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The Blind Man;
the Elephant;
and School Districts.

We all know the story of the blind man and the elephant; how the blind man tried to ‘visualize’ an elephant by touch, one part at a time.

When you have a special needs child in the school system, and you’re grappling with your District, you’re a lot like the blind man. So, too, is the District.

You each have certain knowledge of relevant facts. You each share many of these facts with the other. But you also withhold some of the facts, whether required by privacy laws or policies, mistrust for the other or simple oversight.

Let’s say you encountered the tail of the elephant and were in the process of visualizing the elephant as a large snake, hanging from a tree. At that moment a vicious tiger leapt onto the back of the elephant and began a savage assault against the larger beast. The elephant tossed and turned in great agony, in a powerful but futile effort to throw the tiger from its back. What would your visualization then be, not being able to see and take in the whole picture? Why, an elephant must be like the heavy mooring line of a ship, loose at your end and blowing dangerously about in a storm! (Does this sound like your life?)

As anyone who has ever attended an IEP meeting or dealt with a school district following a special needs child knows, the district’s employees are deaf, as well as blind (at least, they appear to be). This explains why no one will acknowledge the true cause of the problem (the tiger on the elephant’s back). No one hears the commotion, so they can’t identify its source.

So there you are, holding on for dear life, at the end of that wildly flailing tail (your child), while those who “observe,” blind and deaf as they are, condemn you for not doing a better job of keeping the elephant’s tail under control.

Not a one of them knows about (or will even consider the possibility of) the tiger, or cares to go look for it to save the elephant, and all those who stand in its panicked path.

-- Dave Alden

About the author: Dave is the father of two special needs children, adopted from an orphanage in Ukraine. He is also a founder of Legal.com. He asks, "Whatever happened to the mantra, 'It takes a village to raise a child?'" Discuss this article.

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