SWANs (2)

Last week, I began writing about SWANs or Students with additional needs — a term much broader than people with disabilities (PWDs). More than disabilities, the additional needs would be any of dozens of conditions that could affect academic performance.

I sometimes get reactions from people saying we’re pampering our young with all these concerns but societies have become so complex, creating many more challenges for our students than in the past. Also, many of these additional needs probably existed as well decades ago but were not recognized, so students who could not cope would just drop out of school, or barely pass. The problems would stay long after they leave school, putting them at a disadvantage with the kind of work they could get.

As we learn more about these special needs and get the public to be more conscious about these issues, I’m hoping parents and teachers will be able to identify some of these problems early enough, and to find ways to help the students.

I’ve been using excellent materials from the University of Melbourne about the five areas of special needs. Last week, I described some of the problems associated with communications, simply defined as being able to establish connections with other people.

Spoiled dragons and more

The other four areas I’ll be discussing in today’s column are: interpersonal learning, literacy, personal learning and emotional self-management.

Interpersonal learning refers to “skills to support social interaction, social responsibility and a capacity to transcend social difficulties.” A shorter definition would be the skills needed to “learn with and from other people.”

I thought about China’s “spoiled dragons syndrome” resulting from the one child per family policy that was in place from 1977 to 2015, with parents and grandparents tending to spoil that one child. Used to getting their way, these “I, me and myself” dragons would have problems listening to others, or cooperating in group work.

I don’t see as much of this in the Philippines maybe because even our “unico hijo” or “unico hija” (only son/daughter) still grow up with many cousins, everyone an ate, kuya, siobe (younger sister) and sioti (younger brother).

Literacy refers to the ability to use and interpret pictures, letters, numbers, and text. I’ve mentioned dyslexia, where letters and numbers appear jumbled, affecting the student’s ability to read or, in the case of numbers, to do math. Beyond dyslexias, I worry about an internet generation that reads less and less and therefore unable to be as reflective.

Personal learning skills are those that relate to attention, memory and executive functioning. “Executive functioning” here refers to the brain making decisions, which may seem simple enough, if you have good study habits. These habits should be molded long before college but many teachers are overworked, especially in public schools, and are unable to help the students. In college, even students who have picked up good study habits might throw these to the wind with the many distractions of adolescence like malls, gaming, and much more. Parents and counselors would do well to at least remind students about managing their time: setting deadlines that include little rewards if the deadline is met (for example, a movie).

Finally, there’s emotional self-management, the ability “to experience and express one’s feelings in self and others.” That’s what the animated movie “Inside Out” was all about and I suggest parents watch it with their children to figure out their emotional intelligence. (I’m referring both to the children’s and, even more importantly, the parents themselves. )

Our child-rearing practices can stunt this emotional self-management, in the way young people are scolded for expressing those emotions and end up suppressing them. You can’t learn to manage emotions like anger unless it’s expressed. Very young children still developing their language skills may not even “know” what the emotion is — they cry and you have to ask them what happened, then explain that what they’re feeling is galit (anger) and that it’s OK because it will pass.

Adolescence can be daunting with the roller-coaster of emotions and the many different social settings where the adolescents have to manage those emotions. As if that were not difficult enough, students might find they have to deal as well with teachers who are themselves having problems with emotional self-management and end up bullying their students.

Parents shouldn’t leave all these special needs to schools. They have to do their part at home. While I’ve described the needs as falling into five categories, they are in fact inter-related, in terms of causes and solutions.

One important example comes with the use of television as well as digital media. Many years ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics already warned against exposing the very young to television, because of the way it distorts their perceptions of reality — shortening their attention span and creating needs for constant visual and sound stimulation.

Just look around in restaurants where families are having a meal together but with everyone working on their phones or tablets and you’ll understand why the children have problems in schools with communications, interpersonal learning, literacy, personal learning, and emotional self-management.

Local contexts

There is so much more work that needs to be done to identify the SWANs in our local contexts. I’ve mentioned that maybe our students don’t have as many problems around social interactions because they tend to grow up in extended families and learn to be sensitive to the needs of others.

But the high levels of empathy can also backfire. Take the example of students claiming to be possessed (nasaniban). All it takes is one student to go into hysteria from such a “possession” and you have others following suit. Not only that, news about an incident in one school can set off similar outbreaks in other institutions.

This is not role-play or a way to get out of school. With the beliefs in evil spirits and possession still very much a part of our culture, it should not be surprising that the hysteria is so contagious.

By and large though, empathy is an asset. The other day I had visitors from a large Thai company looking for Filipinos to join their management staff, mentioning our command of English as an asset but, more importantly, the way Filipinos empathize, quick to relate to other people’s difficulties and to offer help.

That quality or, some will say, that value of pagmamalasakit (also sometimes translated as compassion) is under siege and, ironically, it might be coming from schools themselves as we overemphasize competition and individual achievement.

A final word: I’d dare say many of us had our SWAN period or periods when we were still studying, many of the issues solved because of a patient mentor or parent. Think of how people helped us long before this SWANs term came about. . .and return the favor with our young today.

mtan@inquirer.com.ph