I went to my first Groenlinks onderwijs werkgroep meeting on Tuesday evening. I was really nervous, mainly because in meetings like this, I am rubbish at making a good impression; I get triggered easily, I end up talking too much, even if I tell myself to shut up and I get overly distracted by trying to read everybody's expressions and trying to work out what people are feeling.
I had hoped I would meet a kindred spirit in some form, half the members weren't there and there were three people from another werkgroep, so it wasn't a typical meeting.
I know that things don't change or get better quickly. I know that councils attract people for different reasons and that we possibly all want similar things but are either resigned or pitching a different angle. But what I felt was mostly resignation. I got triggered by a couple of bingo card moments, as I call them. First someone said that the reason primary schools are so segregated is because and I quote Turkish parents only register their kids when they get a letter when the child is 4 and so instead of registering the kids from birth at the bestest school, they go to the primary down the road. And the other was that said within those minorities you also don't find involved parents "betrokken ouders". Both statements really triggered me. I'm sure these people are good people at heart, but really? those old chestnuts?
It made me think of the cycling bingo cards we used to joke about at council meetings, if you read the british press or see anything about cyclists on the TV - cyclists are all middle aged, middle class and white, they have beards, they ride two abreast, they don't use lights, they are invisible, they don't look where they are going, they run lights, they don't pay road tax, they don't follow the rules of the road, they clog up the roads on Sundays on their sport rides, women don't like cycling or riding bikes, it ruins their hair and so on.
When you are a female cyclist, with lights, that stops at lights, obeys the rules (most of the time) and I ride for transport, I might as well not exist. I don't exist, and it's only by seeing how life in NL is do I know for sure that it's not that any of this is true, it's the environment that matters.
Same applies to Autistic people, you can make a bingo card of assumptions and "truths" about what auties do and don't do, what they can and can't do. The fact is, as dissabilities go, it has one of the largest proportions of adults not in work. This has nothing to do with their ability to work, and everything to do with environment.
And so the equality/minorities bingo card the same is also true, so there are people and just people. Give them what they need, they do what they do - some will do better than others and some will stand out as outstanding - good and bad, high and low. The environments never started off the same to to expect the same or similar result, or to blame the individuals, is a bit pointless.
Should you replicate the same environments? probably impossible, so no. But which elements are clearly missing? What systems exaggerate the problem and why?
For example signing your kid up at birth, some schools allow it, some don't. Some have lotteries when the school is oversubscribed. Why are they oversubscribed though? What is it that these schools provide? Safety in numbers? the "right type" of kids for your kid to befriend, children of similar background? fear that your child might get influenced by the "wrong sort"of kid? What if some of them just wanted that school because it looks nice, it's the closest, it seems to offer the right variety of subjects? But what if where you live, there isn't a local school like that? why not? Why does the school with the expensive houses get the glory? Are the houses expensive because of the school? So it's not about whether you register your kid at birth, or stick their name in a lottery. It's not about buying a house in the right area,. It's simply about the quality of the school; does it do what it says on the tin? if there aren't schools of equal quality or if you have this scores on the doors, pressure on schools to perform to attract kids, but this is unfair because some schools can get more money out of the parents or they have ties to a particular secondry school that's popular, then it will never change.
I don't think life will ever be fair or that you can make all things equal, but surely, if you can take steps to even stuff out? Kids don't get to choose who their parents are, so if there's any point in a persons life where the state should invest in, it has to be childhood. So why all the cuts to education?
It's not all about funds and money though, it has to be mostly about how you use it and who gets to benefit from those funds and why.
What's holding back the reforms in education to bring it into the 21st Century?
What's holding back NL from inclusive education?
Is there a vision?
What's the plan?
What are we waiting for?
What is the point of the onderwijs werkgroep? what can it achieve? I need to know the boundaries.
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