Basic needs

Lorcan, over on Plain in the City, recently posted about the distribution of basic needs in the world, and the radio has been talking about the cutbacks in Tennessee's health care program for folks without commercial health insurance. And I've been thinking about those basic needs: healthcare, shelter, food, and education. And their interrelation: healthcare, shelter, and food are easier to obtain with an education, but an education is very difficult to obtain if you're lacking any of the others.

And how do we allocate these? New houses sometimes top 4,000 square feet apiece in vast developments of nearly identical houses. My husband and I live in an apartment of under 800 square feet, and some folks live in storage spaces of 75 feet, or in even less. Healthcare ranges from toughing it out for those who can't afford anything else (or who know they will be humiliated if they seek care) to folks who demand immediate care for minor ailments. And of course, the things that allow us to take care of our health in the first place cost money, nutritious food, exercise facilities, preventative care. And what sort of food is available? There are few people starving in the US anymore, but there is an epidemic of poor nutrition for people without the time or access to cook from basic ingredients, so convenience foods predominate in diets.

And then the one near and dear to my heart: education. I used to teach Head Start. And before that, I was a student, one who was initially labelled as mentally retarded. My mother was told that I'd never learn to read or write, and would have difficulty mastering basic tasks of daily living. That fall, I changed schools, and was lucky enough to have a very alert teacher. She asked me how I came to school, hoping I could tell her that I came on a bus. Instead, I gave her the 4-part miniseries about exactly where the bus stop was, the exact route the bus took, and interesting things to see along the way. I'd taken the trip maybe a couple times by then, and she called Mom, asking for permission to have me tested, because my permanent record didn't match the child in her classroom.

That notation was still there, by the way, when I graduated from high school. I know, because when the principal was adding in the notation on my having won some award or another, he happened to read back, and was so astonished that he burst into the conversation I was having with the school nurse to express his astonishment that I was listed as retarded. Today, I don't know if I would be listed as profoundly gifted (the new term for folks more than 2 standard deviations above the mean) or as ADD, since I learn things so quickly that I become bored at the "average" pace and stop paying attention.

And I wonder sometimes what would have happened, what kind of life I'd have had, if that mistake had gone uncaught, as I suspect it does all too often. How many children are convinced that they *can't* learn, when no attempt has been made to teach them? Or when they've been so bored that they tune out school entirely, what then?