"Can you put this book away with the other scheme books, Jake?" I asked at the end of the day. There is a very good reason why such a task is beyond me, so my strategy of dealing with this is to ask a child.
Jake looked at the colour on the spine. "OK Mr.Townend. It's blue. No purple."
"It's turquoise." Someone else chimed in.
"Ah yes, that's right." Jake replied.
I took Jake to one side. "Jake, are you colour blind?"
Clearly this was a term he had never heard of, and he looked a little threatened. It's not good to be picked out as different in the classroom.
"Don't worry." I replied. "I am too, and that's why I needed help with it. I'll do a little test with you on Monday. Perhaps we could start a club!"
Colour blindness affects 3 million people in the UK. One in twelve men suffer from the condition, but it is less common in women, with 1 in 200 having the symptoms. In every classroom, there is likely to be at least one person who is colour blind. Looks like I've found the child in my class!
So what does it mean? Well, it can make everyday choices in the classroom challenging. For example, put a blue and a purple pencil together, and I wouldn't know the difference. What colour should the sky be? I know it's one of the two. I either guess and look a fool, or ask someone, and probably feel like a fool.
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| HELP! |
Book bands are an absolute nightmare. The chart below looks helpful, but more often than not, It's just a coloured sticker placed on a book that tells us what stage it is. Where do I begin? Gold and orange look the same. Blue and purple are too similar to identify the difference, as are lilac and turquoise and grey. And then there is red and brown.
For colour blind teachers, there is another issue - assessment. I cannot begin to tell you the problems I have had with assessment over the years because everything is colour coded! We use spreadsheets with every child's name written in tiny font, a different colour for each term. The problem is - and this sounds really silly - on such small font, I cannot tell the difference between red and green text!
There's more. In everyday life, I struggle with knowing the difference between the green and brown bin on bin day.
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| Green or brown? |
This week I'm going to be travelling on the London Underground, and I am already planning my route in the knowledge that the London underground map is about as functional to me as a chocolate teapot.
I remember the day when I was 'diagnosed' with colour blindness. I was 13. I was asked to look at some circles full of small dots and say what numbers I could see in them. It was a bit like a magic eye. As I listed the numbers, my Mum told me she thought I was making it up as she saw other numbers. I got them all wrong and failed the test with flying...colours.
It's not a big problem, I have always told myself since. I can work out strategies for getting through tasks. If all else fails, I will ask for help. I have even asked my headteacher before. And it's not a Special Educational Need, I have always told myself. I don't need extra support in the classroom. I can work it out. I even have put up with the mickey-taking that comes with it, usually from other adults. No, the whole world isn't black and white. No the sky doesn't look green. Yes, I can tell the difference between the red and yellow pieces in Connect 4.
But now, when I think about it, it is a big problem. It's one person in every class and there is no support or differentiation provided for it. There is no official testing or screening, and children suffer in silence often feeling slightly foolish. There is little in the way of labelling resources to help colour blind children or staff make informed choices. There is no training provided to staff to help them support children.
Surely in this day and age, when we do so much to make sure everyone is included, that needs to change!
On Monday morning, I'm going to do the following test with Jake. We'll look at the image below. The images that you and he see will differ dependent on whether or not you suffer from colour blindness.
It's a good test. If you want to use it with your children the answer key can be found
here: http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hellmers/test/
For further information, this website is also very helpful: http://www.colourblindawareness.org/
