Thinking about 'school', bullying and more
Musings about some stuff that seems badly broken and how we might consider approaching some fixes
Writing this in November 2022, it has to be influenced by a couple of the significant things happening right now - which includes the apparent collapse of Twitter thanks to the actions of its new owner and the floodgates he has opened; the US mid term elections - and possibly the floodgates that might open; the Iranian govt voting to execute the 15,000 protestors they are currently detaining and oh so much more.
To be honest, I am not confident there is any pathway out of the place the inhabitants of Earth currently find ourselves in. I honestly don’t know if we are redeemable as a species, but I would like to still have hope that we are.
But anyway, pulling the focus in somewhat from the world as a whole being doomed, I just wanted to work through some thoughts about an issue that I believe is tightly linked to the bigger picture, but has a very immediate consequence for our kids. Bullying.
My children are grown now and one of them has kids of his own, who are still too young to be impacted by this, but it is sure to be a part of their lives at some stage.
It seems we have moved into a phase of life where bullying is endemic. Our school systems are riddled with it, we confront it and are exposed to it constantly in our media, through online channels, in our politicians, sportspeople, public servants, employers and so much more.
I have several friends with primary age children being impacted by bullying (and the resultant anxiety about attending school) - and there doesn’t appear to be effective ways of addressing it.
So I was thinking, perhaps along with that wider societal view - that surrounds us with examples of power being abused pretty much everywhere, there are also some questions around our schooling systems, what they are for, the assumptions we make about school and so on.
What is ‘school’?
On the surface the immediate and easy answer would be - the place ‘we’ educate our kids.
But there are many other answers.
The place we send our kids every weekday so that we can earn a living and not pay for full time childcare.
The place young humans are taught to be compliant - to respond to timeliness expectations for example, the creation of artificial deadlines, delivery of ‘work’ product, how to play ‘nice’ with others, co-operate, dress and behave in certain acceptable ways.
The place they meet and make new friends - and new enemies, in the name of ‘socialisation’.
In some countries, it is the place they learn gun safety drills - that don’t keep them safe.
The place where peer pressure becomes a very tangible thing.
For some, the place they can be terrified to go because that’s where they come in contact with those who bully, harass and make their lives miserable (sometimes other kids, sometimes teachers).
For others, it’s a place they can identify and target their victims, and exploit slow to adjust systems and rules to their own advantage.
It can also be the place where they learn empathy, concern for others and the value of working as a group to achieve something meaningful.
The place where we remove children from the natural mixed age group of their extended family and put them in a cohort of their ‘peers’.
My question is, where does the true value/cost of any of the above lie, and if any of these have value, is school necessarily the best method of delivering it - given the often detrimental effects?
What are the alternatives to ‘school’?
If we choose to believe that the primary purpose of schools is to educate children (lets avoid academia for now), then we already know there are many other ways of doing this. And our kids are using them. Mostly powered by the internet. Kids self teach through YouTube, Tiktok, Insta, Minecraft, Roblox, games, media and whatever other platforms they hang out on. They teach each other, and often the things they are learning are not accurate or helpful to their physical or mental wellbeing.
But there are also plenty of more reliable sources for educating children that don’t live in a physical classroom. Different forms of remote learning, whether online or not, for example. Correspondence schools and more.
The question is, if children can learn what they need to know just as effectively outside the school institution - and potentially a lot quicker than through the overloaded school-as-daycare system, then shouldn’t we be looking at the rules we create around their learning?
And if in fact, having a safe place to send your kids while you work is the main reason for sending them to school, shouldn’t we look at that from different viewpoints as well?
So if we deconstruct ‘school’ and remove the various roles we have loaded onto our very overworked and under-resourced teachers, what would that look like? What would our lives be like, how would we manage and what would our kids lives be like?
I have to mention that another factor that has had me ruminating on this issue is the recently released report by the Education Review Office (ERO) in Aotearoa New Zealand. It suggests that the number of children attending school regularly (or within a certain parameter) in New Zealand is dropping and sits well below comparable countries like Australia.
Yet I see and know of many reasons why that might be the case - the pandemic being one of them of course, but also many of the things mentioned above, and perhaps a realisation that sending our kids to school every day is often harder, more stressful and much more expensive than keeping them at home, and the benefits don’t always outweigh the costs.
And so we come back around to the question, what is school and why have we made ‘school attendance’ such a holy grail? To me, attendance at an institution shouldn’t be a goal in its own right. If your child can attend one day a week for example and work happily and effectively from home the rest of the week and still get the academic results needed to pass exams etc, then why is that not ok or in fact encouraged? Just as one example. Why are we not more flexible and agile around hybrid models of education?
Why have we made ‘truancy’ such a shameful thing that must be punished?
And of course I am aware of all the kids who might ‘fall through the gaps’ if they were not expected to be at school daily - but the reality is that they are falling through the gaps despite being expected to be at school. School as we know it is not working for them either.
Is the true value of school one of learning community?
Perhaps, instead of being the place of learning facts and skills, the place we call school could be re-imagined as the place we learn social skills, how to care for each other, what being part of a ‘village’ or a community really means. The things we can’t necessarily learn online or remotely. How to reach down to help pull others up, instead of pushing them down to put ourselves higher.
Because I do believe humans naturally gravitate towards other humans. We need to find the people we feel safe with and connected to so we can thrive. But at the moment, we don’t really know where those safe places are. They are harder to find than they used to be. But more important than ever as we move into such an uncertain future.
What else do we have to build on, other than our ability to truly connect with, care for and trust each other?
Your thoughts?
Comments are open - please respond and engage if any of the above strikes a chord with you. And please know that I am not attacking our teachers, but trying to take a wider view of what this is all about and how we could start possibly making a better way.