Schools are so set up for extroverts. I know that H has to get over a certain part of being shy, but I also know that this takes almost all her effort in most situations. She finds it easier when there is a joint task – if there is a layer of ‘we are all interested in this thing’ (insert teacher led activity here) so there is no relationships/other children to think about, or that the relationship is talking about the topic in hand. For example when H went to the Inspiration Festival put on by the Cawthron Institute she did a whole day class on Forensic Science and was totally able to even take on a leadership role because it was all about getting done what she wanted to do because it was interesting, it was about the science. This is not really a focus at primary school. When I left her for her second stint at Rotoiti school, I left her sitting at her desk, still with her coat on, chewing her fingernails. She had been shown around by another student, a girl her age, and I am sure that she didn’t even speak a word to her. The others in the class were on their laptops, and H didn’t have one. She’s not really interested anyway. She didn’t get her book out as she is so very concerned with trying to do what is right, that as the other kids weren’t, she couldn’t be sure that it was allowed. I feel that I have abandoned her to the lions even though she wanted this as she wants to go on camp – to go whale watching.

I know what people say: she’ll get over it, she has to get used to it, she should fake it till she makes it (I have been guilty of this) that school is normal and for her to go she will become more normal. They’ll say that she shouldn’t rely on me so much, that she should get over her slow response to strangers, she will develop better social skills (that’s because late primary school kids are so good at social skills), that the dominant pardigm of schooling is correct and that she is the wrong thing. Or maybe they just think I can’t be her teacher….

Sod you all, as right now her her stress hormones will be through the roof. She won’t make friends. Like me, she will wait until she meets her people – for me, university.  Her focus of this being at school is that on that camp.

Our education system is part of this. I think the way that we do school is wrong. The idea that the children should not be who they are is wrong. How do we cater for introverts? (“Anne must participate more in group activities”) WHY. What about “adult” kids – the ones that walk around with teachers and talk about issues?.. That is before thinking about how kids with dyslexia can be treated so that their skills are emphasised – it is a skill to be dyslexic, to be neuro-diverse.

What I wonder is the percent of these normal people, for our normal system. How many people are being squeesed into a box they do not fit. We have one system, and it suits a narrow kind of person. If we only educate those kinds of people in only one way, we will only get one kind of response to the world and look at where we are! Our one story totally sucks. No one can surely say that a planet which we are systematicly making uninhabitable for our own species (and others) is what we want, or that when children are having incresed mental health problems every thing is all just fine. … I perhaps should say here I really don’t think it is normal to value money over people, that our school system is just setting up people for jobs, and babysitting so otheres can go add to GDP. It is like we are on a processing line…..