Yes.
First off, depending on what you mean by “special ed”, often one of the issues is that they are TOO nice and trusting (because they can’t read/understand other people well enough to know when they’re being bullied or conned).
Second, telling “at-risk” youth that the key to a successful life is being nice is idiotic. Sounds like some privileged white kid from the suburbs who graduated from college and couldn’t find work so they signed up for Teach For America and brought their inexperienced and inappropriate world view to kids who were probably rolling their eyes at the naiveté.
