We Don’t Need No Thought Control…
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we educate children and the long-term effects that might have when they don’t slot neatly into the model. Maybe it’s what all parents do when their children start school, especially if those children are a bit of a challenge to the system – and that can mean all sort of things, I realise now. Another reason is that as a writer I’m always trying to imagine a different life – a more interesting one, let’s say, because my life at school was very cookie-cutter compared to children I might like to write about.
Sometimes, I feel like such a square. Apart from being a bit of an odd fish, I’ve never fought very hard to get out of the original box. I was always the responsible eldest child (read: bossy, stuck-up cow), classic conveyor-belt fodder who worked hard at school and got straight A’s (wait, I got a B in Maths. Rock n roll.). I don’t think I ever got a detention – what an incredible bore – much less challenge the entire education model and come up with a completely independent way of learning like the brilliant young people in this video:
Girl Out Loud, Scholastic June 2012
Willkommen In Meinem Leben "Welcome To My Life"
UKYA
What about the roll of schools as tools of social normalisation? Like, there’s the curriculum stuff, which could always be better, more tailored and less cookie-cutter. But then there’s the need for kids to work out how they fit into society.
I think we can have both, can’t we? Schools definitely show children how they fit into society but not necessarily in a good way in lots of cases. The cliques, the bullying, the sense of ‘he’s not normal, I can’t be friends with him’ starts incredibly early on and has an impact on learning…I nearly said “these days” because I don’t remember these issues at primary school, but I suspect that’s baloney and I was simply not a target so I was blind to it. What I found really interesting was the sense of togetherness and support these young people gave each other. The whole thing seems wonderfully empowering. It’s a programme, not a complete replacement for traditional schooling. Much like you doing French immersion during high school, perhaps? Part of your education but not all of your education. Why not experiment with children in different school years – a term of it, say. See what happens – what’s the worst that could?