Whoa Camouflage - writing is never quite the way it seems

We never really talk enough about the complexity of reading and writing. And, we certainly don’t talk enough about the emotional complexity of writing or the psychology of writing (and reading). Instead, we tend to float around things. We tend to impose feelings we have to those we expect students to have. I love reading so you will love it too. Newsflash: the majority of the country loves football and not one speck of adoration has influenced me to watch a full match or contemplate watching the Euros this month. We transpose feelings or, worryingly, we impose feelings on students. That causes us to oversimplify reading or writing. It is because they don’t love it. It is because the task isn’t interesting enough for them. By assigning emotions, we undermine the real problem. 

Socially, we have this problem too. How easily do adults say ‘I’m not good at Maths’ or ‘I don’t like reading’? We frame things in terms of emotions and it is almost as if emotions become the buffer to the problem. I am not a bad writer but it is just that I don’t like writing. Look at how students rush to emotions when they struggle in a subject. It isn’t me - it’s just the teacher and I don’t get on. I don’t like their way of teaching things. These emotions are everywhere and they cloud what the real problem is. 

Take this following scenario which happens a lot in schools across the country:  A student who struggles in English. On a good day they could get a Grade 4. Most of the time they get 2s or 3s. They arrive for their final English exam. They write nothing on the paper. Not one word. They sit and fold their arms. Do nothing. Why does the student do this?  

They did it for some twisted logic. If they wrote nothing down, then they didn’t fail the exam. They just chose not to write. They were in control. It wasn’t that they failed the exam, but they made a choice. They had the power. The agency. Now, we all know that it is self-destructive, but in the student’s mind they have won. Won whatever battle they think they are facing in their minds. We could of course frame this in emotions. He was scared. He didn’t like the subject. He panicked. All valid but they don’t rationalise the logical choices made by the student. We view emotions as the cause rather than the consequence of things. 

PE, Art and Maths are subjects where proficiency is quite transparent. I chose those subjects because for me, at school, I knew I wasn’t so good in these subjects. It was clear to the world, it was clear to me and it was clear to my peers. Being picked last to play on a team in football doesn’t fill you with confidence in your abilities. Those three subjects had a clear view of proficiency. The first picked for the team was the best. The last one picked for the team wasn’t the best.  

Subjects like English struggle with that transparency. English is the subject where ‘masking’ I say happens all the time. A description from the National Autistic Society wrote this and I thought it was so apt for English. 

Masking is a strategy used by some autistic people, consciously or unconsciously, to appear non-autistic in order to blend in and be more accepted in society. Masking can happen in formal situations such as at school or work and in informal situations such as at home with family or socialising with friends.

Masking is sometimes referred to as ‘camouflaging’, ‘social camouflaging’, ‘compensatory strategies’ and ‘passing’. Research suggests autistic people learn how to mask by observing, analysing and mirroring the behaviours of others – in real life or on TV, in films, books, etc.

Source: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/masking

We have students who camouflage their writing and reading to fit in English. We all do it at some level, but I think ‘masking’ is the biggest thing we haven’t addressed in the subject. Students pretend to be doing stuff so their inabilities are not flagged to the world. Ok, so how do I see that masking? 

We see it all the time in reading because it is an internalised process. It doesn’t take much for a student to hold a book and look at the page. They are camouflaged in plain sight. It looks like they are reading so therefore they must be reading. 

With writing, I’d say that there are a number of things students can do:  

• Manipulate their handwriting - make it small, big or so hard to read.

• Detailed plans but very little writing  

• Slow writing

• Copy large chunks of a text out 

• Ask lots of questions 

• Writing really fast and being first to finish.  

Of course, there are many more things I could have included. Take the student who finishes first. Why do they finish first? Now, I have always assumed it was to please me. There’s me framing things around emotions. What if the student was finishing first to fit in with his / her perceived notion of normal? To camouflage themselves, they finish first because that signifies that he/she is competent in English. Look at me, I am not going to be picked last in the English team.  

Handwriting is another one. English teachers see lots of handwriting and lots of variations. I am always amazed when a student doesn’t heed my advice when I say they should make their writing clearer. Handwriting is camouflage. They’ve written clever ideas, but it is the teacher’s fault because they can’t read it.The problem is the teacher and not the student. Again, it looks like the student is competent in the classroom in front of their peers. 

I genuinely think we need to be talking about masking and camouflaging more in our subject. It is at the heart of a lot of problems we face and experience. Word soup in writing is a product of students thinking clever words can mask their work. If I use clever sounding words, then I will pass for clever in the subject. In fact, the best students don’t use those words. 

Writing is the biggest sign of ability in lots of subjects. It is where students are at their most vulnerable yet it is all too visible. That’s why they work on the ‘optics’ of things. They misbehave, because it avoids vulnerability. They do something to their writing so it looks like others. 

Rather than jumping to feelings first, maybe we should be thinking about masking and the psychology behind what students do and why they do it. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris