We think that labeling students for special education services is the good thing. However, we should recognize that there is real stigma that comes with it. Therefore, some of the middle and high school students refuse the service for themselves. My co-teacher had a hard time when she needed to take the Special Education students to another room for the tests (it was part of their Individual Educational Plan, IEP, that they need extra time for tests) because they do not want other students to know that they are in Special Education.

Some parents did not want the service that their child needs either because they do not want their child to be labeled with a disability. I just attend the training with a group of Special Ed and English Language Learners, ELL, teachers. One of them told me about a Hispanic mother answered in a Home Language Survey for her second child that they did not speak another language at home because she did not like what her first child got. Nevertheless, the school placed the second child in the English Language Learners class anyway. When the mother protested that she answered that they only speak English, the school replied that they knew his brother and she answered differently for the first.

Sometime we are over zealously in rescuing a child, we forget to ask for his or her opinion also. I have an extremely bright and extremely shy child and I never gave him any special treatment. Therefore, he was very well behaved and not a show off student. He always minded his own work and did not raise his hand in class. This behavior flagged him as not understand the lesson even though his works were always in perfection.

 When he was in second grade, he even got one of his poems recommended for publication. Hence, he was placed in the English Language Learners program without testing or informing me. I only found out when he cried after school. When I asked, he told me that he was pulled out of his regular class for something very easy that he did not want to do. I made a phone call to the school and you guessed it. After they traumatized my child, I must come to school to sign him out of the English Language Learners program that he did not need.

When my children were young, our school district opened for summer reading programs and I always signed-up my children for this program and attended them every week. We also checked out at least thirty books to read during the week because my son already knew how to read and that is his favorite activity. Therefore, when I told the school librarian that he was place in the English as Second Language, ESL, class, she said,"He was the only three years old that understood and laughed at my jokes during reading times." If the school personnel only talked to him or the teacher took the time to learn about her students, they could see that he should have been in higher grade. At that time, the gifted program was not in place yet and I was new to how the school system works in the United States, so my son just went through the motion of normal first to twelfth grade! He was salutatorian of his class. We need advocates for the gifted because they are the under served group in Special Education.