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The following excerpt is from TEACHER'S HANDBOOK OF DIRTY TRICKS by Floyd Wells.
DIRTY TRICK #23
Use the Book of Excuses to cushion your job.
Sooner
or later you will be asked to make special accommodations in your classroom for
students with special needs under section 504 or PL 94-142.
In most cases, these special accommodations are legitimate, but an ever
growing number result from people using section 504 to cover their trifleness. Many 504 candidates are diagnosed with Attention
Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD), and the new fashionable label is
Opposition Defiant Disorder (ODD). A
neighboring school district of mine was recently sued because a parent claimed
her child had ODD, and wanted as part of her child’s intervention plan for him
to be able to curse out his teachers and the administration with impunity
whenever he felt like it.
Criteria
for diagnosing AD/HD and ODD are found in a tome with the pretentious title Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, known as the
DSM-IV for short. A colleague of
mine calls it the Book of Excuses. It
is put out by the American Psychiatric Association, an organization which until
1974 considered homosexuality a disease, and if it had existed two hundred years
ago, would undoubtedly have considered femininity a deviant behavioral disorder.
What
hasn’t dawned on most teachers is the fact that the same umbrella of
legislative protection that covers students in the classroom also protects
teachers from discrimination on the job. Do
you realize what that means? If you
can get a label out of the Book of Excuses placed on you, you can turn around
and demand that your school district make special accommodations for you.
What
are some of the special labels found in the Book of Excuses?
How
about 315.2, Disorder of Written Expression if you don’t like to write lesson
plans?
Or
315.1, Mathematics Disorder if you don’t like to average grades?
Or
307.80, Pain Disorder Associated with Psychological Factors if you don’t like
to put up with eighth graders?
Then
there’s 305.90, Caffeine Intoxication, the criterion being ingestion of a mere
250 mg (two or three cups) of brewed
coffee.
Or
if you want your principal to have to come and relieve you so you can have a
break every thirty minutes or so, try the old reliable AD/HD.
Don’t
get along with your principal? Jump
on the ODD bandwagon. You only have
to show symptoms for six months. (Do
you often lose your temper? Often
become angry or resentful? Become
touchy or easily annoyed by others? Often
actively defy or refuse to comply with rules?
Good. You’ve shown the
requisite four of the eight symptoms listed to qualify.)
Of
course, any doctor can take the checklist from the Book of Excuses and label any
adolescent as ODD. That’s what school lawyers frequently argue when they’re
fighting the diagnosis. But they
can’t argue that in your case. You’re
well past adolescence, no matter what your mother-in-law says.
Okay,
you want to use the Book of Excuses to cushion your job.
What do you need? Two
things. A sleazy doctor who will
give you the diagnosis, and a sleazy lawyer who will threaten to sue the
district if they don’t give you your special accommodations.
You may also want to order a copy of the Book of Excuses.
(Please refer to it as the DSM-IV when you order.)
It’s available from the American Psychiatric Association Press, Inc.,
1400 K St., N.W., Suite 1101, Washington, D.C. 20005.
If you don’t want to pay the wallet-flattening $59.95 for the 886 page
hardcover monstrosity, you can get a desk reference version for $24.
At
first glance, it may seem like sleazy lawyers are more plentiful than sleazy
doctors. The fact is, sleazy
doctors are out there; you just don’t hear about them until they get caught
defrauding Medicare. A good place
to start looking is in a four-volume work entitled 16,638 Questionable Doctors, put out by the Ralph Nader watchdog
group Public Citizens Health Research Group, 1600 20th Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20009. The work
also comes in regional editions entitled Questionable
Doctors Disciplined by State and Federal Governments.
Hopefully your public library has a copy.
Or
you may be able to corrupt your family doctor into giving you the diagnosis if
you keep going back to him/her. If
you’re obnoxious enough, they’ll do anything to get rid of you.
By
the way, if you don’t like being deceitful, you can use the direct approach
and go for v65.2, Malingering, which is defined by the Book of Excuses as “the
intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological
symptoms, motivated by external incentives such as . . . avoiding work.”
Copyright (c) 2000 by Floyd Wells. All rights reserved.
Pass this email along to a colleague who needs it. It's good for one in-service credit from the Teacher College of Hard Knocks. For more excerpts from TEACHER'S HANDBOOK OF DIRTY TRICKS, visit http://teacherwithanattitude.netfirms.com