After seeing a Newsfeed the other day where many youngsters are coming out of Special schools and reverting to home schooling because of limited systems in schools and misguided teaching methods
As someone who was previously labelled as Autistic for me to have been held back by these limitations would have been a travesty
We live in an age where creativity is discouraged and only the wealthiest students can enjoy the Arts as a release as it is now becoming only for extra curricular activity. And it is generally the less wealthier youngsters that would hugely benefit from the creative trauma release of creativity. I personally don’t remember the last time that I used Pythagoras theory or Algebra in every day life. I believe the whole National Curriculum needs revamping and even bringing Shakespeare into modern day with transcripts of his infamous work in a modern form that we can understand
After recently being a TA in a special school – I immediately clashed with the teacher. I found her teaching practice abhorrent, from teaching the special students games such as Exploding Kittens that encourages deception and deceit between participants and then IPads were used to work on platforms that had huge log in problems and then games played during the lesson encouraging stealing of each other. After working in that school for the day – I came away feeling very sorry for the youngsters and hoping that one day they would put that negative influence behind and find their own way. They were even disciplined for making each other laugh and thus slightly raising the volume in class and in fact the teacher reminded me of some sort of Military officer installing control over youngsters that need the exact opposite.
I would love for the chance to have run a class for a few days to show the potential of these special individuals. We would be dancing, creating and exploring every area of creative expertise to get to the bottom of their Superpower as this is what most ‘special’ youngsters have.
When working with children that have ADHD and Autism in Special Schools – I saw children running around with no direction, one girl constantly patted her ears and straight away I realised that she needed ear defenders something that even I use sometimes as an adult as we live in such a loud world that quietness can be a necessity at times
I saw children that would hugely benefit from dancing and singing. The one day there was a young lad that I was working and after several hours he was beginning to focus and engage very slowly being intrigued by my creativity and in one instance it was destroyed by a misguided teacher that the point I managed to get him take notice she decided to run in ‘hug him’ which I was very annoyed as physical space boundaries are huge with most special children and in that instance I lost him and he went back on a tangent running around the class in his own world and could completely end up going out of society as he grows into a young adult , I felt dismayed and I have since resigned from the agency as little me as a TA cannot do much in this area against the hierarchy.
So, if you do have more clout than me in the Education Sector please talk to me about the reinforcement of creativity in schools.
Thank you
Alison Cecelia Bramwell
University at 54 