Special Needs

The cult of the individual. That’s got to be a typo, surely. It’s this selfish attitude, displayed in classes all around the country, that’s to blame for a lot of the disruption happening in lessons today. ‘You’re special’, ‘nobody sees the world the way you do’, ‘don’t let anyone tell you they’re better than you’ and all that crap. This relentless praise and emphasis on individuality undermines the realities of life and can actually result in understandable confusion and consequential fury when things don’t seem that easy. Truth is, some kids (and later adults) are just a bit useless. It’s true. I went to school with some. So did you. Now I teach some.

We used to know this. I remember teachers ridiculing the particularly stupid pupils at school and that was all right – everyone knew where they stood and no-one had unrealistic expectations about themselves. One assembly, a notably ascorbic English teacher (it’s all beginning to make sense now) remarked, as a known thicky dragged his late self into the hall, that he was tardy because he had spent the morning finishing Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. Harmless fun, if you ask me. Thicky was none-the-wiser (a family motto, if I remember) but also, crucially, didn’t think he was any less special because of it. He didn’t go home and cry himself to sleep and, in fact, I think he may have used it as inspiration for his seminal GCSE creative writing piece about a hawk called Stephen who was always late. See – being harsh is also good for kids!

Unfortunately, one thing we’re taught to do very early on in teacher training is praise, praise and praise again. They come from primary school being told they’re potentially the next Bill Gates or Isaac Newton, slither through secondary on top of the shoulders of teachers declaring they have a brain to rival Deep Blue and are finally spat out into the world with no option but to sell their smelly bits to drug addicts because they were never taught to recognise the truth. We all have something to offer, but not everyone is a bona-fide genius. They just can’t be!

I have a pupil in my class at the moment who has great ability and demonstrates fantastic insight for such a young girl, but because she’s been told how amazing she is from the moment she was guffed out, she’s a total cunt about it all. ‘I know’, she’ll retort closed-eyed after getting praise from me (never got praise again, that’s for sure) and then waving her grade and comments around for the rest of the class to gasp at and then cry about because they were all told the same thing about how bastard fabulous they all are. This kind of blanket positivity can only lead to legions of arrogant, selfish, ugly-souled arseholes stomping around secure in the knowledge they are the one true voice of the intelligentsia and we should all blink in incredulity at their dazzling displays of brainial dexterity.

Just so you know this isn’t all the ramblings of an embittered twat (not all, but mostly) a recent article backs me up – albeit less furiously. Rather than making them feel brainer than a zombie special of Come Dine With Me, this extra praise, and I quote: ‘lowers children's motivation and may turn them into "praise junkies"’. See! Actual proof from a newspaper! Too long have teachers had to declare on parent evenings that pupils they know would have difficulty counting to one are ‘really bright’ and ‘have real potential’, when it’s all just indoctrinated soundbites spewed out to make everyone feel less like killing themselves. I say let them have it.

I’m sorry but your son/daughter is possibly one of the most stupid humans I’ve ever met. Although it insists it’s very clever – your own doing, I understand – I’ve had to differentiate substantially since it lumbered into my classroom at the start of the year. I now write the learning objective on my knuckles and punch it repeatedly into their face in the hope the proximity of this to the brain may actually allow at least some learning to penetrate. Unfortunately it appears its skull is over six inches thick, which would render my attempts almost completely pointless were it not for the pleasing woodblock percussion sound it emits. Next! (So pompous, I know, but fun though – yes?)

So, the decision is ours. Have the little emperors and empresses grow up to be either ludicrously deluded or hopelessly conceited about their own ability and live a life populated by these nightmarish caricatures, or kill them all and then yourself. It’s your choice. Or… Stop telling kids they’re all astonishingly bright and let truth and sanity back into the classroom. Discuss.

Look, it's the Royal Wedding! My favourite breaking news on the BBC's rolling news tickertape was (actual quote) 'New black and white photograph released of couple.' Now that's news. See the photo at the top of the post? That's how much fun I had when I was dragged along - minus 99%. Laters!