Mouse Plant

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@gtmom @NielsHoven It is constantly astonishing to me that a woman can be so very wrong. Endlessly wrong. Dangerously wrong. And yet people nod along and change entire states' maths curricula to buy into her "number sense" woo woo.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@NielsHoven Jo Boaler.

Her ideas are exactly wrong. Everything she says about maths education is wrong.

But it is seductive in its appeal: "don't make them memorize - give them number sense".

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@Strickomaster The parents of the current children have grown up on social media. On much social media, if you don't like something someone does/says you "report it to the mods" and then the person gets banned and you continue happily in your echo chamber. Maybe it's that played out IRL.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@MBDscience Peter Gates simply MUST be a parody account. The things he says cannot possibly be real

[Tom Bennett OBE @tombennett71]

Neurodiversity is a common term in education- and society. But it lacks precision both in definition and usage. And that really matters in the real world.

For a start 'neurodiverse' is not a clinically recognised or used term, eg in the DSM-5. It was coined by the sociologist Judy Singer in 1998, as an advocacy term for people with ASD and very closely related conditions.

'Neurodivergent' describes an individual whose brain functions differently from the majority. Clinically recognized examples include autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, Tourette syndrome, and others. These are formal neurodevelopmental diagnoses.

Crucially this means people who have been born with a life-long condition. It does *not* include people with anxiety disorders, or dementia, or PTSD, or depression etc. It doesn't mean 'everything'.

There is no diagnosis 'neurodiverse'. It is a purely vernacular term, with multiple meanings depending on who is using it and who you talk to. Clinicians diagnose specific conditions, like ASD.

And of course even clinically diagnosable conditions like ASD, ADHD are subject to intense debates about how the category is defined, is it too broad or narrow etc.

Diagnostic criteria can vary from country to country, LA to LA, school to school. And so can the response strategies. What a lot of people outside of either the education or clinical sectors don't realise is that this is an area that is crying out for high quality research, clarity, transparency, and honesty about what works, and when, and when it doesn't work. We are often talking about very different things when we use the same words carelessly.

The common use of 'neurodiverse' matters; it is often heard in advocacy discourse, the media, etc. but frequently misunderstood.

It doesn't mean 'a little bit different'. We are all different from one another. People who claim to be 'a little bit autistic' may very well simply misunderstand that some of the characteristics they identify in that category are also perfectly normal-spectrum qualities that many people have. Liking your house to be tidy doesn't mean that you are neurodivergent. Being a stickler for details doesn't mean you have OCD. If the term means 'everything' then it means 'nothing.'

It has become fashionable for people to self diagnose and self-refer as neurodivergent, even in the face of little evidence. Because it confers, for some, a sense of being special, different, or interesting. And of course in a sector where we rightly seek to support people/ students who need reasonable accommodations in order to promote inclusivity, the *incorrect* assignation of an unmet need leads to unfair advantages over those who do not receive those accommodations.

A small but growing group of activists now campaign on the platform that almost any mental health difference indicates neurodivergence, but this is a huge definitional drift, without any clinical basis. You see a lot of this activism in education, often perfectly well-meant. Singer herself would have disagreed strongly with this.

The reason this matters is that if we treat all mental health problems, all behavioural disorders, all learning problems, as having lifelong neurological foundations - which they absolutely do not- then we create a narrative that indicates all individuals face insurmountable obstacles in modifying the behaviours associated with the condition. Some children identified as dyslexic, for example, are simply deficient in high quality reading instruction.

But if you treat every child that behaves unsuccessfully in the classroom as being neurodivergent, then you create a circumstance where we treat them as the victims of irresistible compulsions, rather than human beings with the ability to learn to take responsibility, to grow, to change their habits and attitudes. It is also a substantial abandonment of our commitment to only use evidence info strategies with children- especially the most vulnerable.

In other words, not all forms of SEND are indications of neurodivergent conditions. And most certainly aren't.

Sadly, as in so many fields, many of the strategies recommended for children with any form of SEND, including forms of neurodivergence, lack substantial or credible evidence bases. There is a lot of well-meant money being spent on approaches that simply have no basis in research, impact or other outcomes.

This is an area that cries out for high quality evidence bases, and evidence informed approaches to support students with genuine need, not activism that leads to treating all children as incapable. But the energy of that activism, married to evidence, could produce something spectacular for those who need help the most, and I hope we see this happen in the future.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@BobbyJames004 @NEUnion @DanielKebedeNEU DON'T FEED THE TROLLS PEOPLE!

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@dmac35893561 @msm_monitor Well, like it shouldn't really matter what gender you are whether or not you get a council house.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@grahamchatterl2 You seem to disagree with his ideas around how a class and a school should be run. What evidence for the effectiveness of his approach would you need to change your mind?

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@ZZerry34 @owenjonesjourno Because that is the system she was describing?

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@veritysmart @owenjonesjourno LIke, that's not true in any way at all.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@adamboxer1 Give everyone their tax back, and privatise the lot. It can't get worse than it is.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@calucas16 @adamboxer1 @PL_9009766 Children shouldn't be teaching themselves. That is not a good idea.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@calucas16 @adamboxer1 @PL_9009766 No. They couldn't.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@Duckers56132160 @saulhenderson No, we get paid for 4 weeks off. The rest is unpaid. So the salary is sized down to compensate for that. And then the salary is divided by 12 and paid monthly.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@teachthemx3 @Bagz_Tech It really isn't as useful as people think. But many science teachers hope that it is.

It is the "Curse of Expertise".

If you want children to understand something, show them, direct their attention, then ask them to describe it. THEN do the practical.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@Bagz_Tech @teachthemx3 Science teacher here: no.
It is not useful as a teaching method. The concepts we teach in science required literal geniuses to notice. Asking children to come to Hooke's Law, or Boyle's law by themselves is not fair to them. Teach the thing, then use the practical to demonstrate

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@davidpattersonx Now you are just being silly.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@RogersHistory @emmac_larke @TTRadioOfficial No.

Being removed from the group when your behaviour is not acceptable to the group has been an evolutionary advantage for humans forever.

Not removing children, when their behaviour is out of line, means they never learn to socialise.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@adamboxer1 @rustbeltjacobin I think that in scotland they do that. If you aren't timetabled for a class, you don't need to be in the building.

[Mouse Plant @mouseplantsoap]

@MrLeeDaviid Weighted rucksack? That sounds interesting. How weighted?