have you seen this thread in education

[cormsilky]

HERE
about Toby young and his views on disability/SEN- the massive twat

I agree with what he says. It's important not to be blinded by right on dogma and to think about what it is that others are saying.
I love Toby Young and would fight through a ribver of effluent to get my children into a free school if we were fortunate enough to have one here.
Read the follwing elaboration of his comments.

'Some people have misunderstood this paragraph. I'm using "inclusive" in the broad sense to mean a dumbed down, one-size-fits-all curriculum, rather than the narrow sense of providing equal access to mainstream education for people with disabilities. I've absolutely nothing against inclusion in that sense. Rather, what I'm against is the way in which opponents of education reform often invoke the low intelligence of some (non-SEN) children as a reason not to introduce more intellectual rigour into a national curriculum that's meant to be fully inclusive. That's the context in which I use the word "troglodyte". It's supposed to conjure up the fictional, cave-dwelling creatures from the movie One Million Years BC ? someone whom it's plainly ridiculous to try and tailor the national curriculum for. It's not supposed to be a synonym for a child with SEN. Indeed, a moment's reflection should make this clear.'

Oh moondog really??

Read again what he's written. He initially equated dumbing down of educational standards (ie GCSEs) with the 'politically correct' concept of inclusion. Implication being that if schools have to cater for the disabled, educational standards go down.

Then tried to correct himself by saying that he didn't mean that, what he meant was some other kind of mythical inclusion - a "dumbed down one-size fits all".

That is not what inclusion means. Inclusion means enabling all children to access an adequate education and that measures must be taken to ensure that children are not denied this because of a disability.

And if this is what he meant to start with, why tf did he mention eg wheelchair ramps, dyslexia and () munchausens by proxy?

Fucking twat of highest fucking order.

TY is a journalist and journalists need to stir. It arouses attention and interest.
He has made some foolish comments and seems to relaise this (the wheelchair one in particular).

However I am more interested in the general point which is one of excellence and appropriateness for all.
I have seen scores of kids literally drowning in inclusive settings because of the right on focus on inclusion.

Children who have an appropriate education wihch targets their strengths and needs will have the best outcomes, not those who are churned up together in a bizarre mishmash in the name if integration.

It is astounding how well kids really will do when educated in a way that reflects thier needs.

Children who have an appropriate education wihch targets their strengths and needs will have the best outcomes

Yy absolutely, I totally agree. But if that was the point he was trying to make, why be so needlessly and outrageously offensive about SN/SEN?

If it was just a journalistic piece it wouldn't be quite as bad - at least, not as important. But the fact he runs his own precious bloody north London free school - funded of course by 'the taxpayer' - makes his comments disgusting and dangerous.

I agree with moondog - I'm fed up of the one size fits all education policy and the overuse of the word "inclusive".

I'd say if inclusion means the lazy way out- at worst just letting asd child who has "own agenda" do what he likes unchallenged or if he "can't cope" with assembly, then let him opt out .... v. bad indeed

if inclusion means accepting the child's disability and supporting that child gradually to integrate and to achieve = v.good

Bialy, never forget the taxpayer is already funding a system that is, by and large,utterly unfit for purpose. Most SEN staff haven't a clue what they are doing (no fault of their own when 'multi sensory rooms' and aromatherapy sessions take precendence over evidence based training ).
It is huge,m grows bigger ever year and rarely does what it purports to em.Free schools will shake people out of their complacency.

notonurnelly absolutely agree.

Actually I'm fully in favour of re-introducing O levels or something of similar rigour - I was in the last year ever to do them and am glad I did. I come from a very academic background of which TY would no doubt approve (Latin, Greek, top university etc).

I totally agree that 'inclusion' in the broadest sense (ie not referring to SN/SEN) doesn't help - the brightest don't necessarily get a chance to push themselves or excel, and the less-bright don't feel any less of an academic 'failure' simply because they did the same exam system as the top stream.

But that is not what has made me so angry about that twat Toby Young. Why the hell did he bring wheelchair access into his argument? Why bring up dyslexia, or 'SEN departments'? He has conflated the two concepts of comprehensive education and inclusion of SN children - two utterly separate issues. Ensuring that children in, eg, wheelchairs, can attend a school of their choice has nothing whatsoever with a dumbed-down one-size-fits-all system. He has revealed his bigotted and unpleasant true colours.

x-posts. moondog you know that I fully agree (doing ABA with my own ds and all). That's a separate issue though - I was, as they say, incandescent with rage about TY's implication that it is the inclusion of SN children that is responsible for the dumbing down of education.

I read that yesterday. Aside from the fact that he fails to imagine that a child in need of a wheelchair ramp (seemingly a fixation of his) might actually be highly intelligent, I was pretty speechless at his description of a functionally illiterate troglodyte with a mental age of 6. Of course he argues on his blog with the whine that he didn't mean kids with SEN there (well sorry, Toby, you appeared to be describing a child with pretty profound SN in referring to a teen with a mental age of 6) but I'm sure he'd be quite rightly whipped if he used similarly derogatory language to describe someone black or even gay.

Rather than engaging directly in the comment section, I complained directly to the editors of the Spectator, since such language falls foul of laws on hate speech.

And for clarity that my position has nothing to do with my views on inclusion and everything to do with TY's assholiness, I have that child with ASD who cannot cope with whole school assemblies. He can barely cope with his own class of 20 a lot of the time. He's also extremely bright and would be capable of sitting O-levels. Inclusion isn't really happening for him but there is a lack of any real viable alternative that we're not going to have to fight for, out there.

notonurnelly your user name pretty much describes how I would feel about any institution who placed his ability to comply with social expectations of being in a crowd before his mental health and wellbeing and ability to learn and be stimulated by school. Our priority at the moment is enabling him to be relaxed enough at school to actually want to go in every day (because if he did learn to chut down in assembly, he'd probably compensate by being unable to set foot in his classroom for the rest of the day and unable to face the hall for lunch and end up hungry and angry)

Stephen Hawkings is in a wheelchair & a flipping genius. I don't get why people see SEN as automatically equalling intellectually challenged or why ANY child should not have the right to achieve their personal maximum potential educationally.

TY just doesn't the idea concept that by catering for the extremes (eg staemented kids) the deafult awareness becomess one that benefits ALL children in the classroom.

Ouryve, I fail to see what moaning to the Spectator will do. The Spectator thrive on airing unpopular views ( I am a regular reader).
People will air views that run contrary to your personal opinion.

They can't nor should they be outlawed.Free speech is what makes Britain great (despite all attempts to block it for more of which refer to that ludicrous ruling regarding the accountant who threatened to blow up Notts. airport or the MNer starting threads about 'banning disablist' comments.

TY has been foolish and blurred a good point by clumsily lumping everyone together in one basket.

I view school as a primarily social activity for my own children.
Most if not all of their academic learning happens with me.
I had a fantastic education and it is one of my greatest gifts.

I don't believe that one size fits all - one of my ds's is in a SS. This 'one size fits all' is not what inclusion should be made to define and TY is twisting words to try to justify his clear desire to exclude children with SEN.

hy would you want your children to be with people who have neither the skills nor the desire to help them, just to make a perverse point about 'inclusion'.
I don't get it.
We should all be clear about what it is that we can and can't do.
In the names of PC I see many terrified and ill equipped teachers forced to 'teach' kids they just haven't a clue how to help but God forbid that they should even dare to voice this because then the right on brigade pounce on them and rip them to shreds.

I agree with the training issue...but I don't think that's the the reason why TY doesn't want to cater for children with SEN.

Moondog if you're happy with a supposedly intelligent magazine referring to young people with SN in derogatory terms, suit yourself. I'm not prepared to tolerate it, though. Not for the sake of comedy (Frankie Boyle) nor political comment. Fine, argue that our education system need to cater properly for our brightest children because there are very few people who will disagree, but please don't denigrate and demean those who are not in that category in the process.

And we're not the US, so there is no constitutional right to "free speech". There are, however, laws against referring to certain groups of people in terms which incite prejudice or hate and the disabled are in that group.

The Spectator caters for right wing nutters (IMHO) and Toby Young is a prime example.
His writing is indeed a river of effluent but he is entitled to his bigoted opinion.

Ah, Our, so you think so little of your fellow humans as to believe they are so easily swayed by ill informed opinion and prejudice?

And the majority think those were/are good things?
The truth will out.

moondog, I can't quite see whether you are defending TY's frankly disgusting opinions or merely his right to have disgusting opinions. His laughable defence of why he described those with less than average intelligence as 'troglodytes' is really not worth quoting.

Perhaps this board isn't the right place on MN to expound extremist political views as I fear it damages the usually supportive atmosphere.