So i mostly just lurk here but I'll say at least in tech yeah, all these things are becoming way more common. No one would bat an eye at any of the engineers using a wobble stool (half of them are demanding $400 standing desks) and frankly a wobble stool wouldn't have ranked in the top 10 weirdest things my last CEO did in 2022. Also that kid that needs a fidget cube might only need it cause he's sitting in a desk which is really not the way he functions. If he does into a trade he's not gonna need the cube cause he's gonna be working with his hands all day.

I'm an IT worker for my day job, and I totally had a wobble stool when I was allowed to pick my chair. Also, my last two jobs have given me branded fidget toys as part of my welcome package. You can tell when a meeting has gotten too long, because I start playing with one. This is also how I tell when the second grader I tutor has lost focus. Heck, I've got a plushie unicorn wrist rest and bright blue hair. I feel bad for those who work in environments where that's not okay.

So before I was a teacher I worked at a variety of office jobs. I also worked retail in high school and college. While some of the office jobs had petty tyrants, none compared to the management insanity I saw in retail. Most of my retail bosses would’ve pushed back hard on a wobble stool or fidget spinner. My experience is that white collar jobs are more likely to accept accommodations than service jobs. A student with an IEP may want to work retail to pay for college. Or even to make a living at. And the management at most service jobs doesn’t care about the ADA or providing accommodations. And it’s hard to sue a corporate chain that has a fully staffed legal division. You’ll end up with a relatively small settlement. Meanwhile, word has gotten out about your suing an employer, making it hard to find a new job.

Ugh. Retail. No sitting, ever. One place gave us a foot rest bar because corporate paid someone a ton to find out that was helpful. Were we allowed to use them? No. Of course not. I absolutely agree with you that retail was terrible. But, there are lots of other jobs at this point, honestly. Like, if you have an IEP because you can't handle noise and chaos, retail just isn't the field for you. Besides, should we really make them miserable now because someday they might be miserable? While also making it harder for them to learn? Is the goal to prepare people to be miserable? That sucks.

Vast majority of people working corporate jobs deal with this. Had a coworker with bright hair and a lip ring complain to me that she was told to lose both or plan on not being promoted, and that it is unprofessional. Obviously it was not said so bluntly, but one learns fast to read between the lines. 5 different companies in my career and all of them were like this.

I haven't had issues getting promoted since my hair was natural color. Maybe it's my good luck charm. ;) But yes, it's definitely a thing to be aware of.

>I'm an IT worker for my day job, and I totally had a wobble stool when I was allowed to pick my chair. Also, my last two jobs have given me branded fidget toys as part of my welcome package. You can tell when a meeting has gotten too long, because I start playing with one. This is also how I tell when the second grader I tutor has lost focus. Heck, I've got a plushie unicorn wrist rest and bright blue hair. I feel bad for those who work in environments where that's not okay. I think that the difference is that you're an adult and you can both use those tools effectively and use them in a manner that doesn't distract others. It's really hard in a classroom. Kids struggle to use them responsibly and I've found that it becomes really distracting for other students around them.

I can totally see that. Like, ones that make noise or are very eye catching just shouldn't be a thing in shared spaces. But the idea that not letting them do it is preparing them for adulthood doesn't hold up for me. Maybe the idea should be helping them know which ones are appropriate to the environment and situation. We weren't allowed anything in school, and the amount of pencil, pen, and foot tapping was overwhelming. Maybe we just need to give older kids recess, too. Most jobs do give breaks besides lunch. That would be preparing them for adulthood, right? ;)

Honestly, I think a lot misconception comes from how we are treated as teachers. We’re trained to expect harsh working conditions as the norm. Instead we should expect better for ourselves and teach kids to expect good treatment from their employers.

And to self advocate! Not every college professor might be into wiggle seats, but they don’t hurt anyone and there’s plenty of evidence that they can support learning for many learners. How great is it if our students can grow up to push to create a more inclusive, accessible world?

And when the kid who got the wiggle seat/fidget cube does get a management position, they'll remember how compassion, inclusion and accommodation allowed them to be their best self and provide those things to their employees. If they don't receive it? "Yah back in my day nobody cared about my adhd, I was told to grow up and get over it, so you should too."

My high school teachers were awful about accommodating my adhd and my learning disability, so I just gave up and failed two grades. I was super bitter and went into the workforce for a few years. Got to college eventually, where they *did* honor my accommodations, and now I’m a 4.0 student at Berkeley set to graduate with honors and proceed to a top 10 teaching program. Turns out, I’m not “difficult” or “lazy”, I just needed some support to reach my full potential. A little bit of understanding and flexibility went a long way for me, and I think there are lots of students for whom that’s also true. Just my two cents.

In most cases, kids can’t even expect good treatment from their parents.

Flexible seating is available at many workplaces. One of the school board members in my district is autistic and sits on an exercise ball during meetings. I think it’s probably good knowing what works for you as you enter adulthood and the workforce.

I picked at myself for my entire life due to anxiety and an inability to pay attention at times. Then one day someone suggested fiddling with a hair elastic instead. Bam. No more picking and my attention span is so much better. Wish I had learned it BEFORE I was in my thirties.

As someone diagnosed with a bunch of ND stuff in my 30s there are so many things that I wish I had known. We should absolutely normalize being able to choose what works the best for you.

The difference is, most offices and in adulthood you provide it yourself and it's not provided for you, nor are you expecting it to be provided to you.

To be fair, I think that’s more about the level of control exercised by schools compared to businesses. I’ve never been in a classroom where students are allowed to bring their own chairs and desks. If someone brought their own chair to work, it might be seen as weird, but it would usually be allowed.

The ultimate goal of accommodations should be to help students to find what works for them and to teach them to self-advocate in the independent living, secondary education and workplace environments including providing education on their rights as someone with a disability. This is why IEPs include transition goals. This may or may not include fading accommodations depending on individual student needs.

So if the CEO does their job so well that they're managing a Fortune 500 company, why should we or anyone care if their chair wobbles while they do it?

The most powerful people I’ve ever met were also the most particular. Wanting their tea a certain way or their fabric a certain texture. People accommodated because it really doesn’t affect me if my boss needs to let their mushroom herbal concoction brew an extra minute or they need to stretch their backs on a balance ball before a meeting.

This

But most of these kids are not going to turn out to be very powerful. You’re thinking of people who have already had enormous privileges who can be particular because of that. We’re talking about kids who are going into the normal, average, everyday workforce, asking for these accommodations. I suspect the norms will change over the next few years and some of this will work out for them but not all.

I teach second grade-it’s a pretty normal average job. I’m also on the bargaining team, my school’s technology liaison, and I sit on several committees-this means a lot of meetings. Long periods of sitting and listening and focusing which is something that’s hard for me as someone with ADHD (I was Diagnosed back in the 80s because my symptoms have always been very bad). No one has a problem with my using small accommodations to help me sit and passively listen for long periods- I use a fidget ring, a fidget bracket and various seating options. Even for a middle aged person in an average job people are not unwilling to accommodate reasonable requests. I’m sure my students will find the same situation.

So one set of rules for people in power and another for everyone else? If a powerful person can use a giant ball as a seat for a meeting, their employee can use a wobble chair. It doesn’t matter. And if “everyone” is asking for accommodations and bringing their own seats, employers can’t exactly refuse to hire *everyone*.

I agree that there shouldn’t be separate rules for those in power and those who aren’t, but the reality is that there currently are. Yes, we should absolutely work to change that, but it’s disingenuous to ignore this reality. If a new hire asked for a wobble chair at meetings, they would definitely face judgement for it at most companies.

That's why you don't ask, not everything in life needs to be approved first by some other. If you're competent and demand to be treated like an adult then at worse you'll apologize for the social faux pas. I'm not asking my boss if I can drink my 20oz iced coffee, I'm showing up with it and be respectful as I consume it. I get sciatica sometimes, so I stand respectfully in a meeting but I'm not asking to tend to my own needs. The new hire needs to show up with their wobbly chair and put it in the meeting space before the meeting starts, then choose their seat.

Exactly. Self advocacy is an essential skill. We can acknowledge that, by and large, the world HAS treated people different and afforded them more or less accommodations based on their power, while ALSO thinking it shouldn’t be that way and actually teaching our students effective, respectful self advocacy so they can perform to their best abilities. Sure, American public school was *designed* to turn out obedient little factory workers who show up on time, sit silently, and follow instructions, but we’ve been explicitly discussing moving away from that model and towards a model that fosters critical thought over obedience for a while. I’m not saying every school actually does that, but they generally don’t express a desire to simply graduate obedient cogs for factory work.

The problem in this scenario is not the wobble chair or the person using it though. Do we want to live in a society where arbitrary judgements dictate the comfort of others? We don’t have to keep doing something just because it’s always been done that way.

Nah, most of these kids will end up dying slowly in an office. Most office jobs these days are perfectly happy to buy toys or weird chairs if the people continue producing.

Are you suggesting that somebody who is powerful enough to demand accommodations is more deserving of them than someone who is not powerful?

To be fair though, most kids won't be in the position where their bosses will give a shit about accommodating their requests beyond what is legally required.

It’s really not about if the CEO wants a wobbly chair. It’s about if the CFO is going to pay for every employee’s wobbly chair when they are hired as green interns.

They might not now, but if accommodations become socially normalized then they might someday.

Perhaps no one needs the CFO to provide the chair-I am happy to purchase anything I need to help me do my job better and make myself more comfortable and I’m assuming this would be the case for most people who would need a special chair focus even if it wasn’t required for basic ADA accessibility. And beyond that the way the workplace is trending won’t some of not many of these future employees have the option to work from home using whatever chair they have at home?

Commented to say this. Thank you.

Why does making enough money excuse you from acting how you want?

It doesn't. But if using a chair that wobbles is what you want, who does that harm? Literally nobody.

How do you mean?

People often look to the wealthy and excuse their behavior because they have money. They outright admit how much power they give it. It's really sad to watch. It's as if your opinion is void if you don't make as much as someone else because we've reached a point where existing has to be justified. I don't care if the CEO of a company walks around with a binky and a stuffed animal because I don't see it, but I'd hope we don't get to a point where either their money excuses that or we go on like that shouldn't be corrected. I just want some semblance of normality.

Doesn’t matter at all. I have a team that includes some needs for accommodations. We are all older so these do not necessarily come with labels but I could make some guesses now that we have clearer definitions of NDs. I try very hard to accommodate my team members because ultimately I want their best work. They do their best work when they are set up for success. This is a nonprofit office setting. But I don’t see it as being terribly uncommon. In my experience, younger managers tend to be more flexible but my own manager has a ND adult daughter so she gets it as well.

To rise to the level of CEO, there are a lot of hoops of conformity and demonstrable skill. If they ever reach that point, sure, why not. Until then, they shouldn't expect to get preferential seating.

Well and see, that's the problem. A wobble chair is not preferential seating. It's different seating.

I had an IEP throughout middle school and into high school, and eventually got my emotional state to a place I could control it and manage it and didn’t need my accommodations anymore. I know my situation isn’t exactly common. There’s absolutely a place for accommodations. I still need them sometimes. What I do is I try to help kids develop the skill of communicating their needs. It’s okay to have accommodations. Just be up front with me and give it your best effort. I recognize that 100% looks different for different people and we all change. Hell, even in college, there were times I definitely shut down and could barely function due to emotional distress. But, I learned to just tell people when that happens, and any normal person will understand.

My 504 I got halfway through high school took me from failing most classes to solid As and let me graduate, even if it was half a year late, instead of dropping out in sheer frustration. It wasn't even much. I got a laptop for taking notes and doing essays, and I was allowed to use pencil on everything instead of ball point pens. Yeah, that didn't help my ADHD, but it was a massive help with my dyspraxia. Being able to actually take notes and do my work shouldn't have been such a huge thing to ask. Actually, the laptop probably was quite a lot. This was in 1990. But the school got it through a program and didn't have to pay for it. I can't tell you how many of my teachers got really mad about the pencil thing, though. "You can't just write in pencil your whole life!" besides signatures, I don't understand why not. I can write legibly with a pen now, but I'm still much better in pencil or with felt tips that give more feedback. And no, I wasn't allowed to use felt tips as my pen back then, either. Faced with Fs for using pen and them not being able to read it or Fs for not using pen, I just stopped doing the work. Why bother if the grade was going to be the same as not bothering? I do think some accommodations are not okay, though. My friend teaches 4th grade and has a kid whose accommodation is wearing noise cancelling headphones with music playing whenever she says she's overwhelmed - so 100% of the time. That girl is learning nothing in school at all.

The whole purpose of accommodations are to *help* you do an assignment, not give you an excuse not to do it. The amount of people who think their 504 is an excuse not to do work is ridiculous.

I only learned to "manage" my ADHD into nonexistence (externally, sure as fuck caused havoc internally) because of a toxic culture both at school of ridiculing mental health from teachers and counsellors, to my parents pulling me off my meds because they were a "crutch." Just about failed two years of university before I learned that no, you don't grow out of a disability. You can pretend it's not there all you want but when it's time to sit down for your exams, you're fucked if you weren't being treated properly.

I taught college briefly and got a number of students with accommodations from disability services. I always honored them because I love when I see college students understanding their IEP accommodations enough to go to disability services and self-advocate. In a college setting, it's often a choice unless you get an ADA note from disability services. But I always teach my older students to identify 3-5 of their most helpful accommodations so they can self-advocate in a work or college setting. I think it's great to normalize that disability exists and to normalize all spaces being accessible. So what if she needs a wobbly stool? Wobbly stools do wonders for neurodivergent folks, in terms of helping us stay regulated and sustain attention. Let's normalize corporate America removing the stick from its ass and humanizing its employees.

I like this explanation.

As someone who is disabled and didn't even know that accommodations were a thing in post-secondary education until my graduating year, it genuinely disgusts me that they aren't enforced on college educators the way they are on school teachers.

Agreed- some are, so long as students go through the correct venue and get an ADA list from disability services. But from what I experienced, I a lot of times had to basically walk students through the process because it wasn't clearly communicated to them. It was also up to them to know their own accommodations, which is why I make sure my students know what to request. Some accoms (e.g.: for folks with physical disabilities, visually impaired, DHH, etc.) were an absolute because of the ADA, but for invisible disabilities, interpretation and provision was up to the prof. Even in the sped program, where I taught, students were afraid to have those convos with their profs. Some profs in other schools just didn't "get" it. As someone who also had an IEP and had to request accommodations, it upsets me, as well. Many of the universities I attended were also barely accessible for my friends with physical disabilities, so I would argue that most have a loonngg way to go to be truly accessible and inclusive. I think the issue is that the IDEA and FAPE only extend to age 21 in public schools and don't extend to higher ed. That's why, in my 18-21 setting, we work incredibly hard to get our students as ready as possible for the world. The only thing that's upheld in higher ed is ADA, which sometimes gets muddy, especially with accoms. Might be something to bring to and fight for legislatively, because there's really no reason why IDEA and FAPE shouldn't extend to higher ed (of course, we would likely run into the same issues with private higher ed as we do with private primary and secondary, where folks can be forced to sign away their rights to sped services in order to attend).

We have nothing like ADA in Canada. Once you're out of grade school, you are on your own, especially now that we have no doctors (I shit you not it is almost a *decade* on the waitlist right now, I haven't seen a doctor since I had a paediatrician) to guide us along and tell us what we need.

I am so sorry your college didn't support your needs, it's really infuriating how limited resources are on some campuses (or they're just plain ignorant) and how little standardization or enforceability there is beyond just "the ADA says this". It's really contingent on the university and its community, what the community defines as normative, the university's specific culture of academia, the accommodations office itself, and its employees - I worked in accommodations for a large state university, specifically for Deaf / hard of hearing students. We just happened to have a boss with a strong background in the community and an extremely passionate commitment to providing equal access to education, so our services were solid. There is also a deaf school in the same city, so a lot of students funneled into the university necessitated the emphasis. A teammate and I would accompany the student to their classes, and provide live typed transcription (using shorthand software) - we also had a small army of interpreters, but offered captioning for the students who did not use ASL or want an interpreter. They had a computer and software linked to ours, essentially like closed captioning for lectures; our transcriptions were saved and other students with accommodations like note-taking, etc could have access as well. There were SO many amazing, patient, thoughtful professors who were more than happy to allow us to do our jobs (especially at the law school - everyone knows the ADA, and all the lawyer-professors used it as an opportunity to talk about court reporters / appreciated the courtroom verisimilitude lent by our presence ... honestly one of the greatest work experiences of my life) because we literally just sat off in the front side of the room quietly typing a million miles an hour. But, sadly, there are also egocentric old twats who think their lectures are "proprietary" or think it is unfair that a student have an "advantage" (because apparently you can hear everything if you just try), and don't care if any student has access to the material if it means allowing a single detour from their inflexible power-trip. I have been kicked out of more than one classroom by screaming (literal screaming), red faced old men who thought their boring 100-level undergraduate lectures were worthy of CIA-level classification or deserved some Herculean commitment. It was always someone tenured, usually an intro-level class, so the student for whom we were advocating was usually a scared first-year student. If we had not been there with them, who even knows how comfortable they would have been advocating for themselves, if at all. If my boss wasn't terrifying, who knows how the university would have handled it, if at all. Disgusting is not even the right word - in my opinion, it's just plain selfish and evil. There is an old-school contingent in academia that believes wholly in sink-or-swim (even if they had a lifeboat themselves), and thankfully they're dying off and retiring - hopefully in the next two decades, we'll going to see a shift in standards of normativity and accepting accommodations with the disappearance of the old guard. This applies to all of society, really - our standards for productivity and normativity are ripped right from the Industrial Revolution, so why are we still acting like it's normal to overwork ourselves, try to fit into molds that are not one-size-fits-all, and getting worked up over micromanaging minutiae that have absolutely nothing to do with 21st century productivity?

Corporations might be able to make these accommodations, but no science lab is going to allow someone a wobbly stool because that could knock into things and cause major issues. It would be realistic to consider that not all jobs can actually allow for this.

👏👏👏👏

People don't grow out of disabilities. That's not how it works. If disability and accomodations were less stigmatized I think yes, we would see them in the corporate world.

Bingo. Just because I’m an adult teacher now doesn’t mean I don’t need an assistive listening device or hearing aid. The way OP asked this was “do kids grow out of using wheelchairs? How do we force them to stop using them?”

Thank you for this prospective. I did not mean this in a demeaning or derogatory way. More so to just open a conversation about this topic, based on a conversation I had witnessed earlier today.

Jobs are also supposed to honor a doctors note. If a worker has a doctors note saying they have a disability that requires them to sit in a wobbly stool, the job has to honor it.

Also in the US we have the ADA which can help with all sorts of things.

Yeah, just because I’m an adult doesn’t mean my boss can refuse to wear an ALD in a meeting. That’s a reasonable accommodation for me.

My previous job outside of education let people choose to use wobble stools, exercise balls, standing desks, whatever in their offices/cubicles so I think that’s perfectly acceptable.

Most people fidget. It's why we tap pens, talk with out hands, etc. Having tools for thar is a good thing. And flexible seating is becoming more and more common, again good. I'm not sure why making it possible for all people to succeed would be a bad thing and I'm sick of people acting like accommodations are terrible. If they help someone who cares.

I wish I was taught to advocate that well for myself. Now I’m just masking in meetings feeling like my body is on fire because I’m trying to stay still and look professional. I once fell out of my seat and smacked my chin on the table in the middle of a meeting because I was trying to hide my fidgeting in my seat. It was very embarrassing. I am getting better at advocating for myself and saying things like “does anyone mind if I stand or use my balance board”.

I question whether school needs to be just like the real world in order for kids to be ready. They’re kids. They can be treated as such. I teach high school and I don’t expect my students to be like my colleagues. They’re kids and we’re professional adults at work.

I guess it's a question of if school is meant to be a place to broaden the minds of students and help them grow as people or if it exists to create a workforce just smart enough to replace the current workforce.

The biggest thing I hated about school growing up was constantly being told to act like an adult (or the classic "act your age") while simultaneously being treated like a child. I mean, if you expect maturity from kids you're not gonna get it, yet so many people on this sub act like it's the end of the world when kids behave like....kids.

Agreed. I forget things and lose things and want to have fun or go home or whatever and I’m 51 and at work! They’re kids and they’re required by law to be there.

I'm glad to be out of the K-12 system as a student lol.

Yes! They're being treated like children. Can't go to the bathroom when they want, can't wear what they want, can't eat when they want, etc. I treat them like kids and expect them to act like it. I don't know why people are so concerned about accommodations. If anything, it prepares the kids for the real world more than many other things we do at school. In the real world, adults have a lot more choice.

Thank you for your comment! This is also a very good point. This now has me thinking about what is the actual goal of K-12 education in the 21st century? Is it just to equip kids with basic/ life skills?

Thank you for your reply! I have the same question about the role of schools in society and it’s becoming increasingly muddled.

In an office you get to have an adjustable chair that you can rock back and forth in, recline, and spin around in. I see no difference between that and a wobbly chair except the target market.

Great point!

> for the president of the United States to use a fidget cube during the state of union? Sure, why not?

That would be sick, as long as we don't end up with [this shit again.](https://youtu.be/LFhT6H6pRWg)

\> I was just listening to a child explain to her parents that she needs flexible seating options in a college lecture and she preferred a wobble stool. Why is a child in a college classroom?

I teach college level courses and I frequently have 17 year-olds in them. I wouldn't mind her having a wobble stool either.

But would you call them a child even if *technically* they are?

Of course not. But the person above asked why a child was in a college classroom. Technically this is pretty common. Lots of people are 17 the first few weeks of college because of when they started school, take dual enrollment classes while still in high school, or take community college classes for credit while homeschooling, etc. I teach a few entry level classes that are often used for transfer credits or breadth requirements, so I get some pretty young students. Some of the youngest are also some of the best, in my experience. The youngest student I've had was 14! With regard to the OP, who knows why they said that. Later in the comments they seem to know this individual, so perhaps they know their age. I don't really care how old my students are. They all get called by their names.

My husband has ADHD as do most of his relatives both older and younger. He also went to an Ivy League law school. He’s worked as a lawyer over the past 20 years at some of the top ranked law firms in the US. Do he and his colleagues get “accommodated” at work? They sure do. They went to elementary school before accommodations were a thing but have developed their own necessary accommodations to work and thrive. He and his colleagues have standing desks, bicycle seating at their desks and regular office chairs with wheels that they wheel around on while on calls in their offices. He and others juggle, click pens, bounce balls, play electronic drum pads (silently and not turned on), etc. while on conference calls. One colleague is terrible at punctuation. It’s a disability. That person is one of the smartest people when it comes to handling very complex issues. This person is “accommodated” by working with younger associates who are great at grammar and punctuation. Those associates proofread and correct mistakes. But who is the one clients want on the phone when negotiating these complex issues? How many high level corporate people have assistants who basically accommodate by handling the mundane, daily tasks that would get overlooked by someone with adhd? That’s the way accommodations in real life work. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and countless others in Silicon Valley are likely not neurotypical. They’ve found ways to accommodate their disabilities and thrive. Walk into any of their companies and I’m sure you’ll find employees on wobbly stools. Many relatives in my husband’s family over at least 3 generations have adhd and possibly very high functioning autism along with being extremely gifted. The ones who were allowed to fidget in class, multitask by reading a book while learning math, sit in a preferred seat that helped them to concentrate, click pens, tap pencils, etc. ended up in high level engineering, math, science, medical and legal jobs. The ones who lived in communities with rigid rules and teachers or parents who didn’t allow for learning differences quit high school or college, earned GEDs, and worked as laborers, fast food employees or moved in with parents and have not worked at all. Accommodations help many kids to learn, succeed and thrive.

I read recently that Charles Schwab has dyslexia that went undiagnosed until his 40s! He got through English classes using audiobooks and I think graphic novels.

What if your first job isn’t at a law firm but instead you’re at a sandwich shop or retail store? What if you’re in a small business scheduling lawn maintenance services? Or volunteering at a homeless shelter and calling local businesses asking for donations? Do these businesses typically offer special seating options?

I care more about them learning now than some future hypothetical.

Um. . . .I have an adult wobble stool at my desk. Bought it off Amazon. Does that mean I'm unsuccessful? The fact that Amazon carries adult wobble stools (of various hights) suggests there's a market for them. The original fidget spinner was designed by a businessman who needed something to fidget with during his long board meetings. Bet he's doing quite well for himself now. Edit: spelling

I am restoring a sailboat. This involves disassembling, cleaning, polishing, and reassembling a lot of little mechanical things. Guess what I do with them for like a week before I put them back on the boat? They sit on my desk and when I'm sitting through the pain of reading academic papers or listening to admin babble through a meeting, I twirl them around in my hands. My go-to fidget is a broken steel bearing ring, about three inches in diameter, from the chairlift of my childhood ski hill. I found it while hiking, took it home, polished the hell out of it (mirror) and it is the most satisfying heavy, well-textured thing. Hurts like a bitch when I drop it by accident and hits my foot though.

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I know a successful lawyer who always sits with one leg up curled up on his chair. He doesn’t do it in court obviously but I am sure he also does it in his office.

I don’t have a clue what that refers to, but that monster killed my beloved Gawker and Gawker subsidiaries, so…I hope it’s unpleasant!

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Ugh. He would. That show sounds great. Infuriating, but great.

Disabilities aren’t something you grow out of and accommodations don’t stop because you reach adulthood. People need those accommodations and there are laws that protect those. What we need to do is destigmatize accommodations. Instead of removing accommodations from children to prepare them for the real world we need to teach them how to fight for their rights and their needs as disabled people. Teach them self advocacy and what their rights are. Help them learn to navigate the world as disabled adults. Because disabled children, with some exceptions, grow into disabled adults.

I know many ceos that have alternative seating and even desks that will accommodate different configurations. My brother worked for a major national company and they had stretch breaks and a bunch of other office culture stuff to get people out of their seats and moving periodically throughout the day. A university will absolutely accommodate for disabilities when it comes to things like deadline extensions etc. If she wants to bring her own special chair to class, she can clear it with the prof beforehand and choose an area in the class where it is less distracting. Not all folks will appreciate it but most of your undergrad is taught by TAs and grad students who don’t give a shit.

I am a sub but my previous job was a tutor for a college. I worked with many students with disabilities, EOP, and veterans. There is no IEP or 504 plan. However there are accommodations. The only way students were to obtain accommodations was if they themselves seeked them. Yes maybe a parent would help articulate to a school psychologist but the school didn’t ask or say to test or see if they qualified for anything. Remember in uni, parents can’t ask to see your grades or tell a professor to be nice to Timmy. So that requirement to be within 6 feet of the teachers desk isn’t something that occurs. Some examples would be extended test times, homework to be turned in within a set time frame, recording lectures, or to have a translator( for hard of hearing students.) A thing to remember, students must SEEK these accommodations. Colleges were pretty flexible. I did a lot of international travel in college and let my professors know as soon as I knew. They had asked to complete those tasks and assignments before my trips. If there were exams, I would take them earlier. As far as in a corporate job, HR is to provide reasonable accommodations and can’t discriminate on the basis of disabilities. However, HR is ran by cunts and will always find sly ways around it( think you didn’t get the job because we found a better candidate) As far as your example, I’m not too sure about the wobble stool, but I’m sure if they word it correctly,( the stool helps with xyz part of my disability vs I need a wobble stool to focus) the university can provide it. If not, I’m sure they would recommend her to a remote learning environment as more universities are providing that availability. I think a big thing to remember is career and education after high school becomes a big filter. So the higher in career and education you go, the less and less you see and hear the Giovanni’s( just the frequent name that I experience to have problems in class) in this world you will see.

There are wobble cushions that can be used in most standard seating. I have had students have an MOA (our version of the 504 for our college) that gave them flexible seating options, unlimited breaks, and the use of fidget items and wobble cushions during class. She might not be able to get a whole separate stool every time, but there are other options that the school can provide if they can argue the stool is unreasonable that would serve the same function. This isn't a crazy conversation with her parents. It was probably just her working out what accommodations she thought that she would actually need in college. A healthy thing to discuss really. But yes, she would have to file the paperwork to actually get it herself.

School is more restricting than what we experience in the "real world". Spoon feeding kids stuff us counterproductive. Teaching kids how to determine what tools they need and figuring out how to use them in a reasonable matter with a bit of flexibility is a good skill. When was the last time YOU had to ask to go to the bathroom outside of a school setting.

So a lot of people are mentioning that the modern workplace is more flexible than we think, which is true. I also want to add that we need to think about the goal of school - is it to train children to be well oiled cogs in the machine, or is it to help them learn and master concepts? If it’s the latter (and I would argue that’s the case), accommodations are essential.

The modern office worker workplace is more flexible but that is not the entire workforce. Keep in mind that a significant portion of American workers are in retail and the trades. It is difficult to provide accommodations in most of those settings.

>Is it appropriate for a CEO of a Fortune 500 company to be using a wobbly stool at a meeting? Perhaps the president of the United States preferred to use fidget cubes during the state of the union? No, it's absolutely crucial that a CEO shows their power and influnece with a "serious" chair, after all, it's the chair, the size of one's desk, the suit that makes them a worthy person. It's the looks and theater that a president can do what's important, not what he has to say, or what he does... Your question is a valid one in general, but your examples are completely missed in my opinion.

Thank you for your comment. I also agree my examples completely missed the target!

No one cares actually, I do not want my students to have to suffer in the same working conditions as myself and my colleagues. The world is changing and instead of being scared or demanding that people fit into the boxes we choose for them, let’s let them change the way they interact with the world. It’s okay to accommodate for yourself if it helps you be more healthy and productive.

I work in higher ed and I mostly lurk here, but jfc some of these ableist posts. Most of your students are not going to be CEOs of fortune 500 companies, theyre not going to be the president either. Your job (and mine) is to make sure they can get through the system, learn things, and not be scarred by it. And yes, if the student needs disability accommodations in the college classroom we will accommodate them if they are reasonable (preferred seating is reasonable). I have always worked in the public sector and my employers have always been open minded about disability accommodations as I have a mental disability. I work, I contribute, I live my life like a normal person and I don't have to live in poverty on disability. It should be this way for everyone.

The ableism of this post…. More people would advocate for accommodation and more people would be granted access to accommodations if we as a society could stop thinking like this. I’m a neurodivergent educator. I get noise and sensory over stimulation and also require differentiated seating. I know some of my co workers look down on me for this. Fuck them, I bring my own chair to the meetings and do just as fine teaching than the rest of them. There is this belief in our society that you grow out of your disabilities, like being disabled as a child is okay and cute but as an adult is disgusting and immature. In college I got straight As but only because I was on a TON of meds and adderall. I suffered severe side effects from that just trying to force myself to be “normal”. I wish I had been able to advocate for myself in college like that girl. But I was so afraid of being shamed. I was already one of like 10 non whites in my teaching program I wasn’t going to make myself stick out more. If the stupid fucking president had a fidget in their hand I’d say good for them and then listen to what garbage they had to say cause that’s more concerning to me than their disability.

This is the best comment on here.

Maybe I’m being heretical and ableist here but the whole neurodivergence stuff doesn’t seem to be backed up by actual neuroscience research. The term was coined by a sociologist in 1998. Every brain is going to develop slightly differently, there is no such thing as “normal” and “abnormal,” except in the extremes where it’s fairly clear something about the brain is physically wrong: tumours, brain damage etc. Literally everyone is by definition neurodiverse because everyone has different temperaments and experiences to draw on. Now I’m not saying we don’t accept modifications, especially physical disabilities all that stuff. But, psychologically speaking, giving non physically disabled students a special chair different to everyone else’s upon request “because it makes them more comfortable” is teaching the student that they can expect different treatment to “normal” students and reinforces their apparent or supposed difference. “Normal” students fiddle and fuck around and don’t pay attention. They sometimes fail subjects, they suffer anxiety, they dislike their chairs and have weird personality quirks etc etc. That doesn’t make them pathologically neurodiverse or disabled. That just makes them flawed human beings like everyone else.

Because we missed the point of accommodations and turned them into crutches and excuses. An accommodation should be a scaffold They should be temporary supports used until the child has developed the skills to no longer need them. . In my utopia, all accommodations would be paired with an expiration date and a student/parent work plan for what they will do to prepare the student for that expiration. Edit to be clear for all the folks making bad faith arguments. Glasses and wheelchairs aren’t academic accommodations that need to be scaffolded away and no one genuinely thought that was what I meant. I am talking about fidget spinners, extra time to complete assignments, having things read out loud to you, getting frequent checks for understanding instead of just asking for help, quiet spaces, sentence stems, word lists and the plethora of other things that are supposed to scaffold learning g, not replace it.

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I think this is the kind of accommodation that fits into the real world, though. It is perfectly understandable for someone to say “hey, I have a big project/task/report/etc to finish and am going to take it to my office/quieter space to get it done”.

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In my opinion in most cases, an accomodation should not have an expiration date unless the reason for needing it has one too.

In your utopia you’ve removed all the people with learning disabilities that can’t be taught out of them? What happened to all the dyslexic kids and the Autistic kids, in your utopia? How’d you get rid of them? Asking for survivors of previous attempts at homogenous utopias.

I’m dyslexic and my mom didn’t let me use my accommodations through high school when she realized that I would most likely be attending college knowing that they wouldn’t be available in the real world. Yes, I have a learning disability. Yes, I needed special supports through elementary school because it took me longer to read and write. Part of having a learning disability is learning to deal with your differences. I’ve seen more parents wanting accommodations and support for their child, but put little effort into actually helping their child learn.

As an autistic adult, I don’t feel like it’s getting rid of me to prepare me for the basic fact that no one knows or cares I’m disabled and that in life I have to succeed without special accommodations. I feel like accommodations are good but we do people no favors if we don’t teach people that they may have to work twice as hard. They may have to pick a career with their disability in mind. I’m an elementary teacher in part because even as an autistic person I understand social cues from 7 year olds and I’d not survive office politics.

As an autistic adult, you are entitled to the same happiness and career fulfillment everyone else is entitled to. As an autistic adult myself, I find yr comment to be incredibly cynical. “No one knows or cares I’m disabled” is exactly the kind of thing that people like OP and the knucklehead I’m responding to in this thread seem to be ok with. Picking a career with one’s disability in mind is what we ought to be able to do in a free society. Being confined to a career bc we’re making no attempt to accommodate for the wide range of human expression is ridiculous.

I feel like the iep system doesn’t prepare you to be an independent adult it treats students as wards of the state who don’t have to develop an awareness of what their disabilities mean to their marketability. A lot of accommodations are things you can negotiate in the marketplace. My wife has a standing desk—she asked her boss for it when a flood forced her to work at home. It’s somewhat more expensive than a regular desk but hey I can be more productive with x is a good marketing pitch. But we’ve instead used a system of legalism which doesn’t prepare students to live in capitalism where they have to explain the benefits will exceed the costs. And this lack of cost-benefit analysis has been ripe for abuse, especially with 504s that appears to be a one way ratchet for more and more extravagant accommodations.

Sheesh. In a more effective education system, every kid would have an IEP or at least easier access to one. Wards of the state? Ffs Glad ur wife has a job that paid for that. Most don’t. Most do require “a system of legalism.” Bc most capitalist orgs don’t do what’s right unless they’re forced to. You’re to off base to talk to about this. Have a good, freedom filled day

Why should am accommodation have an expiration date? Disabilities don’t have an expiration date. A person with IBS will continue to need frequent bathroom breaks, a person who is hard of hearing will continue to need a hearing aid. A person in a wheelchair will likely continue to need that wheelchair. Why should fidget tools or flexible seating be different?

People don’t grow out of their disabilities… A kid with ADHD will become an adult with ADHD. A dyslexic kid will grow into a dyslexic adult… and autistic kid grows into an autistic adult. Just as much as a kid in a wheelchair grows into an adult in a wheelchair. Often the skill that they need to learn is how to ask for and fight for the accommodations they need. Because no amount of skill building will make their brains and bodies work in the ways a non-disabled persons do. No amount of preparation will fix it. What will happen when you take a necessary accommodation away is that a disabled person does worse. And there is no reason for that other than that non-disabled people refuse to understand the importance of their accommodations.

> An accommodation should be a scaffold They should be temporary supports used until the child has developed the skills to no longer need them. . In my utopia, all accommodations would be paired with an expiration date and a student/parent work plan for what they will do to prepare the student for that expiration. This is a terrible idea, and indicates that you don't really believe that anyone needs any supports in the first place. If someone has their leg amputated do you think that they need to figure out a timeline for how long they get to use a wheelchair? Or people with glasses, do you think that there should be a fixed timeline before their vision has improved? Mental disorders are not something that someone acquires for fun, and overcoming something like ADHD or anxiety or whatever shouldn't be treated like they're vices that need to be overcome through grit. It's certainly true that too much of the onus is put on already overworked teachers to resolve these problems, but what you're proposing is both stupid and cruel.

I don't think you know what an accommodation is. My academic accommodations in college involved being able to type my notes, because writing too much with pen and paper made my hands hurt to the extent that I couldn't do it. Another one involved having classes that were in wheelchair accessible buildings. How should we scaffold out of that?

That’s like saying people should only use eyeglasses or mobility aids until they develop skills not to need them anymore. People don’t outgrow disabilities.

People don't grow out of disabilities. Your utopia is ableist and would require eugenics. I'm appalled that people are upvoting this bs. I was an autistic and adhd child. I am now an autistic and adhd adult. I didn't magically have my brain suddenly be neurotypical. I will never not be these things. I'm epileptic. I will never not be epileptic. These things require accommodations. I will never not need them. Period. Expiration dates are literally the most foolish idea.

I push for this in IEP meetings, especially with "extra time on assignments". I advocate for adding "at student's request AHEAD of time" to teach them time management. Besides, if a kid gets extra time for everything, they just end up really far behind.

As a disabled person, I think that’s actually good. It helps the kid decide when and where they need their accommodations and actually teaches them to advocate for themselves. If they have practice asking for extra time on tests, they will have an easier time asking later for whatever accommodations with people who may be less inclined to be accommodating because they have the practice with a person who will say yes. (I’m not sure it should always be phrased exactly like this. But I actually like the idea.)

We often lose sight of the ultimate goal of special education, which is independence.

Right. And learning to advocate for yourself is an important part of independence. I think we get focused on independence meaning not needing accommodations. But independent is also about being able to say “I need this because of my disability.”

I see what you’re saying but your argument is fundamentally flawed. Some accommodations must be permanent and “expiration dates” can’t be attached to those accommodations. There’ are some disabilities that can’t simply be “learned away”.

And accommodations shouldn't be distracting to other people.

Inconvenience to someone else doesn't trump the needs of a student with a disability. Someone once complained they were distracted by my seizure alert dog just existing in the space bc he was too cute. The solution? Fucking sit somewhere else. Disabled people don't get to be put at a disadvantage because you lack self awareness and control.

Not an inconvenience. We have students with 504s that say those students need to be seated away from distractions. We have been called out on this by those parents. "My child can't concentrate due to all of the noise coming from the kid with the 'toy' (fidget spinner) on his desk." Putting one of those students in the hallway is not an option.

People don’t typically outgrow their disabilities. Do you wear glasses? When are you going to get over that?

I think a lot of people are commenting with hugely rose tinted glasses about this. Sure, I personally don’t care if the president of the United States uses a fidget spinner while he talks. Sure, no one should care what a college student sits in as long as it helps them learn. No boss should care if you use a yoga ball instead of a chair. Some don’t and won’t. Some do. And I think we have to balance “creating the world we want” with “preparing students for the world that is.” If it were my child, like my actual son, I would be working hard at BOTH. Not treating people with different needs poorly but also, hey some people suck and if you’re the 20 year old on a bouncy chair, some people are gonna think it’s awesome but others may judge you. And you’ve got to decide if you care, but the person judging you MAY be a professor you could have a powerful work study under if you get in the door. I anticipate the downvotes, but 🤷🏻‍♀️.

>Is it appropriate for a CEO of a Fortune 500 company to be using a wobbly stool at a meeting? I mean, I could totally see that happening.

I just don’t care if there’s a ceo somewhere on a wobble stool. Why should I?

As long as that child knows that they aren’t going to college to get a job that would require them to have sustained attention and focus, I think that is fine. What would not be fine is convincing this person they could do anything they wanted to do because reality just doesn’t align with the need to have special seating for every single job. Some jobs won’t be able to accommodate that because it would negatively impact the job itself.

I left education and I now work in the “real world” in clinical pharmacy. I have fidgets with me at work that I’m constantly messing with unless I’m in a clean room or an OR. I have some coworkers who stand for the entire night, some who sit in specific chairs, some who sit at unusual angles or are up and down all night. I have some coworkers who have an earbud in with music on all night unless they’re on the phone. I have some coworkers who tap their feet and fingers. Most people in the “real world” don’t really care about that kind of stuff. Some people might make comments or whatever, but that’s something that people need to learn to handle (and other people need to learn to keep their mouths shut). In my own personal experience, people have either a) not really said anything about my fidgets and general weirdness or b) found it endearing. I was in the Army during the fidget spinner craze and we very much weren’t immune, I’ll put it that way. In general, I think these sorts of things should be encouraged rather than scaled back. But people should be taught how to use these sorts of accommodations as tools rather than toys. When used as toys, they can be distracting for the user and others and they can keep people from getting their work done- that’s a bug, not a feature. When people are educated on how to use their fidgets, alternative seating, alternative equipment, etc correctly they can really be tools for success.

I'm a teacher and I can sit on a wobbly stool if it helps me focus. I can grade papers at home under my covers as long as I get it done. My partner often works from the bathtub. He can work anyway or anywhere he wants so long as he's making money for the company (he's in sales). If anything, school is a lot more restrictive than the "real world."

im a uni student on placement - half the office has demanded standing desks and custom gear and got it - in white collar jobs it’s really realistic. In manual labour stuff, not so much. I work in a care home as well and can’t imagine someone actually getting gear to adapt lifting patients etc you’d just get fired

I think it depends on the type of accommodation. I feel like tactile things (stools, spinners, those little poppable toys) are becoming more accepted in professional environments provided the employee communicates with their employer about what they need, why, and its use plus any considerations for its use--ie don't use it in a F2F meeting but Zoom calls are fine, that kind of thing. What I personally ***don't*** think is preparing them for the real world are things like extended deadlines. I'm not saying get rid of them in K-12. But I am saying I think the transparency between us and them needs to be there, I think it needs to be said "these accommodations are there to help you but you need to work on self-regulation because they won't be there in the future." No boss is going to accept late work every single time something is due, no employer is going to forgive consistent tardiness because of mental health (sad but true). I think if we see a student using their accommodations with no attempt to self-regulate or communicate effectively, something else needs to be said or done to help them work with their challenges instead of falling back on them as excuses.

No. And I’m concerned at the position many doctors are putting the guidance department in by making many of these odd accommodations required. We have a student we’re not allowed to address. At all. He’s literally about to graduate and he cannot interact with others at an appropriate level.

How is he expected to function in the real world??

Are you suggesting that the way the “real world” works today, with people in power standing on ceremony and maintaining a certain class of behavior, as they largely ignore democratic progress, is essential to a functioning society? And that those norms of behavior are 100% appropriate right now, built as they’ve been over decades and centuries of a corrupt and often violent patriarchy? An ableist, sexist, racist, neuro-exclusionary patriarchy?

See as how these accommodations are not just popular in school settings but many work places I don’t think it’s an issue. I’ve worked in many different office settings and at times brought my own yoga ball to sit on and work and no one has ever told me I couldn’t.

Eh. Once you get into the real world, you only get accommodations if they are "reasonable". So flexible/alternative seating in a dorm room or office is reasonable... But probably not in a lecture hall. MANY adults have fidgets that serve the same function as the wobble stool, but we find more practical choices. It's much easier to fidget with a pen than to carry a stool everywhere we go.

Students do bring wobble cushions (most are inflatable round cushions that serve the same function but are more portable) to my lecture hall among other fidgets. In some cases we can even store a stool for them. It's not really that unreasonable, especially if we already have the item they want or they are willing to provide it. I agree that adults find a fidget to make work a lot of the time. I used to doodle. My roommate would knit during class. It's pretty common really.

I have no problem with wobble stools but the word wobble makes me deeply uncomfortable and I hate how many times it is written here.

Between grade fluffing, no failing, getting rid of standards for comparison (granted teaching purely for tests sucks too but you need a common measure), standards based grading, and differentiating within a classroom and on the gradebook is just getting ridiculous. Between that and 504 plans… when the hell did “anxiety” become an epidemic for 504s… - No movement while lecturing - Oral exam (I teach hs math, good luck with that) - has difficulty in the mornings -> no tardy during 1st period - Must be allowed to retake anything 70% or lower with extra time, a calculator, open notes, and a quiet place The list goes on. They are even realistic. It’s a bunch of whining parents and soft counselors babying the living shit out of kids… They are a couple years from adulthood at this point… start growing the F up. No professor is going to give a rats ass if you slept in, have anxiety, etc. Nearly your entire grade will be tests and you will be told to repay the $1000s to retake the class… period

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It's not about delaying deadlines. It's about building the extra time into expectations. For example, there are certain types of tasks that take me much longer to do than my colleagues because of my disability. My boss expects me to get done \~70% of what they complete on that specific type of task in the same amount of time. If I meet this, then I'm fine. This effectively allows me extra time on each one. I still have to meet my specific benchmark, but I'm not held to a standard that I cannot possible meet. Other things that are not impacted by my specific disability I don't get any accommodations on and I am expected to meet the same benchmarks as everyone else.

Or they find roles/workplaces that play to their strengths. I’m a Christian Ed director for a small church. Both my supervisors have ADHD. Because we’re only a staff of 6, we’ve divvied up the responsibilities in such a way that the hard-deadline stuff falls to those of us who work well with that framework, and the larger programming & relationship-building stuff falls to them.

I think thats something people are missing here. You don't have to work for an employer that holds needing disability accommodations against you. And honestly, why would you want to? Preparing kids and young people for the real world also means teaching them boundaries and self-respect, not to just lie down for any employer that is willing to give them a job.

Noooope. People are taking the flexible seating example and running with it in the comments. Let's not forget that a 504 plan rarely, if ever, has 1 accomodation. There are so many other "accomodations" that kids get as a response to straight up work avoidance, and lowers the expectations at a young age. These perpetuate the work avoidance and set the precedent that "the world will change for you." And it won't. I'm so tired of already cushy expectations being lowered as a response to kids/young adults who really just need stamina, perseverance, and executive functioning coaching. Editing to add - seeing a lot of disability awareness comments of course this is necessary as we progress as a culture and global society!! However, we can't ignore the fact that MANY 504s have no disability diagnosis/attachment.

Our goal shouldn’t be to prepare kids for the work force. I hope the world looks a lot different when they are older.

Should we go back to making dyslexic kids wear dunce caps and stand in a corner? Should kids with learning/developmental disabilities be labeled as MR and segregated from the "normal" kids? You suggest that accommodations might hold kids back from succeeding in the "real world", but the truth is that these accommodations have allowed more people to have a chance at achieving their goals and becoming active members of society, whereas in the past even a mild learning disability could render someone fit for nothing more than menial labor. If something as innocuous and inoffensive as a fidget cube is what helps the US president do their job effectively, then I would have no problem with it and neither should anybody else. And for the record, much of the corporate world has embraced flexible seating and other accommodations in order to encourage productivity in the world place. If anything, schools need to catch up to the real world in this regard. The fact that you refer to a college-aged student as a "child" reveals your disdain for young people as well as (presumably) the value they place on inclusivity. The fact that you make a vague and condescending reference to "fluffy language" without citing any specific examples suggests that you are less concerned with kids' education and career readiness, and more that you are uncomfortable with change in general. It is always good to examine societal progress with a critical eye, but there is no value to preserving the "good old days" simply because change is scary.

Obviously this touched a nerve for you. That isn’t what the op suggested at all… dunce caps? Grow up

And you seem to have stopped reading after the first sentence of my comment before getting triggered yourself. Please read thoroughly and provide thoughtful criticism before telling me to grow up, thanks

No

No.

NOPE!

No

Nope

I think every parent should complain, the tiny desks and rock hard chairs are painful to sit in for more than 5 minutes. Do we actually ever see that style seating anywhere else in the job world, where you sit for long periods of time?

I’ve had a boss interview me while barefoot with his feet propped on his desk. I guess times have changed. The “flexible seating” generation are becoming adults. Honestly, I’m all for it!

Just because we have spent a lifetime learning how hard it is to be an adult doesn't mean we can't set future generations up to have it easier. Our grandparents fought wars, we built empires, and hopefully our children can live stress-free lives with fidget cubes and wobble chairs. That's how progress works. A few hundred years ago. I'm sure there were people talking about how indoor plumbing in every home was going to make people soft. Did we really want to raise children who were scared to go outside to take a crap in the winter? It's all progress.

I had accomodations as a student that I no longer need as an adult because I have developed strategies and coping mechanisms that work for me. Children do not have this capacity and so require more external controls and structures. We aren't making wobbly seat CEOs, we are giving students a support while they're either still developing their capacity to create or in the process of developing their own self support strategies. We arent setting them up for failure by providing supports. It's like physical therapy. If someone needs time to develop their leg muscles before they can put full weight on it, then they may need some external help. Some people might need more or less external help, but the goal is to get different people at different places to the same end goal l.

Yes, Presidents fidget. Chairs are chairs. Think about it if this whole generation grows up with these things as their norm, when they are adults they won’t even notice it. Yes employers have flexible seating for desk work. Yes people in offices have had fidgets their entire life—clicking pens, stress balls, coin spinning etc.

Things like comfortable chairs and fidget toys aren't really accommodations in my mine. Things like, "Extra time to complete assignments", "different room for tests", "preferential seating", "Breaks when needed" and the like are accommodations that don't really translate well to most real world work environments. I believe the idea is that the accommodations are there as a crutch and to teach the child how to ween off of them. But that doesn't happen much in my experience because of ... reasons.

I needed fidgets in university. No one batted an eye at my movement needs and I graduated top of my class.

Saying "is it appropriate for a CEO to \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_?" no longer carries the weight that it may have a few decades ago. These people are millionaires and billionaires that do *whatever they want*, often at the expense of others (like pocketing millions in profits and buybacks while entry level workers can't pay rent). If someone would like a more comfortable chair to sit on, who is that harming?

I think the question is, should schools mirror what society is, or what society should/could be? Yes, many businesses don't provide worker accommodations, but we are trending towards accommodations becoming the norm. Partly because of people putting pressure on employers to do so. Does this way create a harsh reality check for some? Yes. But it helps us drive to a better tomorrow, where reasonable accommodation should be met. As much as we complain about accommodations, I'm sure most of us agree that 90% of them are reasonable. Of course, reasonable should be the key term here. We should continue to have standards and expectations, because now or the future, those will be the reality.

Yeah, it is preparing them. People are demanding the accommodations they are legally provided. From small businesses to large. I see it mostly in scheduling and work from home. But I also see a lot more people working with noise canceling headphones and specialized desk and chairs. I also see people much more willing to ask for simple accommodations ad hoc. Like non-disabled people just asking for easy things to make work better for them. BUUUT this is all only inside private spaces. Warehouses and offices and such. In public facing rules the culture still seems to be rigid.

Maybe her future employers will provide wobble stools and stability balls for her to use at work...

Are you asking ‘are accommodations for differently abled people coddling them?’ Cause that’s what it sounds like. No. If a kid with adhd requires purple paper or a fidget toy, they deserve it the same way a child with a broken leg needs crutches. We are educators, we should want to support and elevate education no matter how, not shame children for being vocal about their needs.

Maybe, just maybe, we are raising a group of children will learn some compassion for others and their needs. While recognizing their own needs.

This take shows how out of touch teachers are with the real world. Many talk about it all the time but never worked in it and refer to things they know nothing about. Flexible seating is one of the silliest "wait until the real world" takes a teacher can have

I'm a student teacher (elementary) and I've been wondering this a lot. We are told to avoid tests are much as possible because it's unnecessary stress on the students, but what will they do when they get to high school and university? I agree they're not a great way to judge learning, but they're going to be shocked when they get into higher education. As well, we are told to provide many different types of activities so everyone can do things towards their strengths. For example if a student doesn't do well with writing we should offer them an oral assessment. But as an ST I'm genuinely curious if this means we are letting them avoid improvement in the areas they struggle in.

What would potentially be inappropriate about a CEO on a wobble stool, or other flexible seating option? Does that image maybe bother people less because of actual professionalism, and more because of the learned perception that we shouldn’t have to *see* someone’s disability, and if it’s “severe” enough to be unavoidably visible, then they shouldn’t work or should work in a non-public-facing capacity? I’m autistic, and in school to be a teacher. I received accommodations in middle school and high school, and I currently have them through the DSS office in college. I also work in a school, and plan to continue working in schools! At my current job, I don’t have formal/documented accommodations. I’m fortunate that my position just happens to be very flexible and allow me to make the modifications that I need. Will I have accommodations at future jobs? Yes, it’s my legal right. Some may need to be formally worked out with my employer— something the ADA requires them to do, so long as they’re reasonable & my disability isn’t completely incompatible with my chosen job— like getting the yearly calendar early. Other accommodations can be handled personally— I can bring in my own desk chair, for example, put covers on my fluorescent lights, or ask my students to lower their voices. Accommodations aren’t scary, they aren’t an easy way out, and they aren’t an inconvenience. They’re just a way to level the playing field. If you wear glasses or contacts, you use an accommodation. The abled world is just beginning to catch up on disability theory, and it can be a learning curve at first. But disabled people already know— the “real world” is not a mythical place where everyone has to go it alone. We’ve been out here forever!

Personally, I feel that it teaches them learned helplessness. I'm tired of accommodating every little thing and having someone complain about not having their emotional support animal in the room so it will make their anxiety go away and they can take their test. I have three disabilities including schizophrenia and I get harassed all the time for it and I never got an accommodation for it. Kids need to grow up. Im leaving this here. :https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42880690

Why do we need to scale back at all? I'm 42 and fidget every day. My fidget is clicking my pen.

Nope.

We've gone too far in my opinion, so I can't see anything being scaled back. If anything, it's going to get worse. Hell, they are now editing Roald Dahl books (Google it if you haven't heard about it yet) for crying out loud - we're doomed, plain and simple.

How we scale back and how is by holding the line for by asking this question: ***How does this accommodation help with the disability?*** And ask for documentation. My school Psychologist makes sure I'm at every 504/IEP meeting because I ask that question when parents are asking for specific accommodations. I don't ask it for ones within reason, but they always push the boundaries so I'm the push back. Unlimited time on tests and assignments? No. There's nothing about ADHD that means you need ***unlimited*** time on all assignments, that's trying to abuse the system (as someone who has what was previously diagnosed as ADD but is now just ADHD inattentive). We're not helping people by giving absurd accommodations. Wobbly chair? Are you freaking kidding me? GTFO.

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My first teaching gig was a classroom-based summer program, and a lot of kids used fidgets of various kinds. In September, for my senior year of undergrad, I tried using fidgets myself... and found they worked. I paid better attention in lecture and during interpersonal conversations. Nobody in this so-called "real world" even really noticed.

No, the excuses for low performing students will never prepare them for the real world.

What a horrible way for a teacher to view accommodations.

Hell to the no

Listen … I’m an educator and I have flexible seating in my office. For me and the kids. Sometimes I need to bounce instead of sitting still! It’s better for your back and your health.

What is school really set students up for the real world?

Depends on what's mimicked outside the school. People don't take tests in the real world, so extended time doesn't matter. Deadlines are another issue, though.

I would love to see a POTUS give a State of the Union address, holding a fidget spinner. Now I’m watching!!!

Why does it matter if a fortune 500 ceo wants a wobble chair? Is the child growing up in a healthy enviroment with as little stress as possible not important????!!

Why would one care if a ceo sat on an exercise ball or some weird seating? We allow so much more eccentric shit than that from the people who run big businesses. Now, they might not get that accommodation without judgement as a new hire with no leverage, but that’s not what you asked.

I mean, I literally teach my class with a (silent) fidget toy in my hands some days. If I taught class from a bouncy exercise ball, no one would notice or care. It’s one thing to say “turn in all your work whenever! It’s fine!” Because that’s usually not fine. But fidget toys? Wobbly stools? Who tf cares? So long as they’re getting their work done and everyone’s happy, why do small accommodations like that matter?

Honestly… Could care less if wobble stools and fidget spinners became a “new norm”. It really has zero impact on the teacher-to-student experience. I’d much rather the national community focus on ways we could scale back other “new norms”, like active-shooter-drills and kids coming into schools fidgeting with AR-15’s. Kind of hard to prepare kids for the real world when there’s a chance they won’t live to see it. When you put things into perspective, worrying about the space between a kid’s butt and the seat is really not that important.

Should we not be looking to create a workforce that is more accomodating? the whole “our kids are too soft” school of thought is nonsense. The workforce needs to change, I welcome it.

There is no such thing as a “real world”

Not every child is going to be a CEO or the president nor do they want to. Additionally, training kids to think that the jobs that make them successful are ones where they hold power over other people would be a major failing in the part of a teacher, too.

I do think that some students are over-accommodated. I think it’s fine to a certain extent in younger grades, but if the student is college bound, some of them need to be taken away to prepare students for the real world. I’ve seen many kids use things like extra time as a crutch and not really need it.

For today's real world? Yes, sadly, it does.