Labels

I say I don't like labels, but I should say my views on them are ambivalent at best. I went shopping for my birthday and was proud to say that I spent my money on clothes at Ann Taylor Loft. I am a jazz enthusiast and make it clear that soft jazz is not really jazz at all. Labels grant status. Labels distinguish the good from the mediocre from the downright bad. Think about wine: how carefully are those labels designed? Playful, serious, elegant, kitschy, robust: the label communicates the price, body, and bouquet of the wine.
But what about labeling people? We can get in trouble with labeling ethnicity and disability. It's much safer to label people politically. Usually folks don't mind being thought liberal or conservative. Religious views are another label most will own up to without rancor: Christian, Buddhist, Atheist. The trick is when one person's Christian looks more like another's Agnostic. But that's a topic for another day.
Back to the subject on my mind, labeling ability. When I was in school, I was tagged gifted. What that meant then I didn't really know, nor do I know now that I am all grown up. But I knew that school was easier for me than most and that there were some in my class who were what we labeled: slow. Today, I think the correct label is LD. What was the point of those labels? Not simply to indicate the speed with which one learned, but to better teach the child, right? So maybe those labels were somewhat useful.
Mentally retarded. How's that for a label? It's not politically correct to say that one. I don't see how it's a very useful one either. At least it hasn't been in my experience. It means that a child doesn't get speech therapy because it would be pointless. It means that a child doesn't get exposed to reading instruction as it would be fruitless. It means that a child doesn't get to interact with nondisabled peers because it would be distracting. It means that a child gets very limited amounts of occupational and physical therapy because the brain can only do what the brain is going to do. It won't train. It won't grow. It won't develop normally and any attempts to instruct that child will be futile. I haven't read the research to back these views, but it must exist because that is how children with mental retardation are treated in school systems and in the medical community today.
When my son was younger, I preferred the label: developmentally delayed. What it communicated is that the child would learn eventually, but learning would occur more slowly than the average. Now that he is over age nine, the federal government won't allow that label. But hey, my complaint is not with the federal government. They are willing to do what few people are. Provide care and financial help to families affected by labels. Sometimes, our government is the only advocate for people with disabilities.
Yes, some labels are desirable. Designer clothes, high-end electronics and fancy cookware need labels to confer status. But labeling people is something I'd like to change. And I don't mean in the politically correct way of not calling a spade, a spade, but in the more humane way of looking past the label, peeling it off, to find the individual hidden beneath.