MVP: ‘School spaces: privacy and postitionality’, pp. 107-109

            Being placed in special education has negative stereotypes from a student’s perspective. In this article, and from my personal experience, teachers do not help destigmatize these discriminating assumptions. Some assumptions include: the short bus supposedly being for special ed. kids and that they’re all slow. There is no way of knowing where these beliefs come from, we just know they exist and most of the time we look past it. Therefore, overtime a social status in schools is created and special education students feel segregated from the rest of the school due to their small classrooms and the assumptions. Also, feeling different from the others can cause students to find the need to protect their social status or hide the fact that they’re in special ed. As for me, I did both and it was a lot of hard work to defend my social status and keep my secret of being in special ed. at the age of 8. Going forward, and as a future educator, I can’t change stereotypes overnight but I can reach out to fellow educators to help educate all students that special education is a program to support students and should not be judged or viewed negatively. (Ferri & Connor, 2010)