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| freedom-in-education.co.uk |
Newsletter May 2003 |
In this issue: Special
Needs, Letters, a new section of Education
News, Information, Euclid,
plus a free, sample, printable copy
of the Freedom in Education Magazine
Special
Educational Needs
Why are some children
diagnosed as having special educational needs? Why is there a stigma attached to
children who do not conform to the pattern of development demanded by schools?
This month we explore some of the issues surrounding the question of special
educational needs.
When we hear that a child has
special educational needs, our immediate response is often to be slightly
intimidated, to wonder what the view of the ‘experts’ is, to feel sympathy
for the parents and perhaps to experience a slightly guilty sense of relief that
our own children do not have special educational needs.
As we go through these emotions
we fail to notice that we have allowed ourselves to be taken in by a cruel
deception; by accepting that one child has special educational needs, we have
tacitly accepted that other children do not. Nothing could be further from the
truth – in reality each and every child is just as special as every other
child, and has their own unique set of educational needs.
| Physical
and Mental Disabilities
Children who have
mental or physical disabilities are particularly disadvantaged by the
current system. As soon as it becomes obvious that they cannot follow
the standard curriculum, they are designated as having special
educational needs and this inevitably carries a stigma which cuts them
off from the rest of society.
If we recognised that everyone
has special needs, then people with disabilities would no longer find
themselves being picked on for being different – everyone would get
special attention and everyone would find it easier to accept everyone
else’s individual qualities.
Able-bodied people are
not ‘better’ than disabled people and clever people are not
‘better’ than people who are not clever. Different people are able
to offer different things to society and everyone benefits when this is
recognised. |
The misunderstanding arises
because almost all schools are run on the assumption that there is some sort of
average child; this leads to the creation of a fixed curriculum, a timetable and
a set of rules – all of which are supposed to be appropriate for this average
child. Children who manage to conform to this regime are deemed to be slightly
above average, and children who cannot conform to it are deemed to be slightly
below average, but children who have no chance of conforming to it are politely
referred to as having special needs and this sets a pattern which can dictate
the course of the rest of their lives.
However, what if the whole
premise of the ‘average’ child is completely wrong? Suppose that each person
is absolutely unique and completely different from everyone else. Then it would
never be appropriate for teachers to assume that someone should learn a
particular thing at a particular age or because they live in a particular place
or because they come from a particular section of society. The art of being a
teacher would then involve getting to know each child and understanding what
they are thinking. It would involve treating every child as though they were
special and only teaching them things when they want to learn them and when they
are ready to learn them. This would be different for every child.
I believe that this is the way
that it really is. When I look back at my own childhood, I can remember being
totally uninterested in everything that I did at school. School was something to
be endured, it had nothing to do with me as an individual and it did nothing to
meet my own educational needs. This was also true of all my friends and it is
obvious to anyone who visits any school that it is still true today.
When you give children a chance
to express themselves they are full of questions about every conceivable area of
life; they are bursting with ideas; they have things that they want to do and
they have feelings that they want to understand. Each child needs to have all
this treated with respect. But this does not happen in our education system.
In our system, it is not even
the teacher – who may well have an understanding
of the special needs of the children in their class – who decides what sort of
education children should receive. Decisions are made by curriculum authorities
and examination boards who lay down what every child in a particular country
should be made to learn at a particular time. In this way no one’s special
needs are ever met.
| Dyslexia
and Reading Difficulties
More and more school children are
finding it impossible to comply with the literacy standards laid down by
education authorities. Many of these children are diagnosed as being
dyslexic and in some countries it is now a common practice to screen
children for dyslexia when they start school. Whether diagnosed as being
dyslexic or not, children who do not learn to read at the required pace
are frequently subjected to a programme of extra reading tuition, the
effect of which may be to bring their reading level closer to the standard
required by the school but which can also make reading into a disagreeable
chore for the children concerned.
A few children may benefit from the
extra help, but for many it simply represents more pressure to do
something that they do not want to do – in crude terms it is a form of
bullying.
It is far better not to coerce children to learn
to read at a particular time but instead to provide them with a
stimulating environment (i.e. not a typical school classroom), read books
to them, talk to them, do things with them, and let them come to reading
in their own time and in their own way.
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Even though children in school
are in an incredible vulnerable and powerless situation, and will do almost
anything to avoid drawing attention to themselves, some children simply cannot
endure the treatment that they receive. Try as they might, they are unable to
learn to read when the teacher tells them that they should; they are unable to
sit still in a classroom when everything in them wants to be moving around; they
simply cannot endure writing another word or doing another sum that has no
meaning for them and which offers them no enjoyment. Children caught in this
situation can react in many different ways; they may go very quiet, they may
make a noise, they may become very passive or they may hit out. All of these are
normal, natural responses to a stressful situation, but instead of recognising
that this is a sign that there is something wrong with schools, people are still
falling into the trap of believing that their must be something wrong with the
children.
Children who do not conform are
labelled as having ‘special educational needs’, but this does not mean that
their special needs will be met, it means that more resources will be allocated
to try to make them do things that they have already demonstrated do not meet
their special needs.
This explains why children who
have been diagnosed as having special needs are disproportionately represented
amongst people who home educate. For many children, the only solution to their
problem is to take them out of school, and once they are out of school, they no
longer have a problem. These children are the lucky ones; the fact that they
simply could not do what school wanted them to do, and the fact that their
parents had the courage to take matters into their own hands, has meant that
they now really do have an education tailored to meet their own special needs.
But this is no consolation to those millions of other children who also have
special needs, but simply because they are able to more or less do what they
told while they are at school, have them completely ignored.
The current system judges people
according to how well they are able to conform to an arbitrary standard when
what we ought to be doing is helping each child to fulfil their own unique
potential. As a result, we can have no idea about what children might really be
capable of achieving – their creativity, their originality, their enthusiasm,
their innocence, and their optimism, are all schooled out of them by a system
that fails to recognise and care for the special needs of each and every child
that comes under its influence. That is why every parent should think
carefully before committing their child to a conventional school.
Gareth Lewis
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Albert
Einstein
Albert
Einstein provides a graphic example of what we might be losing as a result
of the education system’s efforts to try to make everyone the same. He
could not talk until he was three years old, he always hated school, was
unable to get a place in a university and developed his theory of
relativity in his spare time while working for the Swiss patents office.
In later life he reflected on how such an unpromising start in life could
have led to him becoming the world’s most celebrated scientist:
“I
sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the
theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never
stops to think about problems of space and time. My intellectual development
was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time
only when I had already grown up.”
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Letters
Stymied
I am an undiagnosed, untreated yet compensated dyslectic that has
earned two Master’s Degrees and has had a successful career in nonprofit
housing development in New York City. That is to say that in spite of
great difficulty with first learning to read and now accessing information
through reading, I managed to somehow attain some measure of
accomplishment. Currently I am researching the field of dyslexia.
One of my Master’s Degrees is in psychology and my area of interest
is cognitive development. In my studies, I was always impressed with the
nature of the nurturing interaction between developing human beings and
their caregivers in the unfolding of intelligence and communication. At
its best, it’s a give and take process, expressly adapted to particular
individuals by loving parents. In the first few years of the child’s
life, parents communicate knowledge of the world, the culture and the
spoken language. Having had a hard time learning to read within the school
system, I always puzzled over why knowledge of reading wasn’t also
communicated within the family.
I have learned that this is a contentious, although hidden, question
within the field with professionals and practicing parents lining up at
opposite ends of an answer. Not surprisingly, I have gotten few responses
to many letters requesting networking opportunities. My developing
understanding of the silence prompted me to write this letter.
It just seems to make sense that parents start the process of teaching
their children to read, because making the connections from the sound of a
word to the visual symbol is mediated by human information processing
capacity that is subject to much variation from child to child. In
addition, children are at varying stages of readiness. It seems natural
for the rudiments of reading, which is a logical extension of language
learning to be taught individually by parents that have extensive
experience with the child.
The stakes are so high. If a child hits the first grade without a
rudimentary knowledge and experience with reading and if there is slowness
in the child’s ability to process written words, then this kid is likely
lost.
This is the case because all of the available treatment alternatives
are not able to avoid the damage to the child’s psyche because they are
put in play after the child learns that he is unable to keep up and after
he comes to think of himself as being stupid. I know this assault on
self-esteem to be corrosive to one’s spirit and being.
It’s best to avoid this. Children need to be given the best chance of
succeeding in school. They need to come properly nourished, properly
equipped with the concepts necessary to participate and they need to come
with the rudimentary skills necessary to learn to read well. Anything less
is a handicap in this competitive world that begins the moment the child
steps out of his parents home.
Make no mistake. What is being called for is no less than a monumental
task to modify the culture so that parents can start their children on the
road to reading. This can not be done without the participation of the
schools. To do better, a cooperative arrangement between the schools and
parents would need to be developed. Parent education, educational
structure and on going guidance all would need to be provided by the
schools and all before the first grade
This brings me to your article in the April issue of the freedom in
education newsletter. I think that beyond your point that parents don’t
know that they can teach their kids to read or don’t want to, the
educational authorities are irrationally guarding their turf. In a
misguided attempt to protect their profession, they foster a fear in the
parents that they are inadequate to the task; that only trained experts
are capable of getting the job done. In my experience, this is true on
every level, from the national organizations, through to the teaching
profession, and finally to the community organizations. They all feel that
they have the answer and that everyone else is somehow misguided. Worse
still, In the United States, parents have been enlisted to lobby the
government for more money for the educational establishment. This is a
main focus of most of the nonprofit groups working in the area of learning
disabilities. This is just the opposite of your point and mine, that there
be less government, not more and it should be more intelligent in what it
does.
Where there could be cooperation, there is only mutual distrust, sullen
discounting and manipulation. This is not a recipe for success. When one
thinks about it, it could only take a few precious, quality moments of
each day of an attentive parent working with an inquisitive child. The one
can communicate to the other the rudiments of decoding the symbols
contained in written language and connecting them to the sounds and
meanings that are already known. With some kids, it might be like getting
them to eat spinach, but with time, patience and attention to what the
child likes the, task can be accomplished. The bond between parent and
child could be extended to the task of learning to read. I would think
that such activities could only help teachers to do their job. More
children would arrive at school ready to face the competition that is
surely waiting for them. The fear created by not measuring up, that fuels
many negative behaviors, can be lessened. Things can improve.
Perhaps as the massive amount of new resources are poured into old
solutions and found wanting, an opening for a new and different
cooperative solution will be created
Thank you for your attention to these thoughts. I welcome you comments.
John Tomasello
tomasello2002@yahoo.com
Please send letters,
articles, and information intended for inclusion in the newsletter to:
newsletter@freedom-in-education.co.uk
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Education News…
Education News …Education News
Creative Thinking, Uganda – Learning
from a scheme developed in South Africa, Uganda is launching a programme
that trains head teachers in the art of encouraging the natural creativity
of school children. The scheme is designed to benefit 12 to 16 year olds
and focuses on developing a real partnership between students, parents,
local business people, and investors.
Test Boycott, UK – The
National Union of Teachers in the UK has voted to boycott the
government’s Standard Assessment Tests for 7, 11, and 14 year olds in
England. They say that the tests narrow the curriculum and make education
an unpleasant experience for children.
Stress in Childhood, UK – A
survey carried out for the Times Education Supplement found that over a
third of six and seven year olds in England were suffering from stress
caused by the national school tests. Many children cut down on the time
that they spend playing, in order to revise.
Writing, US – A report
published by the National Commission on writing found that only a quarter
of America’s school and college students were proficient at writing.
Charter Schools, US – The
first charter school – independent schools that receive public funding
– was opened just over ten years ago in the US but there are now
2,700 such schools
catering for 700,000 students. Charter schools owe their popularity to
the fact that they set their own curriculum, they involve parents in the
running of the school and they are free from government control.
Why do Children Learn More
From Video Games Than They do from School? –
Perhaps James Gee, professor of reading at the University of Wisconsin
has the answer: ‘Kids often say it doesn't feel like learning
when they're gaming - they're much too focused on playing.’
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Info…Info…Info…Info…Info
The Jamboree – the
online e-magazine for children and parents:
“MAY IS HERE! And with it comes
the May issue of the Jamboree…
http://www.jamboree.freedom-in-education.co.uk/
_____________________________________________________________________________
International
Democratic Education Conference
July 16-24 2003
Russell Sage College,
New York
A
conference bringing together students, parents, teachers and home
educators from all over the world.
Speakers include
John Taylor Gatto, Zoe Readhead from Summerhill, and Derry Hannam, a
radical former school inspector.
For information about accommodation and registration:
http://www.idec2003.com/
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Emag 4 all
An e-magazine for everyone but without soap operas
and gossip. It's informative and interesting, with a monthly subject, rune
readings, great kids’ pages and some very funny brainteasers and
quizzes.
www.emagforall.netfirms.com
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Home Educators’ Liberation Papers
Home Education bi-monthly East Midlands.UK
Available by post or online.
For more information contact Barbara Stark: starkfamily@ntlworld.com
or go to:
http://groups.msn.com/HomeEducationMidlands
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