Label people it has become a very common practice in recent years, and not only in the educational field but also in the social field.
Every time someone does not respond educationally or socially as we think they should, that shocks us, we assume that someone is "weird" and we begin the search process for the relevant tag.
In my opinion, this common practice supposes a first type of label that we will call "negative label"since it tries to find a qualifier, commonly derogatory, for each person as lazy, bad guy, lonely, tired, boring, heavy... and pigeonhole the person within it.
All this without realizing that these labels, far from helping people, rest on their shoulders becoming heavy loads and push them to feed that "fame "that has been imposed on them.
For example, when at school the teacher observes that a child's work is slow, poorly organized and lacking in interest, the teacher can do two things:
A) label him as "the class bum" and assume that this child is never going to advance to what the teacher has to resign himself to.
B) try to recognize the real problem (lack of motivation, help at home, understanding ...) to try to promote an improvement on the part of the student.
Of course, the first option is much more tempting and comfortable than the second; nevertheless, a good teacher should force himself to choose the second way even in the moment of greatest didactic desperation.
The same happens in the park when a girl does not want to play dolls or rope and prefers to play soccer or change her stickers. Gormiti with your friends.
Then there will be someone (adult or child) who will label this girl "tomboy" or, hopefully, "not very feminine". By pigeonholing her in this way, the only thing that is achieved is that the girl herself begins to consider whether she cannot play with girls or if they are different from her in some way that she probably cannot understand.
In short, "negative labels" They provide insecurity and a feeling of rejection to those to whom they are awarded.
On the contrary, there are those that from now on we will call "positive labels", not positive because they flatter the qualities of the person, but because help the person.
In this category I include the psychopedagogical labels that some children and their families need to be supported at the educational, social or family level.
I am referring to families since, when a child suffers from a disorder, difficulty or disability, the people who suffer it with him and who will try to help him in the first instance are his family.
It may seem difficult at first to imagine how a label helps.
However, if we try to put ourselves in the shoes of parents who observe day after day how their child shows difficulties in reading and writing, in understanding the simplest lessons, in relationships with their peers or even with their own family ; We can understand that there comes a point when these parents feel the need to know what is happening to their child, to know the reason for these difficulties and the way to tackle them.
In this situation, a psychopedagogical diagnosis does not suppose an exclusive character label but a problem recognition, which in turn provides the way to treat those difficulties that the disorder, difficulty or disability entails.
With the term treatment we range from the clinical treatment itself to working with different study supports, strategies and / or techniques going through the curricular adaptation elaborated by the teacher to attend the Special educational needs of those students who need it.
In the same way, when we go to the doctor because of an ailment, our desire is to know the reason and name of the problem, since the name implies the recognition of the disease and, therefore, the path to a cure.
These positive labels, as we have already seen, can bring us a benefit; However, we must avoid labeling people, marking them as autistic, impaired, dyslexic, or hyperactive, to move on to label disability or disorder itself.
We must be very aware that people have and / or suffer from a disorder, they ARE NOT a disorder.
And thus, to be able to base ourselves on that positive label to know how we should work or deal with that person in order to help him overcome his difficulties day to day.
Finally, I want to make the reader of this article stop for a moment to think that, in reality, we all wear a tag on the forehead that others can see.
The problem is that not everyone reads the same thing in it; When all they should try to see is the name of that person and leave the "additional information" for the reverse, because there is no "normal" person in a world in which we are all different, there are only people who require our help to find their way, continue their learning and enjoy the lifetime.
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