ADHD?

 The label "ADHD" or "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" is apparently being given to one in twenty children.  That means I should have had two children in the year six class I once taught. I had none. I cannot remember any other teacher at that time who was concerned about the same thing.

Oh, we had "dreamers" and students who did not always seem to be paying attention but we could bring them back to attention relatively easily and quickly. There was one I would send out to finish his work among the bags and coats in the "porch" outside. This was not a punishment and he did not see it as such. He just seemed to be easily distracted and then he distracted others. I would get a rueful, "I am sorry  miss...I talk too much."  I would say, "Yes, you do but I know you can finish it out there." He gave me an impulsive hug the day I left the school.

Now he would probably be given something like Ritalin to "calm" him and he would not have the same sort of lively, friendly personality. When he was not irritating everyone he was popular and intelligent but he was easily distracted.

I thought about all this when I read about some research which suggests children with "ADHD" do not necessarily do better with medication. It is difficult sort of research to do and even harder to come to any sort of valid conclusions but I would be inclined not to medicate any child. I would be much more inclined to try and change the environment in which they were living. 

There was no internet when I taught young M...  The only computers were those delicate machines which had to be kept in an air-purified, air-conditioned room at the university. Students would show-off by carting around their print-outs on long folds of paper. I would get the print-outs from Brother Cat and his friends and use them for classroom activities.

Now there is the internet and a great deal of learning is done by way of it. Children expect things to be animated and, above all else, entertaining. The idea of sitting in four straight rows facing a blackboard or even a more modern whiteboard is not how they see learning. This may well be the problem, not the child. 

It would be very interesting to have three groups of children and follow them through school. One group could have access to all the screen time which is now usual. The next group could have no access at all and be taught in traditional ways. The third group could have some controlled access to screen time. We could then test them at intervals and look at the results. I would be interested to see just how "badly" that non-screen time group would do - or whether they might just do as well, or better, than the other two groups. 

And I would try not to medicate any child to "calm" them. 

So who does get a visa?

Middle Cat and I are making final travel plans for our long awaited trip. I wish I felt excited about it. I should be excited. I am not -yet.

I think the problem is that there is rather a lot to do between now and finally putting a paw on the first plane. Perhaps I will feel differently when I do that. This trip has been far too long in coming. 

We had to get the "ETA" to enter the UK - an electronic authorisation to enter - and they came through with no difficulty. Our other destination, Singapore, we just fill out cards before landing. There is no reason to suppose we will have a problem there.

Some people will find it much more difficult to do something like enter this country. There are others who will not be permitted to enter at all. Whether this is right or wrong will depend on someone's individual circumstances.

I have a friend who was born in the UK. One of her children was also born there, the other was born here. It means that there are differing rights of equal generations down to enter, work and live in the UK. This is so even though their ancestry in all other respects is equal. That seems strange but it is how the law works.

Yesterday there was a piece in our state newspaper about a woman who had been granted a visa to enter this country although she was an outspoken supporter of Hamas. Today there is another piece saying that her visa had been withdrawn. She is openly a supporter of a proscribed terrorist organisation.  Apparently there are two opposing points of view on this. 

Who do you allow to enter the country? There are people I would prefer were not allowed to enter the country. It is likely most people feel the same way. That a visa was ever granted to the woman I have just mentioned is something we should be alarmed about. It suggests that the process for review may not be working. She is apparently a well known "agitator" who expresses her views loudly and openly and the government had concerns about her. Whether you believe she should or should not have been granted a visa it was first granted in contravention to government guidelines. There have been other people with much less radical views who have not been permitted to enter the country and give a single lecture at a university.

The question of who gets a visa and who does not get a visa will always be a difficult one. If radical supporters of terrorism are getting visas and much less radical people with no criminal history are not getting them there is a problem. I know of someone who has been denied a visa because he openly criticises the provision of puberty blockers to young children. Is he a radical? The government thinks he will cause distress and denied him a visa.

Perhaps politics as well as community safety is at work here.  

The NDIS is out of alcohol control

and I very much doubt "changes to section 10" of the Act which is responsible for it will make much difference.

The information for it came to light after one of our Senators accused the informant of "making it up". Yes, I am sure that the Senator in question will be feeling angry and embarrassed by the evidence. He is not going to want to accept that there were two hundred and ninety three claims for alcohol last year - and a total of $46,777 was apparently spent. That is serious money.

Given the general lack of oversight and the ease with which dubious claims can be made I do not believe this will be an end to the story. I have seen some of this sort of thing at first hand. 

Just last week I saw a profoundly disabled NDIS recipient in the local shopping centre. She had been brought there by two "carers". The carers were sitting there having a cup of coffee and a chat with two friends. N...was just sitting there. There was no attempt to include her and she was not given a drink - something she can manage through a straw.  Yesterday I saw her grandmother in the same place and I mentioned seeing N...  

"Yes, they were supposed to be taking her to the doctor. Apparently it takes two of them to do it and the entire morning." 

 N..'s NDIS money is used to pay for this. Her parents are deceased. Her grandfather tries to keep watch on what her money is spent on but constantly runs into problems. More than once he has queried expenses and he will query this one but, by then, it will be too late. The outing was not just about taking N... to the doctor but a couple of carers enjoying themselves. 

It is one of just many such stories of waste, of lack of accountability and more. The money is there. It is seen as endless.

Of course some of it goes where it is supposed to go. It may be that even most of goes where it is supposed to go but the system allows two carers to spend part of their morning socialising on government money intended to care for a person with a disability. It is what allows someone to charge more than twice the amount he should to mow a lawn. It allows someone to be paid to put the bins out when a neighbour has offered to do it for nothing. 

I would like someone to go as far back as records allow and find all the instances they can of alcohol being bought. These people need to be prosecuted. If the NDIS recipient has asked them to do it then they also need to be prosecuted. It is not what NDIS money is for. It is not there for alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, sex-services or holidays. It is there for the basic right to the activities of daily living and it has to be always for the benefit of the NDIS recipient. 

I suspect there would be an outcry if there was a very close investigation of how NDIS money is being used. There will be an "investigation" of course - but the rorts will continue.  

 

Our tax system needs to change

but not in the way the current Federal Treasurer would seem to believe. 

I am not an economist but it does not take an economist to know things need to change.  We cannot go spending beyond our means. Our standard of living is, quite simply, far too high. The Treasurer is doing nothing to change that. He appears to simply be intent on increasing taxes to pay for it. 

Taxes cannot be increased forever. We are already finding that "big business", the companies which actually run the economic engine of the country, are moving off-shore. It is "big business" which has the money to innovate and expand, not the "small business" companies or the "mum and dad" businesses. Of course the latter two can do some of it but they cannot pour millions of dollars in to develop a new process or build a new factory.  Tax "big business" too much and it will leave.

Employing people in this country is an expensive business. It is of course expensive in most places but here there seem to be all sorts of additional expense - like payroll tax, the superannuation guarantee, maternity and paternity leave and a "holiday leave loading". I still cannot get my head around the fact that many, many years ago I was actually paid extra to take my annual leave. Then there are all the training requirements that have nothing to do with the actual job but are concerned with "equality" and "awareness". These are another tax on business too but they are not always recognised as such.

We pay tax at the local level, at the state level and at the federal level and a "goods and services tax" on almost everything. All those things require oversight and constant vigilance to see we don't pay less than we should. The Senior Cat's estate has just paid to have a "tax return" done three and a half years after his death because the estate has not been "finalised". There has been no income into it for the last eighteen months but we paid an accountant to inform the tax office to inform the executors about what they already knew.

The government went to the election promising not to do away with what is called "negative gearing". Now the unions want to bring it in and are pressuring the government to do it. They say it will ease the housing supply but it has been tried in the past. It has not worked. Economists say it will not work. People who rent do not want it because rents will raise to cover the cost.

Somewhere there is an answer to all of this but it will require a very different mindset from the current one. Some unpopular decisions need to be made but I suspect our present Treasurer is too weak to even contemplate them.   

There is a place for special schools

for some children. The idea that this is not so is rooted in a false belief about "equality" and that, by sending a child to a school not suited to their needs, the child will somehow have an equal opportunity otherwise denied to them. This is wrong.

I know something about those apparently old-fashioned "special" schools. I have visited many of them, worked in three of them, done research in more. I had a long, happy and close association with one just by sheer chance. I still have close friends who went there. 

Those friends are fully integrated members of the community. They may now be retired but they went on to finish school if they were able. They went on to post secondary education and some went to university. The school produced two students with doctorates and more. 

It also provided physiotherapy, speech therapy, specialised assistance for learning difficulties and much more. There were Guides and Scouts and a social club for older students. They went out and about in the community and learned to volunteer their skills where they could. 

It was not a perfect school because no school can be that but it was a good school, a very good school. I do not know one ex-student who resents their time spent there. They were, and still are, proud of the school and what it achieved.

It is no longer there of course. The Education Department took it over and closed it down. All children would be "integrated" into the mainstream. They would "thrive" there because they would be treated "like everyone else". 

It has not worked. Parents now carry the burden of trying to get their children to physiotherapy, speech therapy and more. Teachers do not have the specialist training or the time to deal with the many learning issues associated with not being able to perform acts of daily living in the same way as everyone else. They do not understand the complexities involved and they do not have the almost instant access to things like wheelchair seating issues or a broken communication device. 

At the same time we are told that the child will have "friends", that able-bodied children will willingly include the child in all their activities. No, that does not happen. It may happen occasionally or when the able-bodied children are pushed into including the child but it is rare for it to happen all the time.  

This is what parents and children tell me. They tell me this even when the child is falling behind and parents are looking for outside tutoring in the hope their child can "keep up" with every other child.

Yes of course there are children with disabilities who thrive in the mainstream.  I know one child with a sight issue who is managing extremely well and has plenty of friends but it is taking constant vigilance on the part of his parents. I know of another child who has a mobility issue but is academically very able. He has gone from a big state school to a smaller fee paying school with a very different philosophy and is now doing very well. I know of a child with Down Syndrome who is very happy in a small class in the Catholic system. It can happen but it has not been easy for any of them. It has taken hours of discussion and support from others. 

For many children that will never happen or can never happen.  A severely autistic child  may be highly disruptive and others will, rightly, complain their own learning is being disrupted. A child with a profound hearing loss is not going to build vocabulary at the same rate and will often be confused in class.  

So a neighbouring state is setting up new "special" schools and being condemned for it by the very people who should be supporting them. Equal opportunities do not mean being put in the same classroom as everyone else and simply hoping that some extra assistance (if you can get it) is the answer to everything. It isn't.  

What does Julian Assange really stand for?

During his time in Belmarsh there was a lot of sympathy for Julian Assange. He was seen as the "good guy" falsely imprisoned for telling the world how dreadfully badly governments, particularly the US one, were behaving.

Over this last weekend he was involved in a "protest" march which was actually supporting a group which has committed unspeakable horrors. 

Yes, I know that what is going on in the Gaza strip is appalling. I also know it is getting plenty of the wrong sort of publicity.

Night after night there are reports on the news service about the starvation in Gaza. The Israeli government is criticised - and rightly so - for their part in this. There are pictures we are told might "distress" us.

I have yet to see hear much criticism of Hamas. We are told of course but the fiercest condemnation is directed at the IDF.  We are told they will not allow aid in, that they will not allow aid to be distributed, that they are intent on prolonging the war and more. This suits the international narrative.

Does Assange really believe this is an accurate narrative, one worth of his support? If he does then he must not be reading any of the words written by those who have immediate sources of information. Is he supporting Hamas because he really believes they are in the right, that kidnapping and murder and the destruction of Gaza are right? 

Statehood for Palestinians has to come but it has to come through the vote of the people in free and fair elections. It has to come about without Hamas playing any part in those elections because their aim is to destroy Israel.  Assange should understand that. He should also understand that standing there at the front of the crowd with some other noteworthy fools is just playing into the hands of Hamas. 

"Writers' Weeks" have changed

and not for the better it seems.

Yesterday there was a post about the removal of two Jewish comedians at a "Writers' Week" on the other side of the world. Apparently the staff at the venue said they would feel "unsafe" if their appearances went ahead.

Unsafe? Presumably they were concerned that protestors might turn up and disrupt the events if they went ahead. Surely it is the protestors who should be removed, not the performers? 

It made me think about the last Writers' Week where I live. For the first time ever I did not go to anything, nor did I bother to watch any of the "live stream" at the local library. I just did not want to hear any of the "writers" who were speaking.

Yes, I put the word in inverted commas because too many of those who were speaking were not actually writers at all. They were activists, politically correct activists who had a message they were intent on telling the rest of us. They were there to tell us not just what they were thinking but how we should be thinking. 

The past balance was not there any more. Any pretence about that has now been removed.

I used to love Writers' Week. It only came on alternate years. It really was for writers. There were some public events of course, both free and paid for and a lot of school events, but there were sessions for writers too. I was lucky enough to go to many of these. I may still be a kindergarten level writer but I did learn a lot. I heard well known writers from all over the world talking about their craft and their concerns.

There were some fiery sessions at times. "Just sit tight Cat, Patrick will rile someone" and "Max and Alec on the same panel? This will be interesting." I can still hear my mentor, the late Judith Wright, saying these things about Patrick White, Max Harris and AD Hope. There would be discussions about "the Ern Malley" affair. 

Patrick White was a Nobel Prize winner of course. He was rude to everyone I ever heard him in conversation with - and that was many people. He was as dismissive of me as he dared to be when Judith was standing next to me. I still managed to learn from what he had to say. He came and he participated. I am not sure how willing he was but he was there. 

The "Ern Malley" affair was a hoax. Look it up if you are interested. The Senior Cat knew Max Harris well and we kittens were warned about how pompous he could be. He ran a bookshop in the city - a shop selling "remainders" at reduced prices. The general view was that he deserved to be taken down a peg or two. Really though he did not do too badly out of it. If he had actually read the postcard he was sent he might not have been fooled at all.

These things were topics of discussion of course but they were not seen as radical politics of the left or right. We listened to Russians and Peruvians on how they approached the characters they wrote about. We listened to South Africans and Indians about they tried to invoke a sense of isolation in an otherwise crowded space. We listened to arguments about grammar and poetical forms. At any time some writers would be gone. They would be out visiting schools and talking to students.

All that has gone. The sessions are now held in the parklands. The "writers" have sometimes not actually written their books at all. They speak from a stage and barely mix with the readers, if at all.  They are there to promote a politically correct or controversial message or their latest "best-selling" book which is borrowed but returned unread from the library.  

Two or three years ago I asked why two very good Downunder writers had never been at the week. Had they ever been asked? The answer was, "No. That's not the sort of writing people want to read." Really? There are multiple copies of their books in the library system but they are rarely on the shelves. There are always waiting lists for any new books by those authors. I have met both of them but only briefly. They seemed to be very nice people and they both work with young writers. Perhaps they will one day be invited to sit on the stage and talk about actual writing. I can hope.