Collateral Damage? Why Children Struggling in the Education System Always Matter

"Homeless teenage girl on street with ruc" (CC BY 2.0) by  USDAgov 

Do you think that every child matters? I’m sure you do. But do you think we have set up our systems of education like that or do young people fall through gaps? The truth of course is that they do.

I am often intrigued by the profound simplicity of the design of electrical circuits. They are designed in such a way that when the system becomes overloaded the first part to break down is the fuse. The fuse is actually the least resistant part of the circuit rather like some of the children who struggle in our education systems if you think about it.

Fuses also act as a safety device. Their job is to protect the system. It stops it from burning out and becoming defunct. The fuse sets the scene and the parameters of useage. But what about education?

Many of our children play this crucial role. I think we should see those who struggle to conform as the fuse in the educational circuit, and when they “go” then everything should stop. However, our education systems are not designed this way.

The result is profound. As our education systems have no effective safety measures (although in England, OFSTED would say that was their role,) many young people fall by the wayside.

One of the big problems is the law of averages. We think generically. We think about the average child rather than the true scale of diversity. The result is a savage inequality.

Collateral Damage was a term first used during the Vietnam War to describe the undesirable, negative but inevitable consequences of living our lives in such a way that some innocent parties will suffer as a consequence of the systems and machines we create. It was often viewed as a risk worth taking by the military commanders of the time who assumed “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

I am afraid that our education systems are the same. Young people fall through the gaps because we have no fuse in the system to tell us it is not operating well and is massively overloaded. Anything we do have does not systemically grasp the true meaning of education which is that it should liberate not debilitate.

Are your children in the system? Mine are and I am desperate for them not to fall through a gap.

John Hassall, Johass