ABSTRACT
Within the UK’s education system, which segregates children from adults, is Verdant Meadows, a segregated special school for children with severe learning difficulties. Within segregated Verdant Meadows is a further segregated special unit for those with challenging behaviour. I can see a large wall chart. In the vertical column are the students’ names, in the horizontal the weeks of the term. In the boxes are numbers indicating points scored for good behaviour (from what I observe, this means any behaviour that is passive or does not challenge the system). Names of class members are ranked not alphabetically but in order of points scored. To make it look more specialist, the points have been organized around a mean score. At the top is Rafael, whose score every week is around 120. At the bottom is Andrew, whose score barely ever reaches double figures. Andrew, already ejected from one situation, needs to bear in mind that there is probably no special school or institution, or special unit within it, that itself does not patrol its own boundaries and eject accordingly. Like the model village within the model village, a segregated institution can only replicate within itself the symptoms, such as an obsession with number, that are present in the initial general disorder.
