I think Judy's mistaken assumption reinforces my concern that people
very often try to fit children into pre-defined boxes/labels rather than
spending time to find out who they are. So jenny/Jonny's behaviour is
abstracted to become 'dislexic' etc. This really becomes problematic
when those who work with children refuse to accept that a specific child
can behave in a certain way becasue it does not fit with their own
notions of children with x,y,z.
This really upsets me when I am told by a child, when in schools, that
he/she is being bullied by other children and then staff tell me that
thye are working to teach Jenny/Jonny to come to terms with his/her
disability, teaching him/her coping mechanisms and avoidance startegies
or simply reply that's the problem with these children they don't know
how to get on with other children, we keep him/her in at breaks now to
stop the bullying.
What I'm getting at is that the application of so called objective
criteria result in professionals working on the basis of an individual
deficit model. The response is to make attempts to change the
indivdiual in isolation from their peer group. In only one of the six
schools I have visited have children experiencing bullying told me they
felt supported by members of staff or told me that attempts have been
made to address the behaviour of the other children.
So much time and money is spent on finding out what label to apply to
the indivdiual or how the individual doesnt fit into
'educational/developmental norms' and virtually nothing on how to
address the social and cultural environment of the school.
John
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