Testing the nation
Update: Thursday 5/5/05 (!)
Well, it seems like we’ve reached the crux of the issue. After the little grenade was tossed over the fence to us we called on our family and friends to see what the problem could be. We’ve spoken to friends who work in the nursery business, Jude’s sisters - both of whom are teachers and one of them holds a degree in teaching special needs pupils - some lovely people in the Royal Berkshire Hospital (a consultant, psychologist and an SLT) and received feedback from our brother-in-law Tristan, who runs the website for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. None of the information we’ve had have pointed to Luke being ’special needs’ but there is one, majorly telling point.
There aren’t enough places in childcare around here, so if Luke could move out of his two afternoon slots per week, it would free up a place for someone else’s kid to go five afternoons a week. Much more cash!
Maybe it’s just as well that we’re going to move Luke to another nursery anyway, one that does ‘messy and jelly’ play. We don’t think we want him in an environment that throws lifelong labels around as if they’re some sort of revenue control system. I’d sooner be doing what Luke’ll be doing - playing in a shitload of jelly. If only.
:Update over:
WARNING: Rant ahead. You’ve been warned.
I’ve noticed, in my own slow way, that in the past few years the big push in schools (gleaned through talking to teacher friends and relations) and in the general public is to be tested. To test, be tested, be quizzed, graded, marked and assessed. Everyone likes being graded, don’t they? To look at sites and TV programmes like Test The Nation you would think the every man, woman and child loves to be graded.
Not me.
I know what I’m good at, and I know what I’m bad at. I can’t draw for shit, have no colour co-ordination, but I can see problems, solutions and can usually solve technical kerfuffle with computers pretty easily. I don’t know where that talent came from, but its paid my wages for a long time - I’m just glad that a happy combination of genes coincided with the computer revolution long enough for it to count. Jude is a bit different. She is good with colours, very good, and she’s good with how things look in a room, somthing I’m crap at. She can normally fix a badly laid out or designed room in a few minutes, normally without forcing the occupants of said room to shell out a fortune. She can oganise people to do things that the probably didn’t even think they needed to do, and she can do that without insulting them. That’s her skill, her talent and betwen us we manage to get things done. Normally,
We both accpt that that’s just the way it is,no problem, just grade me as being a ‘C’ on colours and a ‘B’ on technical stuff, if you must.
The crap bit is when it comes to testing children. We were thrown a bit of a bombshell this week when a manager in Luke’s nursery said it was probably best to have him ‘observed’ by a professional to see if he is a ’special needs’ child. Now that was a bit of a bombshell, since there’d been no word about problems before now, and he’s been going to that nursery for about 2.5 years or so.
Instant panic. I emailed Jan, who was nice enough to give me reassurance, then I thought about the whole thing. I started thinking ‘bollocks’, but couldn’t voice that to the professionals who had already decided Luke’s next few months. He would be observed and monitored,then a decision would be taken as to what whould be the next step, if any. That’s the point that we both got a bit hacked off.
We both know Luke has his issues, mainly to do with not wanting to chew food that’s lumpy. We’ve known that for 2.5 years and we shouted and shouted a lot to get that problem recognised. Now that we’re getting him some help, the last thing we need is someone weighing in saying he’s a special needs child. I don’t think he is, our friends don’t think he is and the professionals who have met with him don’t think he is. In the next few months we’ll find out just if it’s a problem or not.
What pisses me of is the criteria for judging whether a child is ’special needs’ or not. We’re told he doesn’t interact with other children and his speech isn’t up to the grade of a 3 year old. To be honest, his speech is ok, just ok, but he communicates with us fairly well. He communicated with me when he told me that Nursery was boring, that he didn’t like the crowds of children there and that they were too noisy for him to be happy. He seems not to like crowds, so that’s something else he’s picked up from me, but that appears to be a black mark on his chart, not a reflection of his character. The other points, I can sort of see the problem, but in the current climate of grading children as being normal or sub-normal, it appears that wanting to play on your own gets you graded as being, well, not up to scratch.
I dread to think what would be made of me if I were being tested and graded according to this years benchmark. I’d probably still be banged up in a darkened basement with a hood over my head - something the Christian Brothers wanted to do to me from the second day they met me. Luckily, I got away with things and had a wee bit of fun when I was young. It’s something that I’d love my son to have, but the way we’re heading, I just don’t see the opportunity for the poor sod. Grading, probing and examining our next generation seems to be the way of the future - Testing the Nation. Is there any chance of learning anything irrelevant or having a laugh while you’re young enough anymore?
Liberal Democrat 15