ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

People were suspecting that the Colorado shooter, an extremely talented guy, James Holmes might have some sort of mental disorders to explain the precalculated mass murder. Speculation that he has Aspergers or Autism flies everywhere. I don't know if James Holmes truly has any mental illness or developmental disability. Even if he has, it doesn’t mean someone else with similar illness or disability would be a threat to the society. However, I do believe that our education system is inadequate in preparing kids with disabilities in fitting in the real world and to interact with others.

I can’t praise my school too much. I really love the education that our school provides. In addition to within class and between class ability grouping, we also have a special education program especially established for the exceptionally gifted kids (those with IQ over 145) to address their social and emotional needs in regards to appropriate interactions with the world around them, to build empathy and to eliminate isolation. They often have field trips in the community to connect them to the real world. While the country puts on so much emphasis on trying to bring up kids who lag behind academically, we should also pay more attention to those extremely talented but socially incapable.

That being said, it shouldn’t stop at the point when a person graduates from school. We also need to set up a checkpoint system with social workers and psychiatrists in place to continue to provide help to people on their social and emotional needs to continue to appropriately interact with the world to eliminate isolation.

Yes, that's true. However, sometimes the love from one's family is not enough. Also the love from one's family could be overindulgence at times which could worsen the problem. As when it comes to the love ones, parents are usually less objective and more likely to come up with excuses for their kids' behaviors.

Written by Elisa English

On July 27th, 2012