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Score one for effective PR when Brandon Sanchez was brought in front of the committee (like an animal on exhibit at a zoo, Which was gut wrentching because, well, I know folks like Brandon,) and yeah, his behaviors were a bit disconcerning, but he was not wearing the GED system, so I figured at least the hearings were positive in that the student who led Matthew Isreal to create the GED was, for eight or so hours, not wearing a GED.
I wasn't prepared to see this and see an similar photo on the cover of the Boston Globe today. It's a compelling photo, but I feel, being there, it was compelling for a whole host of different reasons than seeing it on the front page today. It's sad that the reality as a person at the hearings, essentially, Brandon was kept out of the hearing room until his uncle decided to put him on show as if he is an exotic animal. "The hardest to treat, the GED saved his life" his uncle, a member of the legislature who has stopped previous anti-aversives legislation, said. I thought he looked scared. He walked in a sullen way, head down, like the other children described in the Mother Jones article or other published reports of the treatment at JRC.
As a person who has been labeled a "behavior problem" who "probably won't finish high school" let alone college, I felt a sense of "wow, I'm lucky I had a mother that refused to even consider a residential placement." A full decade after I got my degree in English, and Disability Studies, I'm glad JRC's "advertisements" weren't big in the Lewiston School System.
