Stakeholder #1

My obvious first stakeholder would be the people that are directly affected in this controversy. Children with disabilities. And in this case, it is Henry, who has Asperger's syndrome.

My first stakeholder is Henry. He represents the children struggling at school due to their disability.  Specifically, Henry represents those who struggle with Asperger’s syndrome. Henry excels academically in school; when he takes interest in things, he becomes obsessed. He is a rule follower- to a fault. If he realizes he broke a rule, then he cannot focus on anything else until it is fixed. This causes many problems at a public school, especially if the teacher doesn’t understand how Henry’s brain works. Because he lacks social skills, he tends to keep to himself and not speak very often. It is very difficult for him to make friends, and he is an easy target for bullies. This makes school stressful and exhausting for him. And oftentimes, the parts of the day—recess—that is most stressful for him, are unsupervised by teachers or officials. One day, Henry peed his pants and didn’t tell anyone because he thought he broke the rules, and not one teacher noticed. He is an excellent example of a child with disability that needs extra support: but not academic. Autism affects many children in many different ways. This means that schools need to offer a wide range of therapists and administrators to assist these students to give them the best learning environment possible.

In this article, Henry is exhausted after his day at school, and loathed going every day. However, after his mother found this unique solution, he would say, "When can we get going?" Henry represents all of the children with a disability. In this video, a group of children speak out about their treatment on school. "I think it is important for children with disability like the hearing impaired and the vision impaired to go to school. That is why they should have training for teachers," says one small girl that suffers from a disability. In addition, Tanner Skilton who suffers from dyslexia speaks about his experiences in school through the Speak Out for Understanding organization. He says, “I have dyslexia, so they wanted me to work on my English skills, on my grammar and my punctuation and all those other things, instead of French or instead of going to a library class or an art class."

These claims are very valid, because they are coming from the children that are directly affected. These stories are coming directly from those who were affected, which makes them incredibly credible. I don't think these children are trying to play on our emotions, and if they are, it isn't the objective of their message. They are trying to be heard.

These claims are similar to the claims of the parents. However, while the parents are mainly concerned with how their kids are being included, these kids just want to be heard and understood. Their brains don't work the same as everyone else's, and they just want their teacher to understand that,

Heidi Benser "Smiles better" 5-21-10 via telegraph.co.uk