Mind Your Language!

Because I have recently discovered writing as a hobby, I have found myself increasingly fascinated by language and how to use it. I’m currently working on a poem for my writing group and constantly revisit it, wondering if there are better words I could use, or if I could be a bit more clever in my imagery. 

Wicked and pernicious - who knew?

On Sunday my son was drinking a beer made with what the brewery described as ‘pernicious’ hops. I immediately jumped on the word and determined that I was going to get it into my poem!

Another thing that has always interested me is how we use idioms to enrich our language. The Guardian recently ran a quiz to find out if idioms can be recognised once translated from their language of origin. 

I have the proverbial cockroach...

I managed to get 8 out of 10, but some of them were hilarious. For example, in South Korea, if something is extremely amusing they say they laugh ‘until their navel falls out’, and if you ‘have the cockroach’ in France, you are well and truly fed up! The point of the quiz was to illustrate how difficult it can be to translate novels into English from other languages. I imagine it is equally tricky to do the opposite and translate English works into German, Swedish, Japanese. Do ‘letting the cat out of the bag’, ‘sitting on the fence’ and ‘hitting the sack’ really mean the same to people in other countries?

I fear the cat is out of the bag!

The main reason I began to think about how we use idioms and other linguistic tools was because of how people with autism respond to them. In general, idioms, similes and metaphors go right over their head, and if we are to communicate effectively we really need to analyse our language and how we use it. Years ago I was trying to encourage one of my pupils to ask for help. As he stood at the door, unable to reach the top handle, I asked him what he needed. ‘A ladder’ came the entirely reasonable reply. The point is, we understood his literal take on the question. 

Just what he needed!

That we couldn’t respond for laughing is another, probably unprofessional, thing, but we weren’t cross or annoyed. In a mainstream setting it may have been a different matter, and the child in question could easily have been perceived as being cheeky or rude. 

I spent a lot of time in my last few years of teaching working with mainstream schools to support children with autism. Whilst key changes like the use of visual support and structure were relatively simple to implement, changes around language were much more complicated. 

Visual support is the easy bit...

Our language is embedded in us at an early age, and we pick up phrases and words that have always stood us in good stead. Teachers, especially in primary settings, want their pupils to be comfortable and happy, and language is their biggest tool - explaining what is going to happen, what the children need to do and how the class rules work. The trouble is that, for children who struggle to process language, it is all too much. There were times in my classroom when it felt as though I was talking to a dog rather than a child, but ‘sit’ is far more easily processed than ‘time to sit down now to do our work’. ‘Work’ is another open ended term that can mean just about anything in school - sums, writing, reading, catching a ball in PE, digging a garden in science. 

Oh, this kind of work...

Surely specifying a task makes it accessible to every child in class - truly inclusive!

Another thing that teachers, parents, grandparents fall into is focussing on telling children what we don’t want them to do, rather than what we do want them to do: Stop shouting; Don’t break the pencil; Stop pinching. It’s not much of a seachange to say: Quiet; Put the pencil down; Hands down. Sorry to say, but I have no truck with ‘Kind hands’ - how can hands be kind for goodness sake? - surely far better to say keep your hands still, or put your hands in your lap. I can’t help thinking life would be so much less complicated if we focussed on telling people what we want them to do. 

He does it...eventually!

If I said, ‘Could you mow the lawn please?’ to my husband instead of saying ‘God the garden’s in a state’ things might get done a little bit quicker! 

It is not always easy. I never did find a positive way of asking a child to stop biting me - ‘keep your teeth still’ never quite cut it! But I did work with children who had very many complex needs alongside their autism. I firmly believe that, with the right support, many children with autism can learn in a mainstream setting, but part of what needs to change for this to be successful is how we use language in the classroom.

Entirely logical!

A couple of weeks ago The Salted Tail and I were helping our friend Sam to plant some strawberries. When we asked him for something to ‘open’ the grow bag. He came back with a tin opener. We laughed until our navels fell out. I rest my case… 

My Really Favourite Thing!

Spiritual home?

I’m a bit hooked on Instagram - I don’t really know why, but I am. For the past week I have been taking part in Allison Sadler’s #freeupmyinsta challenge. The idea is you can post whatever you like in response to the prompt without overthinking it, and worrying about how perfect your post is. Anyway, today’s prompt was “Favourite Thing”. I scrolled through my photos, wondering what to post - family times, memories, my garden…so many things. Then I found some photos of Yorkshire Sculpture Park and thought ‘art, that’s my favourite thing’ and posted an arty picture with a suitable arty comment. 

I do really love art...

My Instagram family were sure to be impressed…

Then I remembered the point of the challenge - don’t overthink, don’t say what you think others want to read, be honest. Now I honestly do love art, but my very very very favourite thing is football. Cue loud groans from the majority of my ‘instafam’.

I love it!

I have loved football since my early teens and I’m not even sure how it started. I do know that, at some point when I was about fourteen, my uncle started to take me to matches. He didn’t stay with me - he left me at the turnstile and went to sit in his seat in the South Stand, while I stood, on my own in a corner of the ground. It’d never happen now - for a start you don’t stand! But it formed the beginning of a life long love affair with my local team Norwich City - the Canaries.

It really is a love affair

If you know anything about football, it is clear that I am no glory hunter - City’s trophy cabinet is remarkably compact - but I have never seen how anyone can claim to ‘support’ a team like Manchester United or Chelsea when they never see them play. I went to college in Liverpool, and in my final year I lived on Anfield Road, a stone’s throw from Liverpool’s ground. I saw some amazing matches. That year Liverpool won the league and the European Cup, and I dressed in red and white and cheered at the victory parade. But my favourite match in my whole time in the city was in November 1975, when I saw my team beat the mighty Liverpool on their home ground, 3-1. As I was sitting in a home stand, I had been warned not to cheer but, when Ted MacDougall scored that third goal I risked the wrath of some fifty thousand scousers and jumped up and down (a little bit)

My football adventure went awol for a while when I met my first husband. He didn’t like football so, true to the person I was then, I stopped going. When, some eighteen years later, we split up, I started going to watch my team again, this time with my daughter. My son, like his father, was not remotely interested, although he was always pleased with the happier household when we won!

Glory days!

In the years that have passed since then we have watched our team in the Championship, in the Premier League and, in dark, dark days, League One. My daughter now lives ‘oop North’ so my second, more enlightened husband comes with me, although Beth’s name is still on the season ticket - it would be unlucky to change it! 

More enlightened, but silly hats!

To help my team I have many superstitions that must craze the people that sit near me. I always say ‘We never score from corners’ whenever Norwich get a corner, I always sit in seat 168, even though strictly speaking that is not my seat. But if I sat in 169 and we lost, I simply would not be able to bear it! I even have a ‘lucky loo’, although this season its powers have mysteriously waned!

It is difficult to quantify what it is I love so much. I suppose, in a time when ‘community’ is less apparent, supporting a team feels tribal - approaching the ground in team colours with the common desire of watching our team win. Chanting with twenty six thousand other people, singing our anthem ‘On the Ball City’ is simply one of the best feelings in the world. For ninety minutes I get to shout, clap, cheer and, occasionally, swear and be one of a crowd most of whom want the same thing. It is such a joyous release.

Joyous!

Many seasons have come and gone since I was fourteen. Some have ended in the most marvellous way, with promotion and a victory parade, some with the disappointment of relegation, some with the whimper of mid-table anonymity. 

No other team is an option!

But while I am sometimes glad to see the back of a season when we have not performed particularly well, it’s not long before I start pouring over the transfer rumour sites and start looking forward to the next campaign.

Supporting Norwich City is not always easy, but, for me, other teams are simply not an option!

Rainy Days and Poo Sticks

So this week I have been playing poo sticks. Not the fun kind of pooh sticks with twigs, a bridge and a stream, but the kind that involves smearing poo on plastic windows to be tested for bowel cancer. Yet another unpleasant, but necessary ‘treat’ for the older person. For women these procedures start with a smear test when you’re 25, then the joy of mammograms when you reach 50. Poo sticks arrive when you’re 60. It amazes me that the invitations always arrive on or around your birthday - a special gift from the NHS! 

Run away!!!

I am a basically sensible person, and always take advantage of the various screening programmes, but each time I do I have a mild panic attack. What if they find something? How will I cope? I have never been any good at facing my fears, preferring to bury my head in the sand and run away, but as I get older I realise that I can’t outrun things forever. I’m not being maudlin - most of the time I don’t give my mortality a thought…well, some of the time…but it does give you a different perspective.

Splurge!

I was brought up to be careful with money. While I am partial to an occasional splurge, I have always saved, lived within my means and, even when I divorced, managed to be financially independent. When I retired my income was substantially reduced and, although I am fortunate in that I can manage day-to-day, if I use my savings pot for something, I am unable to replace it. This freaks me out. Is this my rainy day? It doesn’t feel like it, but I seem to have reached the point where I need to say, ‘Spend the lot, you can’t take it with you!’ But being prudent is so much a part of me that I constantly struggle.

For example, last week my husband ordered a shed to replace the one we inherited when we bought this house. But in demolishing the shed, we also demolished the garden wall! 

At least we've still got a gate...

The additional expense this has incurred has completely panicked me. I know we are lucky enough to have the money, and I also know that the new shed will mean that I will actually be able to open the door and get my bike out. But the sleepless nights! I wouldn’t mind but it was my idea…no-one else to blame!

But my bike needs a new home...

I am very appreciative of the fact that I am financially secure - I can help my family out when they need it while I am still around to be thanked by them. But when it comes to myself I find it so difficult and anxiety inducing. I guess it’s the ‘low self esteem’ card showing itself again - I am not worthy! I am on a pendulum swinging between ‘Be careful’ and ‘Sod it’, and I’m still not sure where to jump off!  

Sod it, I'm screwed!

Benjamin Franklin once said, ‘in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes’, so I’m probably screwed either way!

Saying Yes

It’s been so long since I wrote a blog post I may have forgotten how to do it! Impossibly I have now been living in the land of the blue rinse for almost two years. For the first year I mostly felt a sense of relief, and enjoyed being able to do nothing at all if I felt like it. 

Gets boring after a while...

Sometime during the second year, doing nothing started to lose its attraction - partly because an enduring knee injury prevented me from being physically active, and partly because, quite frankly, it’s boring!

In an attempt to do something about it, I decided I would try and say yes to more things that came my way. This has meant overcoming low self esteem, social anxieties and my classic ‘I can’t be bothered’ demeanour.

Was this a wise 'yes'?

I’ve written at length about my ‘boudoir shoot’ which did a massive amount to improve my confidence in myself at the time. Looking back, I still can’t quite believe I did it - it was my equivalent of a bungee jump over Niagara Falls, and I really had to force myself to say ‘yes’ not only to the shoot, but also to agreeing to the photos being shared.

Gin, peppercorns...who knew?

A seemingly trivial thing I said ‘yes’ to was going out with my sister-in-law for a drink. Writing it down seems ridiculous, but it was to somewhere I’d never been, with people I’d never met. Both things challenge me, and there were times when I would have made an excuse. But I didn’t, and not only did I have a lovely time, I tried lots of new gins too!

But the thing I said yes to that has had the most impact on me was agreeing to go along to a local writing group. A friend asked me, so I did know somebody, but after the first meeting I honestly thought that it wasn’t for me - everyone wrote poems, and there was a talk by an erstwhile author who had self-published two books. Not my cup of tea (or coffee - I don’t drink tea!) I missed the next meeting, but then was persuaded to try again, and I am so happy that I did. Each month gives me something to write about, I love listening to what others have written and everyone is so welcoming. 

I've got notebooks and everything!

Through the group I found a short creative writing course at the local library, which opened up even more horizons for me. I actually enjoy writing poetry now and proudly read my efforts to anyone who will listen! And at least if I’m unable to sleep I will muse on how I can interpret this month’s title, or how I can start my novel, instead of the usual worries that regularly keep me awake. Maybe now I need to find a reading group!

It doesn't have to be this way...

Friends forever!

I recently read an article on the BBC News website about attacks on Teaching Assistants in special schools. The implication was that they felt that suffering violence was seen by leadership to be part of their job and to be ‘expected’. Having worked in Complex Needs Schools for most of my working life, I know exactly how they feel. My team and I bear the scars, both physical and emotional, of working with children with extreme autism and associated learning needs. The close involvement with the pupils means that you do accept behaviours from them that you would not countenance in a mainstream school. However, that does not mean that these behaviours were accepted without question, and that is where I feel the article fell short.

While I appreciate that the main thrust of it was from the point of view of the adults, nothing was said about possible reasons for challenging behaviour. In my experience, the first thing that teams in these situations ask is ‘why?’ What is it that the child is trying to tell us? Because there is little doubt, in my mind at least, that for non-verbal children with autism, behaviour is their most basic form of communication. 

A better way...

They may well be laying on the floor screaming, but what are they trying to tell you? There could be any number of reasons, from physical discomfort to not understanding what is happening next. The onus on the professionals involved is to carefully observe and come up with a hypothesis as to what is going on for individual children. In fact, one of the things I have missed the most since I retired is the ‘problem solving’ element of my job: How can I support children to learn? What is it that we need to change to support them? How can we teach them a better way of responding? Because while we recognised they were trying to tell us something, clearly we weren’t going to let our pupils think that kicking or spitting was an appropriate way to tell us!

Understanding emotions

The only way, as a school, we had successful outcomes for some of our more challenging students was to alter the way we did things and provide them with a bespoke environment to meet their needs, and adapt the curriculum accordingly. 

Working independently - Attention Autism

The ‘Attention Autism’ programme transformed the way I taught. The basic premise is that if you want children to learn, you have to make it worth their while learning! It’s not easy - you need to be confident in what you are doing and show that the pupils are making progress. 

It didn’t always work - some students need the level of support that only a 24 hour curriculum can provide - but when it did, it was amazing. By asking ourselves what those complex, stressed and anxious children were telling us with their challenging and, sometimes bizarre behaviour patterns we were able to slowly help them find better ways. 

Addressing sensory needs

It could have been through offering them visual support, teaching them to use symbols or pictures to communicate or addressing their sensory needs but the key was always consistency - it could be tedious and relentless, but it enabled us to build trusting relationships which lasted way beyond their time in our classes. 

So engaged

I still see one of my former pupils - he comes to cook his dinner in my house sometimes - and he still trusts that his friend and respite carer and me will behave and treat him in the same way as we always have. He even trusts us enough to have allowed us to persuade him to try ice skating at Christmas!

He really needed a taller penguin!

When we listen to children and young people with autism, and successfully interpret what their behaviours are telling us it can be truly joyful. 

A joyful relationship

That is why you will find teachers and TAs in Complex Needs schools around the country putting up with far more than anyone should have to in their place of work.

I am woman, hear me roar...

This is probably less personal than the posts I usually write, but it is something that I feel very strongly about, so I guess that makes it personal. And there’s only so many times you can write about being fed up!

My husband, my best friend but above all, my equal

Yesterday saw the one hundred year anniversary of women getting the vote in the UK. It would be another ten years before they enjoyed that right on an equal footing with men. It astonishes me that, a century later, there are still institutions and companies that find it acceptable to pay women less than men, despite the fact that they are doing the same job. You only have to look at the machinations at the BBC to see that.

Gripping...

Coincidentally, yesterday was also the day that I went to see ‘The Post’, Stephen Spielberg’s latest film about the events leading up to the publication of the damning Pentagon Papers. Im a real sucker for a good journalism movie - All the President’s Men, It Happened One Night, Spotlight - and found The Post absorbing and thought provoking. The main thrust of the story, and the reason that the director rushed to make it, was the role of the press in shining a clear and rational light on things that administrations would prefer the public not to know, and the freedom to publish. It was truly gripping, and actually evoked a fist pump from me when the printing presses started to roll! But, as with all great films, there was an intriguing subplot - the role of women. 

I want to read this...

Katherine (Kay) Graham was the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, but only because her husband died. She has been quoted as saying that she was proud that her father ‘gave’ the paper to her beloved Phil, and that it never occurred to her that she would be considered suitable to take on such an important job. Astonishing! The Post is punctuated by scenes depicting how women were regarded in the early seventies - the male advisor taking over in a key meeting, the bankers assuming they know best, female clerks waiting outside the doors of the New York Stock Exchange and even Graham herself demanding more columns about fashion to please her female friends. Watching Meryl Streep portray Graham’s shift towards doing what she felt was right, in the face of all opposition and the possible loss of all she held dear was breathtaking.

Nearly an adult!

I was slowly emerging as an adult in the mid-seventies, and spent time railing against inequality in my youth. I never actually burnt a bra, but I flirted with Women’s Lib when I was at college. There is no doubt that since I waved a placard in 1975, major strides have been made, but there are still circumstances when women are discriminated against, purely because of their gender. 

My placard waving friends in 1975 - where are they now?

I never had to break through a glass ceiling in my career, but very few men worked in the Special Needs or Primary sector of education when I started out. I don’t think thats true anymore, but I’m willing to bet that its the females on the staff that get asked to do the more ‘pastoral’ or ‘care’ aspects of the job, while the men play football with the lads. I appreciate that’s a sweeping statement, but I’m sure there’s a grain of truth in it.

Looking forward, the #metoo campaign has served to shine a clear light on how people, largely female, have been exploited by those in power, Carrie Grace has fallen on her sword to demonstrate the inequalities at the BBC, and there is a heartening number of women in politics. And yet there are still clubs that refuse the admittance of woman (although, to be fair, would you really want to be a member?) and  young women who do nothing to promote the cause - if I hear one more say, ‘I didn’t bother to vote, I don’t get politics’ I will tie them down and make them watch the footage of Emily Davison being trampled by the King’s horse in 1913. 

On a stamp...must be important!

I’m sure that if they had to endure the lot of women in less enlightened times, they’d pretty soon see that ‘politics’ isn’t only about men (and women) in suits, Brexit and the budget, it’s what underpins the entire structure of our lives. You’ve got to be in it, to win it!