SPED Does Not Mean Stupid

I have a little sister. She is ten years old and I love her to death. A few years back we all notice her grades started to decline and she began to struggle with homework. My parents went to her school and met with her teachers and they all made a group decision that my sister needed an I.E.P. (individualized Education Plan.) She was then evaluated with a multitude of tests and they pin-pointed the subjects that give her the toughest time. Now she is in fifth grade. Each day she is pulled out of her regular class during the times they have Language Arts and Math. She is brought to a classroom and is taught at a pace that is better suited for her. She's enrolled in Special Education classes.

At first she was fine at the thought of getting help in these subjects. She just thought of it as no big deal. But after her classmates found out she was in Special Education, that outlook on the whole situation rapidly turned south. Every day she came home and fought my parents on it. She constantly argued that she did not need to be there. She wanted to go back to the normal classroom and learn at the same speed as the other kids.

For a while I did not understand why she was suddenly fighting it. Till one day she came home and told my mom that someone called her stupid. Some obnoxious kid in her class told her she was stupid because she was in SPED classes. Of course this broke all of our hearts to hear this. I was outraged. Who does this kid think he is, making fun of my little sister?

I didn't understand why someone would make fun of someone for their style of learning. Then I thought back to when I was ten years old. First off, I had terrible sense of style and obviously no notion of what hair products were, but I remembered my best friend Sarah. There was a boy who made fun of her every time she got pulled out of class for Special Education classes. Of course kids are sometimes cruel and heartlessly mean to one another, but I wondered why it happened to Sarah as it did to my sister?

I thought about how I felt about Sarah when I was ten. I remember that I thought she was cooler than me, and I remember that I thought she was more outspoken than me. But one thing I don't remember is ever thinking she was smarter than me. Now that I think about it, I didn't think any of my friends in Special Education were smarter than me. In fact, I thought I was a lot smarter than them.

So reflecting now, why did I, like so many others, equate Special Education to stupidity? Now that I'm older I know the kids there learn the exact same things as average level students, just a little slower. In reality, kids in those classes could actually be smarter than me or any other student. I feel like students should know that no matter what level of learning you're at, you all learn the same material. I didn't know that in fifth grade. I didn't know that till freshman year of high school! If students were aware of this, maybe they would be less cruel to their classmates? Maybe, just maybe, judgment wouldn't be passed so quickly on these kids?