club I sponsored that was super popular, cheerleader, etc. She turned down some popular guy she actually liked for prom because one of my students (who functions at a 3-4 year old range) was dying to go with her. She got embarrassed and annoyed when people would praise her and act like it was so sweet of her and be like, "He's my friend, why would I not want to go with him?" She would have hated if the news picked it up. I loved it that she was so genuine. It's hard to find kids in high school like that.