Thank you so much for sharing this very personal experience. I am very strongly with you here, this sort of response only separates people. It’s is horrible the way the system is designed to meet certain goals, and the focus on measuring those goals means everything else falls by the wayside. What’s more frustrating is that everyone has their own set of weakness and flaws, and yet the people who don't conform to the norm get labeled as a problem. Yet the issue isn’t in the actual observation, but in the way it is approached. Here, as you say “rather than tell the teacher to smile at him” – an observation was made, that wasn’t inaccurate, but the way it was responded to seriously worsened the problem. In a way it’s like the focus from the school was on the wider picture, they were looking at how to solve the problem for them, not for your son. And I don’t know what it’s like where you are but it is a bit of a systematic problem, schools have targets and goals to meet, and take the easiest route of making it the child’s problem. It is very much the case that our differences are our strengths, what in one situation can hold someone back, can put them at a massive advantage elsewhere, education shouldn't be 'one size fits all and if it doesn't well that's your fault'. And completely agree with you, the Rudolf Steiner schools, care villages, homes, pretty much everything are such a wonderful alternative. What they do isn't even revolutionary, it wouldn't be hard for all schools to take a more considered approach.
This is a very good and thought provoking answer, inclusion isn’t arbitrary, it isn’t making a ‘special’ place for ‘special’ people, or labeling people and treating them as the thing they are instead of a person – although there are organizations that might argue that. Inclusion is valuing differences and seeing them as strengths, and working with them instead of separating them out and I am happy you managed to find that for your son. Segregation is never inclusion, and the idea that a school would take separate kids for the sake of inclusion would be laughable if it wasn’t such a sad story.
And this has been a very interesting one for me personally, someone very close to me when through all their schooling undiagnosed, getting the diagnosis as an adult was an emotional experience but they felt it was probably better as having that label in school would have meant they were treated differently, which was exactly what you encountered.
This is one we can all learn something from, thank you very much for this!
And thank you for that response! I've felt quite alone with this "burden" that has taught me a great deal and put me on a different path altogether. For that I am grateful to my son for being who he is. I have become who I am largely because of him.
But his problems are far from over. I could write another one of these regarding the treatment he gets from doctors if I tell them he has emotional differences. Doctors then just want to ply him with a boatload of drugs. So another thing I have learned is don't tell the doctors or they give him less thought, and it is super important to not tell doctors in hospitals, or they almost immediately tell me he should be in "psych". I've found that it is better the doctors think I am over-protective rather than he is "crazy". Just so you know, his offence is to remain too silent, he is not violent or disruptive in any way. He is thoughtful and wary, with good reason. I stay in the hospitals with him, even if they tell me I have to leave. He is less safe there than he was in school.
Both our educational system and our medical system are awful awful awful, yet have enormous power. They are both harming all of our children from the moment of birth. Two traps we willingly walked right into.
Thank you for listening and appreciating!
Hi! I just wrote a freewrite I am very happy with that is related to and partly inspired by this contest. Here it is!
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@owasco/weekend-freewrite-4-20-2019-schoolhouse