Sendsitivity

Everyone is talking about it! I tried to avoid it, but was suckered in. By the Instagram and tiktok trends, the forum posts about emoji-language and the final hit: concerned queries from parents of the students I work with.

“What is the world we are oblivious of?”

“Are our children safe?”

And the most poignant:

 “Is it really like that in schools? Utter chaos! No wonder our SEND children become overwhelmed!”

This. This stuck with me. As a teacher, it was so familiar to me:

Shouting out, swearing in the classroom, children just getting up and walking out, teachers being told to ‘shut up’ and thus those teachers eventually loosing their cool and having to raise their own voices to control a room on the brink of riot. No, not all young people act like this, but yes, the minority are the loudest and can take over.

So, is it any wonder that we are being faced with a large percentage of a generation as ‘school refusers’?

Faced with anxiety as they do not follow the crowd; faced with sensory overstimulation from the noise and chaos; faced with complete overwhelm when their neurodivergence means they cannot read the social queues and become the butt of jokes and bullying behaviour.

“-does it look like anyone is learning anything in here to you? It looks like a F**** holding pen!”- Adolescence Ep 2.

So what can be done to change this view of our education system?

How can we tackle these behaviours?

By understanding where they come from.

I am not pretending to understand the world of the modern teenager- those I work with are fundamentally on the outside of that world, I’m a primary practitioner in the mainstream world and my own daughter is yet to become a three-nager and thankfully is far off the ‘incel’ age *enter shrug emoji here: the one that actually means ‘eh’*

BUT, what I do understand is behaviour that is masking something else, behaviour that is a call for help, behaviour that can be corrected with much earlier intervention, intervention that currently is out of reach thanks to the state of our education system.

If we are able to help these young people find a firmer sense of identity earlier on in their lives- be it by supporting with diagnosis and comprehension of that diagnosis or applying therapeutic strategies to help them deal with symptoms- then maybe, just MAYBE, we could cut off the crowd mentality that feeds the current environment experienced in schools.

Of course, this is not a fix for all the problems faced in the hormone-packed classrooms, but it is certainly worth considering the connection between current school dynamics and the lack of firm-foundations in our SEND system.

I am very keen to hear others’ views on ‘Adolescence’ and the parts that struck them…but no spoilers please, I’m only on Ep 3!!