I'm not going to restate what everyone else has already said about how retarded kids should be allowed life and their own special education but should be kept separate. I just thought I'd share how my high school handles the mentally retarded kids that are there.    There are totally separate classes for the mentally challenged kids in which they are taught life skills, like how to benefit society in the ways that they can. For instance, they participate in the recycling club by helping us empty the recycling bins every thursday. It's something that doens't require a great deal of thought but is helpful and makes them feel useful. They learn how to do little things like clean, organize, and make crafts and work with their hands.     The kids that aren't severely retarded but can learn more are taught more about reading and simple math, but mostly domestic skills. I can't tell you how many times I've been studying in the library and had one of the challenged kids come up and offered me a freshly baked brownie or homemade pizza that they were taught to make in the resource room across the hall. And they are so happy to feel useful like normal people.    After they've been in for four years, where normal students would graduate, they are allowed to come back for the social environment if they want and our school gives them jobs, like they go to classrooms during a teacher's planning period and sweep and empty the trash cans and then are allowed to go with the special ed teachers shopping for basic groceries to prepare them for not being in school and stuff like that.     Really, having them in school is kind of like a service to us regular students because they are in their own classes so they don't disturb our study environments, and they provide services that our teachers don't have to waste time doing (like organizing library books or putting labels on envelopes).    And as someone stated earlier, retarded kids are really nice most of the time and though they can't ever be true friends (like deep, intimate friendships), they can be great pals at school and stuff. Almost everyone at my school knows all the retarded kids and are pals with them. (partially due to the fact that it's a small town school, but also because of the way that retarded kids are treated in our school systems).    So I just thought I'd share that, because it seems like it's an idea that more schools should adopt in dealing with mentally challenged kids.