September 14, 2010 02:15 PM
Saw this morning on the BBC website that Ofsted are saying that thousands of pupils are being wrongly diagnosed as having “special needs” on the UK, and that what’s really needed is better teaching support. I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently - mainly because my son Ewen has been having a hard time at school, and so there’s been a push to have him categorized as having special needs.
For a long time I’ve wondered if being labeled as having “special needs” is just as bad as being labeled as “remedial” when I was a kid. Both terms meant you were signaled out, although now it means you’re singled out for help where in my day it meant you were placed in a holding cell until release!
Labels are powerful things, and in the past you were just “crap at spelling” or “rubbish at reading” and “useless at maths” but beyond that you were no different from everyone else, because in life everything tends to balance out. Now I wonder if being labeled as being dyslexic, dyspraxic or having hyper active attention deficit syndrome as a child is actually a positive thing? These ‘disorders’ have been around for ever, and in many cases as simply the way you are, and are an attempt to label anyone out of the norm. I’d even goes so far to say we should celebrate these kids and make more of the word ‘special’ than the word “need”.
What we have to do is not make kids feel like victims of themselves.
Take my son for example, a very physical child (he can do 8 full pull ups and he’s only just turned 9), who is adventurous, witty and talented, and who’s brain works extremely well at many things. The problem is - in school - he has the attention span of a house brick. I would be very easy to write him off as “thick” if you saw him reading, as his reading and writing is poor, and trying to teach him is a real test. And yet he can play a computer game for hours and hours with complete concentration, or lay on the carpet all day and draw picture after amazing picture, and see details - and emotions - in people few others see. He’s a genius in many things.
For this child being told to sit down and listen is as hard as him asking his teacher to do 8 pull ups.
Already my son tells me he has “attention deficit syndrome” and I worry if he understands how little this means? All I can do is point out that I couldn’t (and still can’t) write or read properly, and that having to read out bits of my book in public was far scarier than any climb in it. I tell him that ADS is just the same as saying a ginger person has acute red hair syndrome, and it’s just short hand for a small part of what you are.
In the bad old days of education we stigmatized and threw out the kids who could not conform to a pattern of learning, while now we try and embrace them tight and attempt to squeeze them into that same system, and make them know that they aren’t the same.
Maybe I’m a hippy, but I think that it’s the way we teach our kids that’s to blame, and that the ways they will work and live after leaving school bare little resemblance to what they do in it.
As for Ewen as long as he keep up the drawing and the pull ups I think he’ll be OK.
Howard Cobb | 09/14/10
I thought pretty much as you Andy when I read this. I don’t have kids so can’t really say what happens in school, but it seems to me that, as in the rest of society, the boundaries of what is “normal” are shrinking rapidly. Schools seem to be geared up to coaching the kids ( those that will pass and look good in the league tables) to pass exams.
Health and safety , a favourite hobbby horse of mine, has the same constricting effect on our behaviour. You have to stay within the boundaries if you wanna be “normal”. Climbing is clearly deviant behaviour and should require a license.
My dad was a teacher who, in his own words, tried to teach the kids no-one else could do anything with whatever he could manage to get into them. He was much respected I know - when he retired youngsters would appraoch him and thank him for helping them through school. Would he get a job now?
Oh , and Andy, you are way to young to count as a hippie!
OK. moan over.
Matt | 09/14/10
IMO, the labels are fine as long as the teachers do something constructive with it. I don’t know how it works over there, but here in the States, if a child is active (ie, needs physical activity to be mentally engaged), he’s labeled as having ADD or ADHD, and the first thing they want to do is drug the kid so he’s passive enough to sit in a desk quietly and be passively taught. The vast majority of the time, the teachers and parents need to man up and work a little harder to figure out how to engage the kid. IMO, most teachers aren’t fit for the challenge, so out come the drugs!
I think you’re right, and it has nothing to do with being a hippy.
Matt Traver | 09/15/10
Good post. I agree that some children are being wrongly diagnosed, however, I also think many children are being unnecessarily diagnosed. Although I am detached from the primary/secondary education system now, I get the feeling that if a child exhibits even a slight deviation from the norm, then there must be ‘cause for concern’.
Although I’m not classified as having a learning disability, I’m sure nowadays I would’ve been labelled as having a problem due to the fact I could barely add 2 + 5 or 2 x 2 until my early teens - consequently I was thrown in to the lowest math class in secondary school. I don’t know how other’s educational experience were, but how the hell can anyone think grouping a bunch of kids with a slight weakness for math is going to be of any benefit to them? It’s like being in a pack of abandoned dogs, everyone dragging each other down because they feel incapable and overlooked.
‘...what’s the point, we might as well just give up and give in to who people think we really are’ - that is the message I think we are sending some of today’s children.
I think what I’m trying to say is I think a proportion of people with learning disabilities would simply benefit as being treated as normal and put in a mixed ability class if they are not already. Though that is just my opinion and I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t agree. If the world didn’t have a ravenous appetite for labeling the unique characteristics of individuals, would anyone really feel like they have a learning disability?
What I find equally disturbing, if not more so than those with ‘special needs’ (you’d think they’d be in a wheelchair with that sort of term), is parents who proclaim their child is a genius and seek to educate them in special ‘genius’ schools.
Have a watch of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBP3sMo4gtQ - it’s as bad as watching a kid get slapped around in Tesco by his drunk father.
Matt
SteveR | 09/15/10
When I left primary school the Head wanted me to be classified as ‘remedial’ in secondary school. Fortunately the secondary school ignored his request, and I had much more success in secondary school. I bumped into my old Head a few years later, and there was a very definite look of shock on his face when I told him I’d just got all A and B grades at GCSE.
I think more than anything I was bored in primary school, repetitive tasks (like hand writing practice) have never brought out the best in me.
Your literary success (!) is proof that we can all learn skills at any age, so I don’t at all believe that academic success in primary school gives anything more than a vague indication of the skills we will have in later life.
I’m sure though, that unlike academic success, sporting prowess in primary school does nearly always give an indication of abilities in later life, so I’m sure that one armers aren’t too far away!
Kim Graves | 09/15/10
Andy, I read some where that a lot of these problems can be addressed by not making the children sit while they’re working. If you have a high desk that the kids stand at, their concentration goes way up.
Nick | 09/15/10
I agree with Matt. Math education is a small passion of mine and through my own research I have found many studies that show that it is better to have all ability levels work together in the classroom rather than segregate them as most education systems do. One would think that only the students struggling with math would benefit from the help they receive from the other students, but it has been shown that all of the students benefit from the multi-level group because seeing others’ perspectives on problems helps them understand the concepts better.
Another great argument against segregating abilities, whether it is in sports or school, is put forward by Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers”. Basically, if you label a group as low-achieving or the like, then they are stuck with that label for the rest of their lives and are not provided with the same opportunities as so called high-achievers.
As a parent in the British education system I would encourage my child to work in groups with his or her friends as much as possible and do everything in my power to prevent my child being labeled.
Howard | 09/15/10
Exactly Nick - outliers sums it up well. Society seems intent on labelling us all, and prescribing, very narrowly, how we should be treated and seen. Trouble is, it seems that what constitutes an “outlier” changes. It becomes less and less tolerant of anything other than “normal”.
And, almost inevitably, the “outliers” are considered below standard - except for the category reserved for “genius” of course (rather a small subset of society). And if you are put into a category (attention deficit, or whatever), you well understand how you will be seen!
Erving Goffman wrote a number of books on stigma and institutionalisation in prisons, mental hospitals etc.. It all sounds terribly familiar in the present context. Prisoners are dehumanised by the institution of prison, and lo and behold they start to act accordingly. Treat them like shit and they behave like shit etc.. All self-fulfilling.
Worth looking at and just as true now as it was then. Sadly.
iggy | 09/30/10
hi andy,
great article.
if i might say; at school i had very good reading and writing skills, finding it all came naturally - and i was as bored shitless and short on attention as you describe yourself and ewan to be.
sadly there are millions of normal people out there filling the middle ground, who distort the stats to isolate those who dont fit - and who tend to be the ones who move the system forward as the system needs to adapt to them (us!).
many of my friends are/have been dyslexic/add etc - their different attention spans and triggers for interest make me feel comfortable even tho im not meant to be in the same bunch.
oddly, now i live in a country where i can hardly speak or read the language - maybe thats what dyslexia is like. you get by seeing other things.
rage against the normal,
iggy