Against Isolation

When I first heard about then 5-year-old Alex Barton being voted out of his kindergarten class by his fellow students, who had been told to do so by their teacher, Wendy Portillo, my reaction was total disbelief. What was the teacher thinking? I've plenty of familiarity with "behavior problems" in and out of the classroom and of the difficulties of addressing these, but Portillo's action, setting students against one student as it did, baffled me. There is meanness, you might say, and there is what struck me as a most unsound and unfortunate pedagogical "practice."

Earlier this year, Portillo appealed her one-year-suspension and termination of her tenure. Yesterday's Palm Beach Post reports that a Florida judge has upheld Portillo's suspension for a year without pay and the loss of her tenure:

The school district proved Portillo violated the state’s code of ethics for teachers and school board rules in the May 21 incident. In the incident, she asked students to say whether Alex should be in the classroom while she tallied the votes on a board, Arrington said in his order.

Alex was in the process of being diagnosed with a type of high-functioning autism. His mother, Melissa Barton, did not testify at the hearing. But because she was listed as a potential witness, she was not allowed to hear most of the testimony.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Barton said of the judge’s order. Barton hoped Portillo would be fired.

“At least there will be some sort of punishment,” she said.

The judge sided with the district’s assertion that Portillo exposed Alex and the other students to “unnecessary embarrassment or disparagement” and used an inappropriate method of discipline. She also failed to exercise the best professional judgment and failed to make a reasonable effort to protect Alex from harassment, he wrote in the order.

What especially troubled me about this whole incident was that students were made to judge another student and were, in effect, set in opposition against another student. That student, Alex Barton, was literally isolated when he was cast out of his classroom. But the isolation was also social and psychological, with Alex's peers directed to vote on him in a scenario more than painfully reminiscent of the public humiliation of Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

Isolation is something Jim and I have long struggled against, and yet experienced, and painfully. Whether we're on the spectrum ourselves or the relative of someone who is, we all have some memory of realizing that we, or someone very close to us, is being seen as "different," and shunned. I always find strength in the community and companionship of other individuals and families who live, as we do, everyday with disability----nonetheless, circumstances sometimes make it extra-taxing, if not just not possible, to get out beyond our own door and see and be with others.

It was precisely to not be isolated that, back in June of 2005 when Charlie was struggling and in a crisis situation, I started writing about him and autism in a blog. Things had gotten to the point that it was hard to take Charlie anywhere and I felt the circle of possibilities for him, for us, tightening and tightening. Writing and sharing about Charlie and our lives in a public, online setting was an attempt to forestall isolation, to reach out and communicate. I certainly didn't think then that, via blogging, i'd come into contact with so many people across New Jersey, the US, and around the world.

I recounted this story of writing-to-move-beyond-isolation to a student on Tuesday. She interviewed me as part of an assignment to participate in the StoryCorps and I don't think you'll be surprised to know that, even while nursing a sore throat from a cold, I had more than a lot to say, and could have gone on and on and on. At the end of the interview, I thanked my student for giving me the opportunity to speak about Charlie's story and ours----I guess I believe that, by doing this, the isolation abates and Charlie's story----and Alex Barton's----get told, are hold, and will be remembered.