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The Danger of Labeling Children
by Bernard Percy, M.A.
Educator and Author
A teacher had a very, very successful year working with
one of her classes, a Middle School Social Studies class. The class results
on the yearly achievement test were outstanding, and the special projects
the class produced were exceptional. The Principal was very impressed
and highly commended the teacher. The teacher thanked the Principal but
told him it wasn't very difficult, after all, they were an intellectually
gifted class. The Principal knew that the class was not identified as
gifted and that the students had an average academic record. He asked
the teacher why she believed they were gifted. She pulled out a piece
of paper with the names of her students; next to the names were numbers
such as 139, 143, and so on. When the Principal looked at the paper he
realized what she had been referring to. The paper did not give the students'
IQ scores, as the teacher had thought, they gave their locker numbers.
The teacher had labeled the students in that class as gifted. As a result
she had very high standards and expectations for what they could and should
accomplish, and they did achieve far beyond what others could have expected.
I wonder how that class would have done if their locker numbers were in
a range of 80 to 100. How would the teacher have labeled them and would
her expectations and standards for the class have been lowered? Most probably.
In the above example, a very positive label was attached to the students.
What happens when negative labels are attached to students. When a child
is identified, no matter how incorrectly, as having ADD (Attention Deficit
Disorder), Dyslexia, Reading or Math Development Disorder, or any of a
host of other negative labels, that child becomes branded and the expectations
and standards of what that student can accomplish become greatly diminished.
Educators begin to look for and "find" the reasons why the student
was given that label, whether those reasons truly exist or not.
One of the great dangers in labeling students is that teachers than fail
to look for the correct source of the apparent problem, and fail to find
the correct solution.
How often are students labeled as having some learning problem, only to
discover, sometimes years later, that their problems were caused by poor
hearing or poor eyesight?
How often are students labeled as having some psychiatric named affliction
(such as ADD or developmental reading disorder) when the truth is that
they are displaying mental or physiological phenomena caused by having
hit a barrier to learning?
There is a "Study Technology" which is developed by L. Ron Hubbard,
author, educator, and humanitarian, and utilized by Applied Scholastics
International to improve the quality of education world wide. This technology
identifies the three key barriers to learning that a student encounters
by determining the mental or physiological phenomena a student is displaying.
For example, nervous hysteria is one of the potential symptoms of having
passed a misunderstood world. How often have students displaying this
symptom been labeled by a teacher as "perhaps having ADD?" From
that moment on the teacher will most likely find other "evidence"
of ADD and perhaps even recommend that child be put on the destructive
drug Ritalin.
One of the great tragedies of labeling a student accepts as being true
the label they are incorrectly tagged with, such as when they are placed
in a class for students with learning disabilities. They begin to think,
I am learning disabled and lower their expectations and belief in what
they can accomplish.
Understanding the "Study Technology" of L. Ron Hubbard, students
do not attach labels to themselves when they have problems in study. They
think, "I hit a barrier to learning." They identify the symptom
they are displaying and determine which of the barriers they have hit.
They then know the correct solution to handle their problem.
Let's keep the attachment of negative labels to students having learning
difficulties from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let's take the
viewpoint that a student with a learning problem has hit one of the barriers
to learning, and let's help him or her overcome that barrier by applying
the correct technology as developed by L. Ron Hubbard.
For more information on the "Study Technology," call Applied
Scholastics International at 800.424.5397 or discover the Barriers to
Study for yourself on the Internet site: http//www.appliedscholastics.org.
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