‘Her brothers and sisters?’
‘Ah - there, probably, we have the determining factor. Fay seems to have been the most sensitive of the children. Whether she was, or wasn’t, is not relevant. You see, the family…’
‘Relevance, Brian.’
‘Right! Of course.’ The young man flipped a page, coughed, and obeyed. ‘The relevance is that Fay found the sibling rivalry within the home overwhelming.’
‘In what way – overwhelming?’
‘Older brothers, competitive by nature. The unrelenting battle for supremacy would have been compounded by the arrival of the new baby, a competitor for the very busy mother’s attention. Fay would have equated attention with affection. She would have become convinced, not only that she was unimportant, but that she was unloved.’
‘True or false. That’s how the child perceived it?’
‘I believe so. She would have–’
‘This affected her how?’
‘It’s not something we can measure. Not as such. You see…’
‘Your opinion, Brian.’
‘Yes, of course. My feeling is that she was an essentially competitive child, as her older siblings reportedly were. Her mother is a strong woman. Possibly young Fay, though more sensitive, has also inherited her mother’s character? I didn’t meet the father. It would have been…’ Catching sight of Lou’s disapproving scowl, he changed course. ‘What is certain is that something, most probably the birth of the younger baby, caused her to stop competing.’
‘Did she ever compete?’
‘The mother says she did. Prior to the birth. She…’
‘It’s that cut and dried?’
‘As you know…’
‘I know,’ Lou was cynical. ‘Nothing’s cut and dried.’
‘Whatever the cause, Fay withdrew. Just think of her as saying to herself – okay, so they want to prove they’re better, cleverer, let them. I’ll opt out of this competition.’
‘Like a tortoise hiding from attack? Sort of an emotional pulling your head in.’
‘Actually, Mr Martin, you put it rather well.’ The young man, having successfully survived Lou’s initial grilling, was visibly more relaxed. ‘That’s about what Fay Margaret did. At least at first. She pulled her head in. She retreated emotionally. She found a safe place. Inside herself, as it were. There no one could hurt her.’
It explained a lot. It explained why Fay had learned to be so comfortable in the training centre, and so very comfortable with Laura. Could it also explain why she had learned so much from Laura? She had learned she had something to give, that she was not doomed to be an eternal beggar, that she had a constructive part to play as helper/teacher. From there, she’d taken her latest step – ‘I can help meself.’ As well, it explained why the church social, rape or not, had so traumatised her. She’d been shown that the world she now wanted to belong to, the world outside the family and the training centre, was the world she’d withdrawn from as a child.
If the psychologist had it right, Fay was not only minimally disabled but also strongly competitive. If she’d also inherited her mother’s strength, the experience of the social, once she’d recovered from the initial shock, may well have confronted her with just what her withdrawal had cost her. Fay being Fay, she’d have watched and listened and learned. She’d have learned that Joe and his mates and their girl friends and the vicar and the women in the kitchen were not so frightening. She’d certainly learned to groom herself as those young women did. A comparatively small thing which was possibly, probably, a signpost to all the other things she’d learned when sitting quietly in that hall. It wasn’t such a stretch to conclude the experience had sown a seed, that she’d come to comprehend that this was a world she not only belonged in, but could successfully compete in.
Fanciful? Not really. Because this suggested, perhaps, an encounter in which she’d willingly participated. Not rape, not even seduction? Joe’s boast to his mates? Bravado. Whatever had really happened, it wasn’t impossible. Except, she had been traumatised. She had gone backwards. Then she’d bounced back. Who knew? Who would ever know? No wonder all the experts had been unable to pin down exactly what had happened. Complexity upon complexity.
‘Then,’ the psychologist continued, ‘the whole situation was exacerbated by an unusually premature maturity.’
‘Early periods,’ Mary translated.
‘Exactly.’
Lou sat smugly back and surveyed his audience. ‘Add it all up, and what have you got?’
‘Fay Margaret Clark.’
The group shuffled, nodded, sighed, frowned, made quick notations in their individual notebooks and diaries. Or looked genuinely surprised. Mark felt vindicated. Intensely and acutely and unbearably sad, and vindicated. A sneak peek at the other end of the table showed Mrs Ryan was one of the surprised members. She should not have been. Don’t get personal, Mark. How not to get personally involved? Inevitably evolving from the overwhelming sadness, he felt the familiar bile of rage.
The psychologist, after taking time out to clinically register the general group reaction, proceeded to further detail. Citing facts and figures from Fay’s now extensive file he attempted to validate his conclusions before summing up.
‘This entire unhappy episode,’ he concluded, ‘has been most unfortunate. This child should have been provided with co-ordinated support that embraced appropriate remedial lessons within the mainstream educational system. Mainstream teachers should themselves have been better educated and supported. There should have been, in the first instance, reliable professional assessment. Ongoing assessments. Parent counselling. Social welfare support that recognised Fay’s handicapping emotional problems, as distinct from Tim’s family support. This systemic failure should not have been allowed to have gone on for so long. Fay’s true situation should have been picked up much, much earlier. After all, she has been attending the local training centre for a number of years.’
‘It wasn’t picked up.’ Silent until now, Senior Constable Jack Harris was blunt. ‘So what’s the plan?’
‘The plan?’ Brian nodded. ‘We will be attempting to reverse a deeply imbedded pattern. A childhood pattern engraved on an adult mind. An adult….’
‘She’s not an adult.’
‘For our purposes, an adult.’
‘Because…?’ Jack Harris might have been interrogating a criminal.
The young psychologist was not intimidated. ‘Far Clark’s patterns of behaviour are very set. I believe what I have in mind will best serve her needs. For this reason, I will be recommending remedial education in an adult setting – the local community adult learning centre for example.’
Waiting for, and receiving, no further argument, the psychologist gently repeated his own previously enunciated list of needs. ‘Plus parent counselling for her mother. Social welfare support for the family. Counselling for Fay herself.’
Brian had completed his report. He’d be recommending adult education. Remedial, for sure. But still adult.
‘What hope have you?’ Lou, reasserting control, was sceptical.
‘Of Fay’s progress? Or of the provision of appropriate services?’
‘Let’s stick to the latter for now.’
‘You’re talking money, Mr Martin,’ the psychologist responded. ‘It’s not within my province. Sufficient to say - these are the kinds of measures we will currently be endeavouring to implement.’
‘Finance permitting.’
Money! Always money!
He could be silent no longer. Turning to the psychologist, he asked: ‘You’re recommending Fay attend a mainstream adult education facility?’
‘A recommendation only. Isn’t that why we’re here?
‘Then let’s be clear,’ Mark persisted. ‘You said that her true situation should have been picked up much earlier. Are you telling us the Glenlea Training Centre is at fault?’
‘Mr Withers!’ Mrs Ryan chided.
‘That’s what he said.’ Mark
retorted. ‘Much much earlier, you said. It seems to me, this puts it right down to the Centre.’
‘And you are…?’
‘Mr Withers is Fay Clark’s instructor. Mrs Ryan is the Centre’s Principal,’ Lou’s smooth brow creased in mild disapproval. ‘Introductions were made earlier.’
‘Sorry.’ The psychologist smiled without embarrassment at Mrs Ryan, then returned to Mark. ‘Of course it should have been picked up much earlier. Surely no one can argue with that?’
‘I don’t. Of course I don’t. Though I do have to object. You did imply it was us.’
‘Did I?’ Brian’s young face was stern, but there was no apology. ‘I have read your reports, Mr Withers. You expressed concern. In the matter of the visiting psychologist, for example. That was a most unfortunate debacle. Since Fay was not assessed at all in her time with you…..’
‘How the hell are we supposed to do anything when there’s no one to consult! We’re lucky to get the odd day. Every second counts. Younger children have to be a priority. As for employing a private consultant - we’re on a shoestring. We do our best with what we’ve got. We’re stretched….’
‘Mr Withers!’ Lou rapped the table.
‘I understand, of course, Mr Withers.’ The psychologist was sympathetic. ‘I have the greatest admiration for the work done within the training centre system. Even in more populous areas, specialist staff are not readily available. To be fair, the report was not directed specifically at the Glenlea Centre. The initial breakdown was in the mainstream education system. Some years back. Things have changed for the better. Classes are smaller. Assessments are more frequent. I have to say they’re also more efficiently directed. Teachers benefit from broader training. The research shows significant progress across a wide educational spectrum.’
‘You’re saying Fay should never have been labelled. She should have had a better deal in the first place.’
‘Of course. However, as you will understand, I’m afraid this whole area is very complex. To have been the recipient of a better deal, as you say, she’d have had to be labelled as…,’ the young man paused for effect, ‘…as in need of a better deal. You do see the problem?’
He did see. Wear the label, get the service. Get the service, live with the label.
For how long? Kids labelled as being in need of additional educational input, for whatever reason, would be enduring the stigma attached to their label for many years. Maybe forever? At what cost to social interaction? To personal well-being? To ambitions? To every single aspect of their lives?
He did see.
Yet Fay had worn no professionally allotted label. Like the other unassessed kids at The Glenlea, she’d been labelled by the mere fact of attending The Day Training Centre for Retarded Children. Like Fay, most of them had never received qualified professional assessment of their intelligence. They’d been referred by local general medical practitioners and principals of mainstream schools. Their enrolment had been rubber stamped by bureaucrats who’d anticipated future formal assessment. Formal assessment provided from the city-based source whose workload covered an impossibly wide-ranging geographical area, and an equally impossible wide range of disability.
On the few occasions the professional assessors did visit, their time was so limited that only two or three children could benefit from their attention. For the majority, there wasn’t even the bonus of adequate specialist services to warrant the pain inflicted by the stigma associated with the label. Even so, kids like Clem and Trixie and Meryl wore the mark of their disability on their faces. For them, there was no mistaking their ‘difference’. For them, there was no escaping the label. Regardless of deficiencies in the current system, regardless of idealistic alternatives, their destiny would almost inevitably have been The Glenlea.
Fay wore no visible label. Her entire story was a saga of inefficiency, stupidity, carelessness, ignorance and plain bad luck. Who was at fault was no longer relevant. Fay had been wrongfully enrolled as a student in the ‘asylum of Glenlea’. As a result, Fay was going to have to endure a life-long label.
‘Do you see?’ The psychologist was explaining to those who, unlike Mark Withers, were looking bewildered. ‘Precisely when do we make it generally known that a certain child is in need of more help than his or her peers? The second we do that, the second we assess a child as being in need of specialist services, whatever the specific nature of these services, we have pinned on that label. Or rather, to be truthful, we have imprinted on this particular child an indelible label. It’s not just pasted on to be peeled off when the time is right, when the child is… shall we say cured? It’s a tattoo, painfully imprinted for public exposure and almost impossible to completely erase. In this unlikely event, its legacy is inevitably scar tissue. The child wears it like a…’
‘That’s a bit rich.’ Senior Constable Harris sneered.
‘I don’t believe so,’ the psychologist was impatient. ‘So where, at what stage of a young life would you imprint this label? What, would you say, is the point where you’d recommend that a child suffer this indignity? How would you weigh up the pros and cons?’
‘I rather think we are straying.’ Lou sought to return to the matter in hand.
‘I think not,’ Brian argued. ‘It gives us a framework in which to more productively discuss what we are here for. The questions we should be asking are -Was it wise to label Fay without adequate assessment? Did she in actual fact benefit from the smaller classes and the more personalised programs at The Glenlea? However admirable some may believe these to be for certain children. Though, of course, this again is another argument….’
Lou’s cough sounded a warning.
‘Of course, Mr Martin,’ the psychologist agreed. ‘I have to say this argument is as yet in its infancy. I can promise you we will be hearing much, much more. However - to get back to the business in hand. In short, what was the actual effect of this removal from mainstream education on Fay Clark?’
‘I’m sorry to be difficult,’ Mrs Ryan interjected. ‘Our chairman is concerned to keep to the specific case. Surely, then, we should pursue this?’
‘Why, of course! If you think so, Mrs Ryan,’ Lou was surprisingly magnanimous. ‘Please - do continue.’
‘It seems to me that if this group is to make recommendations about Fay’s future, each member needs to understand what has happened. What is happening.’
‘In what way, precisely?’
‘I have to ask,’ Mrs Ryan surveyed the table. ‘Is each member acquainted with the exact nature of the Centre’s programs? I can’t recall anyone other than Constable Grey, and of course Mr Withers, who has actually been in our building.’
‘Of course,’ Lou was still in magnanimous mode. ‘Well said.’
The professional probation officer interposed. ‘Give us some credit, Mrs Ryan. I believe we all have the picture. We all know the Centre provides smaller classes and more personalised programs. This has to be a bonus.’
‘That’s for sure,’ Senior Constable Harris agreed. ‘At the station we’re all well aware of the good work done at the Centre. The small class numbers and the personalised programs…’
Personalised programs. The magic words were echoing in the acquiescent heads around the table. Mrs Ryan beamed. Chairman Lou radiated.
Careful, Mark. Careful.
‘There you have it, Mrs Ryan. You can be sure we know of your work. The children are fortunate indeed. They spend their days in a most beautiful building. How many children learn in an environment with carpeted floors and model kitchens? The town has been most generous. Then, of course, there are the small class sizes and the personalised programs.’
‘Personalised programs!’
‘Mr Withers?’ Lou frowned.
‘I believe Mr Withers intends to clarify.’ The psychologist came to Mark’s aid.
Steady, Mark. Don’t make enemies.
‘Then by all means,’ Lou nodded permission. ‘Let’s hear it, Mr Withers.’
‘Personalised programs in a training centre may or not be beneficial. Just because they are, does not mean they are as they should be.’
‘Point taken.’
‘It’s not actually where I’m heading,’ Mark looked to the helpful psychologist. ‘We need to know that special education, in whatever form it currently takes, is segregated education.’
‘That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,’ Mrs Ryan dryly observed.
‘I realise that, Mrs Ryan. Yet if the delegates here really do understand, then they need to understand this too. Why must special education inevitably be segregated education? Why can’t a child needing specialist education receive it in a mainstream school?’
‘You’re joking!’ Lou was scornful. ‘It can’t work that way. You’re living in never never land, man.’
As though the chairman had not spoken, Brian weighed in. ‘Mr Withers is talking about integration. Inclusion of kids with special needs into mainstream education. This would necessitate adequate assessment – thus a label. It’s virtually unavoidable.’
‘Whatever the realities,’ Mark nodded. ‘The requirement for labels and the like, we’re going to be compelled to think about it. It’s gathering momentum.’
‘Forget it!’ Lou’s heavy fist shook the table. ‘Stop this! Forget about integration of retarded kids. Whatever fancy name it goes by. It’s doomed, anyway. You know why?’
‘Financial reality!’ Fred boomed.
‘Exactly! Financial reality. It goes way beyond assessment. It’s a whole raft of additional expenses. It’s impossible. What government will ever finance the extra services required by cases within the mainstream system.’
‘Cases!’ Again, Mark fought to repress his mounting indignation. ‘They’re not cases, they’re children. Once a child enters The Glenlea, any potential benefit is automatically threatened by the fact of attendance. That’s all it takes. However beautiful the building. However intensely personalised the program.’
‘Surely that’s not the fault of special education, per se?’ Brian argued. ‘It’s actually a reflection of society’s attitudes.’
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