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.