to find the title of this BBC drama offensive

[junipertree2]

I am referring to the show 'Subnormal' which tells the story of how black children were inappropriately placed in special education in the 1960s and 1970s. The BBC website is carrying the stories of people who were placed in these schools and they are described very negatively.

While I'm sure this is an important story that needs to be told, I struggle with the implication that special need schools (which of course still exist) were filled with life's no hopers, who would 'struggle to get a labouring job.'

My son has MLD and autism and is highly intelligent in some ways. He attends a special school as there is not really the provision within the mainstream. Is anyone else feeling the same way when they see this word plastered everywhere on the BBC and in the media?

@junipertree2

YABU. As a number of posters have said, it's what black people were called then. Nasty as it is, you cannot airbrush the past.

This is why I think it's wrong to pull down statues of white slave owners from a few centuries ago, and to edit every 'offensive' word out of every film, and to ban stuff like Gone with the wind, and old pre 1960s cartoons etc... Stuff happened, and it was shit, and it was nasty, and the terminology was very unpleasant, but we cannot do anything to change the fact it happened. All we can do is ensure it doesn't happen anymore

Also, it's not as bad as 'The Undateables' on Channel 4, where people with special needs and disabilities are looking for love. Calling them undateable is just rude!

As others have said, it will be based on the term Educationally Subnormal or ESN as it used to be known, certainly well into the latter part of the 70s. I did a couple of weeks helping with the ESN class at our local primary school as part of my work experience in 1977 - The class was very small, the teacher was great and I loved it, but thought it was a horrible term to use for the children. Their teacher thought so too.

Anyway ignoring the title of the documentary,it was the content of the program e that was horrifying,a whole generation of young carribean children being failed because ,they were placed in schools for disabled children ,because of racial stereotypes and prejudice,s and also the affect that must have had on children with disabilities too.

YABU, and you're also NOT the only parent on here with disabled children that require specialist education. The title of that documentary is supposed to be shocking/offensive. Instead of getting all bent out of shape over it, maybe you ought to watch it, and be fucking glad our kids aren't referred to a subnormal by the Educational System any more.

To the other discussion.

My DS's school is quite definitely "X Special School" but referred to as 'specialist provision'

Language around disabilities change all the time ,terms we use today will no doubt be out of date in years to come ,educationally subnormal was the term used at the time
I totally agree with this. I worked with adults with learning disabilities and was amused at other staff being outraged with terms such as ' retard ' when they were talking about a case from decades earlier. I pointed out that would have been seen as being appropriate and possibly forward thinking at the time and using the term 'learning disabilities' will one day cause shock and offence.
Its only a couple of years ago we talked about someone having ' a melt down' that term has changed and now they are ' in crisis '. Just another example of terminology evolving.

It's not an enlightened paradise at all OP. My best friend was placed in the special needs class when she arrived in the UK from Jamaica aged 8 in the 1960s. She was kept there until she was 16 and it was only because of a wonderful teacher who took her under her wing, supported her when she left home at 16 because of abuse, that she was able to see outside the restrictions that the school placed on her.
She ended up with a masters degree and a senior position in a hospital by her mid 40s. But there was no help from her education which just restricted her because she was Black.

It's only offensive because you have completely missed the point of the title. They chose it to shock and to highlight how things have changed and how that term is now unacceptable for general use.

TBH though, the term Special Needs is beginning to attain the same negative connotations these days. There wasn't actually anything wrong with the term subnormal, it's just our perception of words changes over time. It's like the terms Coloured and Black- why is one more acceptable than other? The only difference really is time.

YABU they are using the word to describe how people with disabilities may've been seen then, and saying it's wrong.

In years gone by (and when I was at school in the 60's/70's), some children were referred to as ESN - educationally sub normal. A term which became offensive to many, and has long since been replaced by other terminology. It was applied irrespective of ethnicity.

Perhaps that is why the tv production company decided to use the term. It is precisely because we all know how appallingly offensive it was.

I'm assuming you didn't watch it, I think you should.

No I don’t feel the same way.

I grew up in the 70’s/80’s with an older sister who had ‘learning difficulties ’ and went to a ‘special school’ because she was ‘slow’ as they used to say.

The school had lots of ‘slow’ children as well as children with more complex needs.

The aim of her school seemed to be to teach the children to read and write, basic home ed (cooking) skills, basic life skills such as how to catch a bus and pay with the correct money..... it was very limited because back in the 70’s children in those schools were not encouraged or considered capable of sitting exams or achieving much in life.

Today we find such negative labels such as ‘subnormal’ really awful and rightly so but it’s only a short time ago things were viewed very differently.

@notacooldad

Language around disabilities change all the time ,terms we use today will no doubt be out of date in years to come ,educationally subnormal was the term used at the time I totally agree with this. I worked with adults with learning disabilities and was amused at other staff being outraged with terms such as ' retard ' when they were talking about a case from decades earlier. I pointed out that would have been seen as being appropriate and possibly forward thinking at the time and using the term 'learning disabilities' will one day cause shock and offence. Its only a couple of years ago we talked about someone having ' a melt down' that term has changed and now they are ' in crisis '. Just another example of terminology evolving.

Yep totally when I was a student mental health nurse,,I had the privilege of being able to spend the morning ,in the small "museum "on the site of the mental health trust ,that was once a mental asylum and reading archived medical notes from the 1800,s ,patients were described as lunatics and mentally subnormal and often the cause was thought to be masterbation! Women who were unfortunate to have had a child out of "wedlock ",were often thought to have no morals and were locked up for many years !

@Icantrememberthenameoftheartis

No I don’t feel the same way.

I grew up in the 70’s/80’s with an older sister who had ‘learning difficulties ’ and went to a ‘special school’ because she was ‘slow’ as they used to say.

The school had lots of ‘slow’ children as well as children with more complex needs.

The aim of her school seemed to be to teach the children to read and write, basic home ed (cooking) skills, basic life skills such as how to catch a bus and pay with the correct money..... it was very limited because back in the 70’s children in those schools were not encouraged or considered capable of sitting exams or achieving much in life.

Today we find such negative labels such as ‘subnormal’ really awful and rightly so but it’s only a short time ago things were viewed very differently.

Well to be fair for a lot of children in special school,s for children with severe learning disabilities,they still won't be capable of sitting exams ,my elevan year old is non verbal and still working on p levels,so it's highly unlikely he will be sitting GCSE,s the school he will go to will be focusing on life skills,children who attend some special school,s will still have a broad spectrum of cognitive impairment even within the system

It's supposed to be offensive. A similar theme was the premise of the final instalment of Steve Maureen's 'Small Axe" series.

I went to comprehensive school in the mid 70s and knew a number of kids who were labelled ESN and carted off to " thick school". I grew up in a very multicultural inner London borough ( Haringey) and nearly all of them were black or Turkish. It's honestly scandalous.

Stupid autocorrect! 'Steve McQueen', of course

SN mum here. I'm not offended, but I do find it triggering and horrible. But I think it's important to remember how SN people were seen in the past, so we can learn from past mistakes. If I had my son 70 years or so go I would have been labelled a refrigerator mum, he would have been taken away from us and institutionalised. The thought of this leaves me devastated. But now, even though not as extreme, I do find people - many of those who are qualified therapists - still think we as the parents are to blame. I know this isn't true and is just a reflection of their ignorance. But it's still maddens and devastates me. If the documentary shows this angle then yes, offensive. If it is just referring to past views, not offensive.

It is supposed to be shocking as it was the term used to categorise black people who were unfairly assessed and then sent to failing schools, essentially written off. I watched the full documentary today- we are supposed to feel shocked and appalled because this actually happened.

I remember a man in tears at parents'evening because he didn't want his son to be put in the 'backward class' as he had been.

@junipertree2

Maybe I am just over-sensitive, Mumsnetters! Maybe it's just years of having my son called 'Spacker' and 'Retard' by neighbourhood kids, and having the school bus called 'the Mong bus'. Perhaps they can add the word 'subnormal' to their vocabularies now.

Must be nice to live in the enlightened paradises that you do.

@junipertree2 did you actually watch the documentary? If you did, you would have learned that black kids were being labelled “educationally subnormal.” Given that the majority of them weren’t, and this was just blatant racism, and that these labels would have followed them though their adult years, impacting jobs and relationships, I would imagine they would have found it far more offensive than you…

One of my friends - who has both bachelors and masters degrees - was classified as ESN in the 1960s. Another friend with a congenital disability used to tell people he shopped at the Spastics shop because they gave him a discount.

Newsflash - things were different in the past.

I can guarantee that in years to come when I'm retired and not up to date with professional lingo I will use terms that are current today but are not the right word to use and will probably inadvertently offend someone.It can be hard keeping up with terminology, I mean there isnt an announcement on news at 10 to keep us up dated or anything.
This documentary did what it set out to do which was remind people the education system was brutal for those children who had a SEN. It was shocking and uncomfortable viewing but it was also people's real experiences.

My son has special needs. I don't find this offensive because it's deliberately shocking to demonstrate how we have evolved and how children were seen. Sometimes you need to show this overtly to understand positive social change

No, not in context. It's a documentary about how black children were labelled this way even though it was not actually the case that they were 'subnormal'. It's about racial stereotyping

@lifeissweet

What is offensive is that it happened and that was an acceptable term.

This.

@junipertree2

Maybe I am just over-sensitive, Mumsnetters! Maybe it's just years of having my son called 'Spacker' and 'Retard' by neighbourhood kids, and having the school bus called 'the Mong bus'. Perhaps they can add the word 'subnormal' to their vocabularies now.

Must be nice to live in the enlightened paradises that you do.

We don't live in enlightened places, we are just enlightened in that we can see it's meant to shock simply because if it's offensiveness. I've deleted 'friends' for using just the language you quote.