Long Term View.

Strategy and the long term view are not the most common attributes that people posses or that society encourages. Ignoring the near for the far is an important message, but developing planning and preparation (P & P) skills and performance in them is needed, to reduce problems and failure in the future. Education cannot stop the day someone leaves the education system. It has to be a lifelong process. Preparation and planning are basic essential skills for lifelong learning and performance. Not everyone wants to jump in and get on with things, but once someone else has jumped in then others are left floundering, and have to pick up the pieces on someone else’s terms. It is a competitive strategy to catch some one off guard with surprise. This more often happens as a result of someone jumping in and changing the situation all a sudden. Over coming a crisis is overemphasised and over celebrated. Those who don’t have crisis are viewed as less able when in fact they are the most. Last minute study or preparation is rarely enough in more challenging environments. These beliefs and approaches are not challenged well and actually encouraged.

I have previously mentioned the Economic’s theories successfully applied to business with principles of quality control, continuous improvement and right first time approaches. Simply the businesses that did not adapt these methods went out of business (see comparison of General Motors and Toyota for an example). Many areas of life are competitive to an extent that the most successful have to take a long term approach, not just being ready today but for a year or decade in the future (instead or as well). Learning how problems and failure (root courses) start early and solving smaller problems rather than suddenly being faced by critical problems. Preventing issues and guiding events to achieve desired results.

Criticism of P & P often comes from ignorance of how success has actually been achieved and natural impatience. Ignorance and impatience have to be addressed. These take time and need to be taught and developed from youth. Of course the common expressions like ‘no plan survives first contact with the enemy’, do point to P & P being dynamic skills not fixed (but let’s not run before we can walk). The first two advantages of planing is you can see when it has gone wrong so you know to change. You also can see the situation better and can either plan to be ready to change or react with better knowledge. Waiting for all the information is rarely an option, spending too much time on just thinking and not trying or doing is also a fault. When to act or try something is learnt by practice and experience. Some people will learn fast, others with help will get the basics and an appreciation of others greater performance.

Preparation and planing is the short hand I have used for many aspects and approaches before action but also for management during action. They can be and have been taught. Many military strategists and leaders have used Chess or Go to develop ideas and metaphors for P & P (and other thinking skills) in the wider world. Other activities such as sports and games and also puzzles have been used to develop the skills of P & P that help in the long term. It must be said that these tools are best used educationally with purposeful guided teaching and then practice. Chess and Go have this in some places, but many sports and games are often ignored or delivered without the wider lessons being taught. Team games are often lacking in teamwork, skills are often not taught especially at the beginning where the effects of initially successful but longer term weaker methods and adaptations prevent longer term success. I have previously talked of the larger older child beating the smaller younger child and the general consensus being it is due to ability. When this ‘winner’ meets opposition the same size or bigger the methods don’t work. Some battle through and adapt, but many start discovering bad luck (as an excuse!).

Development takes as long as it takes. Physical development proceeds at biological speeds not marketing or boss speeds. Muscle cells replace themselves around every 90 days, so 20 days training cannot have much longer term effect. Steady muscle development over several years will occur with cell replacement and give long term benefits. Connective tissue takes longer (around 210 days) this is where longer term plans are needed as too fast development of the muscles may leave the connective tissue as too weak for the muscle power. This is a common pattern in the short cut of steroid abuse. Increased injury with less training results in long term failure. Bones take even longer at around 2 years, so injuries to these and connective tissue take a lot longer to heal. This is the same with discs in the back where the long term development of thinking before action (e.g. lifting) and skill development are wished for once a disc has prolapsed (slipped). As well as bad technique over-training trying to get the body to develop in too many different ways at once stopping the body recovering from each session is common. As well as physical skills and how they are used (tactically and strategically) all other aspects such as academic skills and thinking skills are developed to higher levels over the longer term. Tactical and strategic input needs to be given to improve performance.

The barrier of ignorance is large and delaying gratification is a problem for many people which affects the rest. Without purposeful education, competitive situations will be lost to the better prepared (plan beats no plan). Quite often before you know you are in a competitive situation you have lost! In the UK there is also a cultural barrier of the Gentleman amateur and Corinthian Ideals. Not that they were the actual ideals of the Corinthians and those that met the ‘gentlemen’ had other words for them! Once you are paid to do a job or task you are not this fantasy of an amateur any more and need to behave like a professional. To compete internationally sports people have had to develop to professional levels in fitness, skills and tactics or they lose. Other professions and areas need an element of the same and higher standards need a long term approach. Rushing to be the best youth performer may be a disabler when against the best adult performers later.

Horses for Courses.

Yes you are Unique (just like everyone else)! There is a lot of variation between people, physically, mentally and spiritually. Physically tends to be obvious. My basketball career was short (or something like that). These differences lead to advantages and disadvantages and then to some things being easy and others difficult. If everyone can only do one physical activity then there will be a distribution of abilities and success. If you limit yourself to one way of doing things you weaken all. We tend to over emphasise some things as important and others as not important which changes over time. This is personal to the individual who sees what they like or are good at as important and other things as less important or more negatively. People who are in a position of power or who have had some success have the same bias (usually favourable and related to themselves).

The military provide examples of distributions of abilities or qualities. If a regiment in the army is to deploy to the front line they all need to have physical fitness and attributes as well as mental attributes to work as a homogeneous group. A Warship on the other hand may share some of this but also has to be a mix of attributes, as the qualities of an engineer or a chef or any of the myriad of roles on a warship require differing skills, physicality and attributes forming a mixed group. Education needs to prepare both groups of people some for homogeneous groups and some for mixed skill groups and in fact many other roles.

A commonly used personality assessment is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. This sorts people into sixteen groups with four variables. So can one system attempting to operate to the same standards in the same way with the same staff selection really deliver for sixteen different types of people in each group? And yet the education system does this. Many learners are excluded temporarily or permanently as the system does not match them. Of course the system operates as though it is the learners (child) that has to muld themselves to the system. In the military, molding is part of the process as results are often the key important element requiring discipline under stress. Education is not just like the military. It needs to support and provide for many physical and psychological differences.

There is simply not one way to do anything. Doctors require the opposite preparation than First aiders. Doctors need to analyse, reflect, remember and more, that requires lots of academic work and more advanced learning. Those best at this will probably be best prepared in fee paying schools where this mental learning and training is more readily available. Having the attributes of being a good doctor but being in state school means overcoming a lot more barriers. First aiders need just to remember basic plans and considerations and to act immediately to get the best outcomes. Anything major needs the Doctor. In the end the Doctor can succeed best after good first aid. Fast identification of major problems, fast contact of the emergency professionals and some simple actions and information gathering while they wait. Obviously I have oversimplified missing out the other vital roles played by Paramedics and Nurses for example. But the big missing factor is the actions of prevention we regularly fail at. We should not after all aim to keep the medical professionals busy!

People tend to do what worked for them or what they experienced. Very few try to find the best way for themselves or differing ways for differing people (even those that teach). People tend to promote there own (ideas, ways etc.) managing people who are different to yourself and mixed groups are less common skills, breaking down into us versus them is easily done. Valuing diversity like many buzz words usually means valuing some diversity rather than an absolute range of diversity. Many learners (workers) are disadvantaged within education as their difference is not catered for. Yes teachers your right it cannot be done with 30+ children with many differences and needs. But many who fail to achieve in education and fail to prepare for adult life are not catered for in the system. Is it then their fault in adulthood when the behaviour is not to societies norms and expectations?

Of course like the likelihood of a doctor being from a working class background and state school is less, so is a teacher. We have mostly middle class teachers trying to cater for mainly working class children. As well as specialists attempting to provide for a wide variety of abilities and preferences let alone disabilities (one end of the range?). The simplest difficulty for the PE teacher is the physical range of learners in a year group (some attempts have been made to divide up learners in size (of child) groups rather than just age). At one end you have the natural athletes and early physical developers and at the other you have learners pretty much disconnected from their bodies lacking basic motor skills. Again some differences are less obvious and easier to miss, but you have to look, analyse, think and act to help those that miss out.

The cost of and for those that are left behind, ignored and much worse is paid by us all. The system is systematically prejudiced and the costs come in poorer economic performance and many costs such as higher medical, police and welfare costs to start with. Major instances in the U.S. and recently Europe have seen disenfranchised and mentally unwell individuals and groups who were already socially unhealthy using fire arms and vehicles on anyone close. We have to be careful not just to blame the individuals who act this way but ask how can we prevent this level of social, and mental ill health. Leaving fewer people behind.

Real World Prejudice.

Yes technically schools are part of the real world but I argue they have to be closer to what comes after school life for the learners both as they age but also for when they leave the classroom.

Now actually schools tend to be disorganised with poor communication, quite political with science and evidence based factors taking a back seat. So just like the real world really. I suggest a better example. Professional management and reduced political interference are essential to achieving better education standards. Actually working with evidence based methods in teaching and also the running of organisations is vital to escape the bubble that education works in. The environment still needs to be safer than a business for the staff and students as befits the organisational purpose and needs of the people.

Now the real world is biased and prejudiced quite often against those that achieve lower results from education. Workplace recruitment is systematically biased of course because they want the best employee they can find. The problems is (theirs and everyone else’s) that they do not search for good candidates and even when they do they do it with prejudice included. So a standard recruitment process is an advert followed by applications (CV or form), interviews and offer. The advert will describe a model person they want to find, it will be quite specific for the type of person they are looking for. When they get the applications they need to sort to eliminate many from a pile. The strategies they employ can be trivial factors such as spelling (attention to detail) but also closeness to the advert. They are not looking for others who might offer greater potential, they are shrinking a list. Their methods are not arbitrary they are specific. They do though have biases that reflect society and the workplace. If they get to choose (buyers market) they get very specific and go for the perceived higher standards of entry. They will select the best prepared for the job (in their opinion or best guess). First of all they regularly do this task poorly, second they do what keeps them in their career.

So in areas like media, law, medicine, civil service, private business and larger companies they are much more likely to see an applicant from higher status education whether public schools or top universities who are better prepared to work with the employers who also have this same background. They rarely are going to see ‘potential’ or ‘talent’ in people from other backgrounds and are too busy to go look for it.

Organisations also reflect customer biases, so not fitting the stereotype is not good for employment chances. Any social awkwardness whether culture or disability based is not going to get through an interview. Truth and not exaggeration will not beat the plausible applicants. You have to play the game and make it easy for the recruiters to see that you are the best candidate.

Work places and customers do not have the inclination or ability to understand and accept non stereotype workers so they do not get the jobs.

An example of real world prejudice is US Army where in peace they stipulate no criminal record but when war makes the job less attractive they end up dropping the restriction. Now recently these groups have been compared they found that those with criminal records perform the same in basic training and then better with more promotion later (planet money 22/04/16). So the employer systematically is prejudiced against a group of people who are actually better for them. These prejudices are repeated through out society where stereotypes are chosen over finding the truth. People with disabilities and mental health issues don’t stand a chance even if they are the best for the position. Those without the right background will face an up hill struggle to break into the professions regardless of ability or potential. It is interesting that the lowest employed group is white male and working class. All the drive for equality has been piece meal rather than higher general standards of education and recruitment.

Prejudice

Labels are sometimes changed to reflect changes in substance, and sometimes to try and create a difference through perception. Humans are biased in many ways. The primary way in terms of prejudice is 'Us and them'. We all do it assuming you are human. Pre judging someone or thing is a natural process, early identification or first impressions have many useful advantages for us, from identifying danger to seeing irritations (and positive things as well). The emotional pathways are key elements. It is not a thorough analysis. That takes other brain pathways and operates in a more deliberate method taking more time. A common problem with these methods is a mixing up of categories. Many times perception of others actions and motives is attributed to deliberate acts, when usually the other person has acted emotionally or instinctively. In my experience and statistical evidence most people do not spend much time at all making rational decisions before acting in spite of using the words (without thinking) 'I just thought that…'. Most people are just getting on with their lives, not spending a lot of time being considerate of others close to them let alone strangers.

Pre judging may be an emotional response or the result of reasoned thinking, or it might even be rational perhaps with scientific analysis. This error filled process may have evidence in past experience or friend’s stories. I want to highlight two elements that are mixed in with peoples perception of prejudice. Bias is in all directions and each bias can effect the person with the bias and other people. It may have an advantage swinging through trees but not necessarily in a situation within a modern society. Logical fallacies are systemic to the brain and require a lot of concentration for most people to avoid. Some people with autism for instance may find them easy to recognise but most do not. There are also many fallacies of ignorance. Science is not finished finding out about everything so we are ignorant of many things as a species let alone as individuals. The way around ignorances are as groups with different people with different abilities and responsibilities working to their strengths. Much of human diversity has been part of the species development and survival. Psychopathy may have been a key for 'Us' surviving, being able to do to a person or animal what most people find very difficult. In peace time this is called murder in other times it may be defence of the group. Autism can get past some emotion that can interfere with thinking for others.

Education is biased in many ways. Gender has been an emphasised bias in most societies. Finding the truth has been difficult as to what are real differences that need to be taken into account and false perceptions. Many of the arguments have been waged with little concern for this distinction. Our society has become a lot less violent physically, but passive aggression is still very common in usage as physical aggression was used previously. The bias is now against the physically violent and a lot more tolerant for the psychologically violent. An example of bias is regarding domestic violence where the 81 women who are murdered (UK) in a year by their partners, very little mention is made of the 19 men murdered by their partners. The most effected are women clearly, but this is the result not cause. I once met a lady who had worked with both abused women and male offenders. A common pattern to both groups were communication difficulties. Violence is linked to (or part of) communication and is a key problem. Most of us fail to communicate sometimes but the frustration of not being understood is common in many situations, whether children, stroke victims, psychological conditions. Violence is most often rooted in the communication difficulty. Violence is multifarious trying to treat it when it has reached this stage is unlikely to succeed. This end of conflict needs to be addressed appropriately. The prevention of conflict through communication and understanding of its source rather than decry the end result of physical violence.

Equality is the call, but just a change in bias to other peoples favour is more likely. Education is not supportive of kinaesthetic learners and kinaesthetic learning. Many adults in hands-on jobs have sometimes excelled after school mediocrity or failure (them and the school!). Many people have been supported concerning human variations. Gender issues have been attempted to be addressed sometimes in line with real issues and sometimes with perceptions. This is an area of the loudest voices. Race has also been addressed with varying success. Some biases are less of a problem in education than in the rest of society.

Again a lot of coverage on the pay gap between Women and Men has been constant. Other groups of people have massively fewer opportunities and in relative silence. Unemployment in people with autism is very high (c 90%). How to help people with autism and prepare them for the outside world (and the outside world for them) for example is an element of education that has poor results. Once the extra help and support in education disappears getting through job interviews is more than a glass ceiling. Many of the multitude of disabilities have similar patterns with varied attempts to improve results in education and beyond. The abilities must be emphasised. Many people with disabilities have abilities that are of a higher level then people who do achieve (get the jobs). Many disabilities are less obvious or hidden from others. Strengths need to be developed (and proof produced) and either less strong areas identified and then developed or strategies to cope developed.

The ignorance in wider society of disabilities or biases is not just common but entrenched and traditional. Prejudice is fed by ignorance. Better understanding of themselves and others is alluded to in Delphi from before 500 B.C. and other cultures have the same idea. Our society creates different biases or varies the biases compared to other societies both around the world and historically. A lot of barriers to learning are not recognised bias for or against certain people. The biggest barrier to achieving in education (and health, wealth etc.) is socio-economic. A poor women has many more disadvantages than a rich women. Poorer people have risen up through education but the proportion that fill hospitals and prisons and receive welfare are skewed to the poorer. These are the people failed by chosen bias of perception and action that changes bias not eliminates it.

To give equality of opportunity has to be to help awareness (individual and society) of strengths and weaknesses. Improving this identification and then helping people into roles (especially education and then workplace) aligned with their abilities. Reducing the taking and awarding of roles by unable people (for the role) when other factors (e.g. social) are used to select people for the roles rather than abilities. Of course reducing prejudice of one group will most often increase prejudice against another.

One group left behind.

Well I did the test online and I do not have autism. I do though share a lot with people who are autistic. Social games that many people operate with are an opaque box for many people with autism. I think as I can appreciate, understand and could play those games I am not autistic, but I do not like it! These socially noisy environments like the audibly noisy environments are debilitating to those with autism and the too often chaotic environments of education and work are prejudicial. Although Autism does not have a clear precise definition it is a workable model (autistic spectrum) that can improve environments for many not just autistic people. There have been several appearances on the TV and film recently of high performing autistic people who when allowed to work, out perform the vast majority. They have excelled in clearing the clutter of social and psychological inputs that many people use, whether exaggerating or guessing and most people feel is close enough. These  are not real situations though. There are often communication barriers and some poor motor control that set up differences that can be used for bullying, prejudice and exclusion. Some people have been supported and progressed, whether early before 2 years of age increasing abilities and independence (saving money for the state) or in education. Employment is another matter!

In gender and race issues things have changed significantly over the last 50 years. Disabilities both physical and mental are lagging in progress. Women have progressed to close parity within employment and many areas have seen progress against historical bias in regard to race. Neither issue is now inconsequential and with no need for consideration, but autistic people have an unemployment rate of around 90%! It’s not a glass ceiling more big secure walls not even allowing entry. Now we all have strengths and weaknesses and people on the autistic spectrum have these too. Their IQs are distributed the same. Success has been had in tasks and roles that require repetition, detail and honesty. Erratic, vague and dishonest environments are painful. One real world example is Temple Grandin (Business, science, book and film) who has designed animal enclosures that have saved millions of dollars and reduced suffering due to her exceptional abilities to see problems. Others have worked in IT where they perform well above average.

So how do we help and get the most out of people on the autistic spectrum for their and our own good. So rather than costing a lot to badly support in education, health and welfare. First is a preschool recognition and support that gets to the brain before it develops to guide towards more productive and effective ways. In education the environment needs to have quiet times and some one to one support from qualified supporters. Work places need to search for more capable people who are poor at the interview process, where they do not exaggerate and report themselves as poor performing as they use absolute comparisons. So often the interview process selects the best game player on paper and in person in a process that goes from a pile of 100 application forms to down select to 1 or 2. They miss completely those that are honest (sometimes brutally) who approach life with a completely different perspective. Then in employment they need to support the worker with clear communication and a quiet social and audible environment. There probably needs to be a warning that brutal honesty might be offensive, egos may be bruised. Employers need to improve communication, accuracy and clarity and except the rewards of employees who are reliable, accurate and honest.

I must conclude this blog with a suggestion that most of the ways to support people on the autistic spectrum would enable many more people to thrive and to be more effective and profitable. Of course this would be prejudicial to those who excel in political, vague, communication deficient and artifice intense environments. But it’s OK I am not one of those so I don’t mind (oops might be hypocritical?). Belbin talks of Shapers who seem to get things done. Recently literature has appeared discussing how psychopaths operate to many people's detriment. These are the people who will then receive prejudice as it moves away from their favour. So look these up and make your decisions of who you prefer. Then of course work out how to help these people and other disabilities that are barriers to seeing people’s abilities.