No matter how you look at school, its wrong. It doesn't matter if every teacher is (to use my Mom's word) a “gem”. It's the institution, it is mandatory for these kids to go there and to be forced to stay there and to do work once they are there. It is mandatory to carry work home. They regiment your day and put a vice grip on your body.
The goal of school is to condition the child to be in this painful environment. They expect that this is what life is and “I might as well succumb to it now”. You have to condition the body and mind to expect that life style. As a child you have no power to effect your environment. If you are taught at that age with trauma that you will always be powerless to effect your environment, then you'll turn into a good little drone of the masses- To use a cliche, another cog in the system.
When I read Ron Clark's article, What Teachers Really Want to Tell Parents, I wanted to give it the finger, but I'm not that kind of person. I feel really sad for Ron Clark, because I can clearly see the Stockholm Syndrome my Mom talks about at work here. He probably feels that in order to get any positive feedback or power he has to align himself to the system that caused him so much pain as a child. He's blind to the pain teachers are causing children because for him it is a matter of, “In order to be safe I've got to be totally aligned with the system as a whole.” In his subconscious perception, the system will always be more powerful and bigger in his mind than he is. His superiors are always his superiors. They're higher and he knows he'll get closer as long as he aligns himself with them and when he does this, he has to hold all the kids (of what he was once) at the bottom. To have them completely support what he says allows him to feel he has some cushioning, some power and safety. It's like the little bird that sits on the rhino's back and can kick back and relax because you don't have to worry about any predators.
I feel very sad by what he wrote. I would not be able to be myself in a traditional school environment. I'd have to lock myself away and instead give off a very mechanical output. You have to lock yourself away and let your body become a robot in those conditions. You can't allow your spirit to come to the surface. I hate that- It's awful- it's wrong! I feel sad that children are made to be in pain, seen to be less than goodness, positive, light, love. Obedience has nothing to do with love. The child is in bondage and the bondage is subhuman standards. School is a mold. Adults have to force us to believe that children are subhuman because our subconscious tells us that we are all equal- But we have to stifle that and rationalize denial of children's equality. It is a very religious belief that children are born “evil” and we have to beat or bind the “evil” out of them and make them believe they are “evil”. I feel horror at what Ron wrote because that is wrong on every level- I know all of life is equal, so for children to be treated as if they are subhuman is horrifying to me.
My reaction to this article is pain. It's painful to think of his article because I am so free now, that to picture myself not free hurts to think of it. I wouldn't tolerate that system. What if I was forced to tolerate it? Well, I couldn't, so I'd have to be mechanical. I feel so sad knowing that other children have to go through that system and they CAN'T escape it! I feel indignance and frustration because teachers in their own way succumb to the system and treat kids as if they are inherently bad and empty headed. Schools see children as circuit boards that come with a pack of wires and the schools think their mission is to apply those wires in what they believe is the “proper” way- They do not see that this circuit board is already alive and humming with wires of its own... I hate to equate children with circuit boards!
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