My daughter began her school career in 1994 at a particular school. She was shy and reserved, never having such social experience by way of daycare and being partially emotionally crippled with the family anxiety gene as mentioned several times throughout this blog. She was quickly labeled as weird by the other kids, suffered alone, clutching the wall at recess. This social atmosphere was brand new to her and she just took it at face value. School was a cold hard place. She could never reach out to ask for help, because she just accepted that this was the school experience, she didn't know it could be any better, she had nothing with which to compare.
She adopted a withdraw attitude and bad work habits as is typical with anxiety sufferers which is when the obvious disdain and frustration of her educators kicked in.
They tried every bully tactic up their sleeve to get her to work harder. Her grade four teacher became so enraged with her need to be the last student in the door in the morning and the last student out of the door, long after the other kids were safely out of the way, that he picked up her books and threw them out the door so she had to follow them. That was her last year at that school. She had already been dragged to every kind of doctor in an attempt to determine what was "wrong" with her. Outside of an anxiety presence, nothing tangible was ever identified.
As our path took it's turns and twists, we found ourselves with the opportunity to live in Utah for a period. She was fortunate enough to spend half of her grade five level among a Mormon majority. Now I know all of the jokes and stereotypes that surround the Mormons, but allow me to begin a new positive one. This was the most nurturing, live by the golden rule culture I have, so far, been privileged to experience. They seem to focus every minute of existence living up to the expectations of their Lord. The kids and educators alike were patient, nurturing and encouraging. My daughter was finally free and safe to just be for a while. This freedom allowed her to apply herself better to her academics, and she made connections with her peers for the first time in her life. As luck would have it, this new perspective stayed with her and as she was reintroduced to school in Ontario. In the Catholic system this time, she was able to soldier on get through high school with comparatively minimal pain.
Twelve years later her brother began his academic career at the same school that crushed my little girl's spirit. I kept my fingers crossed, hoping that their opposite characters would yield different results. Yes, he was bigger, stronger, more academically inclined, but, as it turns out, those were not the traits that saves one from a good spirit thrashing. The common denominator was too strong. As long as a child has not been given up to the flock before they can even walk they will likely not climatise to the results driven culture of the Ontario Public School system. His experience at this school gave me the sensation of watching the re-run of a movie that I really hated. All of the testing, poking and prodding that the School Base Team insisted on AGAIN has proven the same obstacle as his sister, a great discomfort in the public school culture. We drop our kids off everyday for the entire day to virtual strangers. We have to blindly trust...Or do we?
Now I'm not saying public school is bad and that I am not seeing the benefits of living in a country where our kids have the opportunity of education, and that I would have ever noticed the flaws if my kids actually enjoyed school, but if you're going to do something, why not do it right? Expecting ALL kids to be good little sheep for six hours a day, or else, causes many to suffer, lightening up and saying a few compassionate words in this regime can't hurt anyone. It struck me, during one of these parent teacher interviews as we identified where my son was letting them down, that we only spoke of his goals and targets. His abilities and behaviors were being held for judgement. I am trusting you with my child and he is the one being interviewed? I researched the government school websites and found that, like a corporation, teachers have targets to meet. Although I could find no evidence to support this notion, I wondered if there were monetary bonuses attached to their grade averages for the class. Not one employee of the public school system that I pleaded with would climb on board to help him just be comfortable at school. Even after I clearly communicated that his high grades were not my priority, but his comfort level was, they continued to speak in terms of his achievements only, like they were reading from a script. I fully expected to see a Stepford Public School sign in place of the usual sign as I pulled out of the parking lot. I expressed my confidence that if he felt safer at school his grades would astound them, he is sharp as a whip. Still, he is reduced to tears almost weekly. He asked me the other day if he was a bad kid, the principal told him he was the only one that was sent to the office to be intimidated into doing his work. He told me he was sure he had seen other kids being sent to the office. My answer to his question of being a bad kid is...not yet, but if they continue programming him to be, then they are sure to fulfill that prophecy.
You know...if the public school system is going to share best practices with the corporate world, don't stop at targets and incentives. Corporations have many feedback tools and training modules to grow their associates. Performance reviews, cultural survey indexes and general comments are great tools to measure how the companies and their associates are doing. When a corporation wants to know how they are doing, they ask their clients. I have yet to see a questionnaire come home for us to fill out as a family, in the slightest attempt to monitor how the teacher is doing and if that teacher is meeting all of our needs. This seems criminal to me. The only time I have heard of a teacher being held accountable is when you read in the news of criminal activity. I want a job where the only boundaries are no criminal activities, other wise do what you want. There are also tons of motivational speakers out there that would inspire the types of attitudes conducive to a happy school day. Once again, I am about to remove my child from the public system. I will have to lie, cheat and steal to pay the tuition for private education, but at least there, we are the client and our needs will be the held as the highest value. It's not over though, I will use my voice to it's capacity in an attempt to evolve this public system so that we may have the benefit of further Einsteins and Henry Fords (they didn't do well in school either). To all of the conscientious educators out there that do hold the child as their highest value, I apologize, I don't mean you and I know that you would relish feedback tools and personal growth seminars.
By the way, the teachers of the 50's called, they want their whips back.
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