Why do you make fun of your retarded students? Why would you put this page up?
First off, Riti does not make fun of her students. Humor has several uses, and not all are to ridicule or debase. This page should be seen in the same light as surgeons or paramedics making jokes about injured people, or psychiatrists making light of their mentally deranged patients. The people in those fields use humor as a way to relieve the daily stress and aggravation of their very difficult jobs. Paramedics and doctors, especially battlefield surgeons, are renowned for making sick jokes about their patients during their off-time. If they don't release the emotional tension through humor, then it has to come out some other way, hence the saying, "If I don't laugh I'll have to cry."
Being a special education teacher is not substantially different. Riti Sped works with children that have profound and substantive disabilities, and would never be anything but loving, caring and helpful to her students, but on her own time, she, like almost all sped teachers, must find a way to relieve the stress of a very difficult and emotionally trying job. This is her chosen outlet.
Furthermore, the humor employed on the page is Riti's own special, sarcastic brand, and though it does seem rather mean and vitriolic at times, it must be remembered that these are printed jokes in a medium that is wholly separate from her interaction with her students, and show a side of her personality that her students generally do not see.
Is this for real? Can you be serious?
Yes. Everything on this page is absolutely and completely true. This is not a parody or a satire or created fiction of the demented mind of Tucker Max. The pictures should be enough proof of that. Riti composes every story directly from the real life events of her job as a special education teacher, and Tucker edits them and posts them on the site. There is no need for embellishment or lies in a job such as hers.
Of course, even though I say that, all of this could be invented by me. Who actually knows?
Should I feel bad for laughing at these stories?
No. Absolutely not. These are stories related by a special education teacher and written with the intent of making the reader laugh. If you separate the page from the teacher, then you should have no problem laughing at these stories.
Now, if you made fun of a retarded person in a cruel way to their face, or was intentionally mean or cruel to a retarded person that you met, then you are a horrible person and should be shot. But that is not what happens here, not in action or in spirit.
Laughing at this page is no different than laughing at Dead Baby jokes. No one would laugh at an actual dead baby, but the jokes, in a separate context, are still funny.
Why do you use the word "tard?" Isn't this a horrible thing to call them?
We decided on the word "tard" mainly because it is not a word. We picked it for this reason, and thus we can assign our own meaning to the word "tard."
When using "tard" we no not mean necessarily mean "retarded," "stupid," "slow," or any other such word that carries a negative connotation with it. We did not call this the "Retard Blog" or the "Really Stupid Kid Blog" because that is not what it is. This is a journal that is written about the daily happenings in a special education/behavioral disorder classroom.
The children in Riti's class have a myriad of issues, and no two are alike. Some fit under the conventional definition of "mentally retarded," or "developmentally impaired," if you prefer that term. Some are autistic. Some have highly developed neuroses. Others simply have run-of-the-mill behavioral disorders.
We are assigning the word "tard" to all of them as a way of classifying all of them together. For instance, when Riti says something about "her tards," she is referring to everyone in her class.
From an entomological perspective, the definition of "tard," as we use it, could be something as follows:
tard: n., A student in a class that is set aside for children with some sort of special need, e.g. metal retardation, autism, behavioral disorders, etc, generally referred to as Special Education classes.
If you think it is a derogatory word, then that is your problem, not ours, and reflects the biases and issues you bring to the table, not us.
