“We fail students by indulging their fragilities” - Libby Purves in the Times

[CruCru]

I read this thing by Libby Purves in the Times: [[We fail students by indulging their fragilities

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5dbf29f2-857e-41ce-8c78-028a513ab8f9?shareToken=c41320dec7bfb802e039b5c8bc3b513f

I found it very interesting. “Whatever the failings of postwar stiffness - it had plenty - at least that generation was more prepared than most modern children for the shocking fact that once education’s over, the wide world really doesn’t care about your feelings. Rules and systems should prevent bullying, but preserving your comfort zone is of interest only to parents and faithful friends. As far as everyone else is concerned, it’s up to you to be useful.”

I remember at work being taken aback at how much harder work some of the new graduates were than when I started. I wonder, though, if part of that was that they’d had to do so much more to get the job. My A levels were respectable but my old university wouldn’t give me a place these days. So much is expected of young people.

Or because they don’t have the ressources to do so.

Indeed. Ime employers pay lip service to both but actually adjust for neither.
or worse will eg hold 'menopause awareness' sessions in an all male environment but at the same time fail to provide a lift for a person with mobility difficulties (new employment site: supposed to now 'grow' working legs??)

I have a physical disability. My teenagers are NHS dx'd with Autism & ADHD. They also have Clinical Anxiety: largely due to trying to navigate an NT world that pretends to adjust but doesn't which is a real head if you are Autistic. They're also both Dyslexic (one spectacularly so).

Their Grandfathers / Father similar) experienced things like: hands being tied behind chairs at school (merely for being left handed). Sat ignored in school corridors with a jigsaw / bucket of lego. Left early for manual jobs which they struggled with due to poor social skills. Poor health, benefits, early demise.

LP is correct that it is a massive adjustment if you have been supported at School to then go into the 'real world'. The problem is that support, for genuine diagnosed problems, is not accepted as necessary throughout society.

Where do you draw the line though? I agree this was an extreme case, but despite universities apparently mollycoddling everyone this student was clearly not adequately supported and found the pressure overwhelming. It’s not hard to imagine that, between those who have a natural but manageable nervousness and that awful case, there are other students who are seriously affected by anxiety who are pushing through tasks and making things worse for themselves or dropping out.

As I said, I have anxiety but it’s not so severe that my life has been in danger. It still impacts my quality of life very significantly. I push myself through things that make me highly anxious all the time and frankly it is exhausting.

I should probably be clear that I am the parent of a young ND adult who went through horrendous difficulties at school. We had to fight the system to get the help they needed. So I am not appreciative of articles like this that seem to jump on an anti-ND bandwagon. I’m sympathetic to LP but I think this article is click-bait and poorly conceived.

Some bad schools possibly. IME it’s far more likely that schools genuinely don’t think the child is ND because they can only base it from what they can see at school.

@ThreeRingCircus exactly- that's what I also said below. I feel very much for people with genuine issues and the lack of support but there are many others who use it to as a get out of jail free card to get their own way and circumvent poor behaviour or performance

I think most young adults have a bit of a faltering start into the workplace, it's always been the way.

I started on a grad scheme 15 years ago and I can still remember the little shit guy who had to be told by his manager that not getting to work on time actually wasn't an option if he wanted to stay employed.

That being said, I dont think it helps new starters when employers say "bring your whole self to work" or pretend they want to coddle them, and then damn them for believing it. It, in fact, directly penalises those who have e.g. autism so struggle with nuance or reading subtext.

It would be much kinder to set out clear expectations and guide them but that takes effort. We have new apprentices (18yo) to manage every 6 months, and apparently I seem scary at first because I set out how they should act, explain about email and meeting etiquette etc but then my apprentice tells me he's had to help others because their managers cba.

The problem is we’ve reached the privileged position of forgetting the country runs on hard cash. Not just to line the banker’s pockets but to pay for services, people’s benefits, pensions.

It feels like we are increasingly reaching a place where so many people will need adjustments for various conditions (commonly ASD/ADHD right now) that they will inhibit the workplace and result in low productivity and a nightmare managing any group of people. There’s a train of thought that ‘adjustments will increase productivity because they will get the best out of people’, but this only works when a small minority of talented people need them. Otherwise you end up with a group of people with needs so conflicting it makes it impossible for them to work together in a productive and efficient way.

It’s also fairly impossible to discuss, no matter how respectful or well intentioned you are, as you are just met with accusations of bigotry. It’s the same with puberty blockers. You can have valid concerns about something affecting society without being a bigot.

People with profound physical disability (ie wheelchair use) are some of the most hard working and resilient colleagues I’ve had.

Employers used to accept that they would have to train their staff though. Whether it was taking on receptionists from school to work their way up through the company, or brickies taking on apprentices.

But then the offices decided it was cheap enough to hire people from uni, so they started expecting graduates for the same wage and damn the training. And building companies found it far cheaper and less hassle to hire ready-trained foreign labourers.

Now there are fewer workers, employers will have to readjust and possibly bring in training again. Why are we blaming the young people who aren't being properly trained when it's the companies refusing to invest in their staff that's the problem?

I think it's about time employers were no longer able to exploit their staff and treat them like shit. It's our generation who have got it wrong by doffing our caps and sucking it up. I have a DS who has serious mental health issues, physical health issues and autism. He works because he has an employer who is willing to make those key changes and gets an excellent staff member in return. The balance of power is shifting and not before time.

So much food for thought here.

As an ex secondary school teacher, I can’t agree that the shy, quiet girls get ignored. When I’ve spoken to them about inclusion, they’ve often begged to be ignored. It’s a tricky balance to accommodate their feelings and I always tried to balance that.

As a PP has said, often the most obviously challenged students show the most resilience- I’ve taught severely autistic and physically handicapped students who fight every day to be heard, be included and participate. They work so hard against enormous odds and so it can be galling to get a call from a parent whose daughter wants to be moved next to her best friend because she’s feeling a ‘bit anxious’. And then when she isn’t moved, is actually fine all year and makes a new friend. Surely we have yo be discriminating here about degree.

And finally I don’t want to denigrate anyone’s lived experience, but I want young people to find ways of dealing with their emotional trials not so that they can be a better employee, but so that they can lead happier lives. When I was mentoring teachers, I was always told ‘Don’t solve the problem for them. Give them the tools to solve their own problems because you won’t be there next time’.

I'm a professional working with children and young people aged 0-25 and I agree with her.

"a system that from kindergarten to degree warmly fosters their personal development and applauds any effort"

As the parent of DC in a state secondary school, I don't recognise this at all. School does its absolute best, and the teachers are generally very kind and emotionally intelligent, but the overall environment is noisy, aggressive and often violent. There are not a lot of jobs where the working conditions are that poor, and where employees are routinely spoken to the way secondary school pupils are.

I think our young people are facing a perfect storm of social media, a broken and underfunded education system that's far too fixated on exams, and the aftereffects of the pandemic. Yes, there can be a tendency for young people to pathologise normal feelings like shyness, normal stress/anxiety and procrastination. But glib articles like Purves' are not going to help.

I work at a university and the number of students with additional needs for exams is increasing every year. This includes students who find exams "stressful" and therefore need a separate room and to listen to music on their headphones. I wonder how they will cope in job interviews, with demanding clients/customers, with work deadlines, moving house, speaking at a funeral etc.

How is an exam hall comparable to a disco? Exam halls involve pressure to perform, unexpected sounds that echo, the inability to turn around and see if someone is looking at you, people watching you in case you're cheating, the inability to leave if you feel overwhelmed... What if I fart or make a funny noise or cry....? Discos are dark and loud so nobody can hear me or see me well and if I don't like it in there I can leave.

This is the same old nonsense that is trumpeted every couple of years by every generation since the written word and probably before. I remember them saying this about my generation when I was one of the children that needed help but was told I was just an attention seeker and I needed to just shut up and get on with it. It didn't make me resilient, it made me avoidant.

I have always thought one thing, if your and previous generations were so much more resilient, why has the suicide rate been falling for most of the last century? And the people most likely to commit suicide are the middle aged?

I agree with her that our culture is currently low on duty and high on entitlement (and I would apply this across the generations). Having a mindset of ‘what can I give to my community?’ (rather than, ‘what can I get?’) is healthier for the individual in the long run as well as being better for society.

Maybe the workplace needs to adapt to them?

All said, they’re are more jobs than there are Gen Z. Maybe they’ll choose a job without demanding clients? Or a nice workplace?

I have a Millenial. He vowed never to work more than 4 days a week. He loves gaming. He has a highly paid job where he can do both. He has no demanding clients.

Demanding clients may find no one really cares with Gen z in charge.

Probably but not in a bad way.

Our catchment area school has a high proportion of pupil premium students, and I know a few of the TA's, they say that they spend a lot of their time making sure the children are fed and clothed and that impacts everything else :(

It can’t. Not without our productivity plunging and the country becoming poorer. We are in competition with countries where people are prepared to work 5 days a week with no adjustments.

I also have another Millenial. He works for the civil service. He’s looking for another job rather than be forced in 3 days a week.

The world of work is changing. The people who recognise this are the ones who will push forward.

The more I read this article, the more it winds me up!

I profoundly disagree with Libby Purves that teens and young adults want more and more special accommodations bent to their rules. Ime, the majority of them want to be exactly the same as their peers and fit in. Many ND teens, especially girls, are so anxious to appear “normal” that they exhibit a very high degree of masking. So you can have teens and YAs who appear to function reasonably well in school and at work , then they totally collapse when at home. So people think they are exaggerating their difficulties or lying about them.

Added to the fact that someone with ASD or ADHD can be completely killing it one area, such as compiling a very complicated high level detailed report, but have difficulties finding a bus to go home in the right direction.

If anything , not enough provisions are being made for those with physical or mental disabilities or those who have ND profiles and this article taps right in to that sneering, doubting, mocking, disrespectful narrative.

How dare she use the word “quaverings” and so what if a potential student doesn’t mention their chronic anxiety at an Oxbridge interview? Doesn’t that correspond with what LP is advocating? That they carry on regardless? Too many contradictions I’m afraid!

Our productivity is also very low now.

We are a third world country now anyway. And the robots are coming.

And I suppose you will be complaining when there is even less money for the NHS and benefits?

Our productivity is low because of our poor infrastructure. Poor investment in public transport, childcare and health care and a lack of specialist skills. It is nothing to do with making accommodations for those with SEN in the workplace.

Other European countries manage to have higher productivity levels with a shorter working week.