Today I'm going to write something a bit different to what I normally do on this blog as generally I don't write much about books, especially book series I never had that much to do with but in a way actually it ties in rather well.
Enid Blyton it has to be said wrote a good number of the books that featured in my childhood not least the period around ten to sixteen years before people started pushing more 'adults' reading at me even if this series and its central character wasn't one I read much never mind collected.
Noddy is a very interesting character, living in a world known as Toyland, being made from wood and styled as an perfect naughty little boy often getting in trouble with PC Plod having an Uncle Big-Ears who was a parent figure.
The significance of this rests really on what adult wisdom cannot get and children do which is in reality although Noddy is actually (in law) an adult, is able to own and drive a motor car in many other ways he is not, he is very much a young boy having that kind of an outlook, not really responsible, lacking the awareness of what he'd be expect to know. He may be portrayed as a child but isn't.
In some respects then, to me he's a poster child of a person exhibiting a developmental order is like adult (legally) but child (developmentally).
He's got a inflated view of his abilities which may be more from having to 'pass' for an adult but as when challenged by Big Ears his father like figure points out, really he's not and if he'd been educated he'd see that but he hasn't and amongst other things, cannot count beyond twenty.
It's that which the subject of this book, the only one I bought with my own money, which is when it is he goes to school with the young children which you can in Toyland.
He has no idea of what what Miss Rap, his teacher means when she asks him if he knows his tables. Equally when asked to write on the chalkboard one thing he likes to eat he writes his own name because that's all he knows to write which annoys Miss Rap and all the other children laugh at him.
When you have a developmental disability, life especially in school can be like this as you're not functioning at the same level as the others, you have a defensiveness that can soon spill over to defiance, you tend to be very impulsive not concentrating and you don't always help yourself.
Noddy going to school ends with Noddy having learned some lessons, however painful about life having learned some social skills and taking part in a school concert.
I see a connection here in me having to go back to learning what I struggled with both academically, where the story does extol the virtues of hard work, putting ones mind to things and also when it comes to how you relate and behave where Noddy is sent to the corner and when his friend Gilbert Golly after misbehaving is ordered to bring Miss Rap the slipper hanging on the wall.
Put simply I had to realize what I did not know, having a sense of humility to seek out what I needed rather than allowing the trappings (for Noddy his car, for me, certain roles) to blind me to my true needs and address the attitudes I had that made my life worse than it needed to be.
Noddy needed his corner time, Gilbert needed that reminder even when it has put on hold until the very next time he was going to get a spanking.
I needed someone who was going to be strict with me so I worked to my full potential, being prepared to practise a lot and given the difficulty I have in dealing with more complex ways of trying to change my behaviour, as that adult but child I needed spanking in the same way.
The bigger part of this life really isn't boot camp frankly, it's really more about having the environment that better suits your needs right down to being able to play on the floor with your teddies and toy cars even to the point you may now have a collection you just play with rather than just keeping behind glass or on shelves.
You just accept yourself as you are, a physically bigger little boy.
