Contempt for children

[Anonymous]

“Contempt” and “bully” seem to be terms loaded with much baggage. Even if the way we are using the term matches one of the definitions, another more prominenant and inflamatory definition is overshadowing our attempt to communicate.

For this reason I would prefer the term “patronize” rather than “contempt” and “compel” rather than “bully.”

I think I patronize my kids to an extent even when they want to be taken seriously. I believe that I compel my kids even when they wish that I wouldn’t. In both cases I am doing the best that I can and hope that my kids can remember my better moments over my failings.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

“Contempt” and “bully” seem to be terms loaded with much baggage. Even if the way we are using the term matches one of the definitions, another more prominenant and inflamatory definition is overshadowing our attempt to communicate.

For this reason I would prefer the term “patronize” rather than “contempt” and “compel” rather than “bully.”

I think I patronize my kids to an extent even when they want to be taken seriously. I believe that I compel my kids even when they wish that I wouldn’t. In both cases I am doing the best that I can and hope that my kids can remember my better moments over my failings.

Good point, Roy. Clearly my definition of bullying does not match the definition of what some others consider to be bullying, and I agree there is some baggage associated with both words (contempt, bullying) used on this thread frequently. I don’t think Primary teachers and leaders or school teachers and leaders do what they do out of evil intent and I don’t think the system is evil in either case. For the record, I am also a product of public education, including college, and my years of experience have been in public school as a teacher and administrator.

[Anonymous]

For the record, it’s not the people. I love them so much for working so hard and they really care most if them.

Indoctrination of children has shown to empirically show bad fruit through much research, even parenting at home. About 75% of children under indoctrination show they really discover who they rely are or find real lasting joy in life.

Mostly because the research now shows that indoctrination before the brain fully forms, or while it’s devolving at a fast pace…really really does a subconscious number on the child. To the point research shows that while their brain is devolving, what we (as people) are doing is pushing out the child’s personality and replacing with our own. A process which we now know to be irreversible in most cases the child will never be able to find his true self again. It’s lost forever and replaced by our own thought. This isn’t a belief more then the research shows that those children brains develop very differently and also abnormally to the point that their max potential is severally decreased ….perminitely.

I should know, my actual brain scans from my childhood and were normal, later on they show abnormal and incomplete growth that is typical of indoctrinated children.

That is not all, asking children to be still and quit on a regular basis also shows decreased potential and abnormal growth that can not be corrected later in life… It’s permanent.

Worse yet is that few people outside of therapist and scientist seem to be talking about this.

That is why for my own child’s sake I must learn these things or feel the massive guilt at what I would have done to him in my ignorance. Children are not at all empty vessels to be filled like today’s system teaches.

They are born with their own personality and spark which must be nurtured not replaced with our own desires of what we want them or the system wants them to be. …..It’s permanent. Which makes it so dangerous.

[Anonymous]

I promise I’ll get to positive suggestions in this post.

Bullying is commonly defined as having two essential traits:

*an imbalance of power and

*repetition.

The way the compulsory state schools were set up for the industrial revolution depends entirely on maintaining an imbalance of power between teachers and students. Certainly a lot of teachers believe they’re doing the right thing, and further have a lot of dedication: they believe that the children depend on them to learn, that the repeated imbalance of power they maintain over the children is for the children’s own good, and that this love that they give to the children will pay off when the children grow up and see how well-prepared they are for the world. These beliefs are misguided delusions, but no, they’re not malicious. That’s the saddest part. Even the crudest behaviorist manipulations I see carried out with the most solicitous concern. The false premises lay deeply buried.

I’m a product of public schools, and I work for a school district now. I see small-minded adults (who have been teachers) smile at each other with knives behind their backs on a daily basis. Those who rise to the administrative levels are more likely the ones who like power more than they like children, and even the most idealistic teacher on the ground has more strings attached now than ever.

But the main unspoken rule that I see permeating into most teachers’ minds is: never trust anyone under 18. This usually comes out in words like “I really care about these kids, I really want them to succeed” – so much of it is the masochism of a martyr, like a middle-class nuclear mother shutting herself in her suburban home with her six children because it’s God’s will and nobody else can take her place in raising them. Some of my most dedicated teachers wielded the subtlest knives that did the most lasting damage. The best ones I had were the ones who simply showed me the example of a mind turned on, and who treated us with respect, like the one who took criticism from one of the students and, instead of marching out of the room in a huff, stayed, argued, and came to a resolution.

Forced schools try so hard to stop bullying, but they never will as long as their structure teaches this by example: the sustained imbalance of power. There are far better ways to help young people get educated. The Sudbury Valley School (http://www.sudval.com/” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.sudval.com/) has been bringing children and youth up in knowledge and civic responsibility for 45 years. It is a school where the students and staff make and enforce the rules, where there is no curriculum or grades, and everyone is free to pursue their own calling. There is no formal reading instruction, but everyone learns to read – in that environment they can’t help it. Ages mingle freely between four and 19 years old, so there’s no segregated pressure cooker to produce bullies like conventional schools invariably do. Many other schools have been founded around the world according to that model (http://www.sudval.com/07_othe_01.html” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.sudval.com/07_othe_01.html), and the world desperately needs a hundred times more.

There’s also unschooling, which is growing in popularity. People have set up resource centers for unschoolers: Liberated Learners is one network of such: http://www.liberatedlearnersinc.org/the-story-of-liberated-learners/” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.liberatedlearnersinc.org/the-story-of-liberated-learners/, and there’s also Not Back to School Camp: http://nbtsc.org/” class=”bbcode_url”>http://nbtsc.org/ If you can get a copy of Grace Llewellyn’s Teenage Liberation Handbook I highly recommend it.

A couple more good links: http://alternativestoschool.com/” class=”bbcode_url”>http://alternativestoschool.com/, http://www.educationrevolution.org/store/about/” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.educationrevolution.org/store/about/

There’s loads more too. All this has been going on for decades now, but people still suffer in ignorance about it or fear of it.

I leave with another quote from John Holt. Here’s the immediate practical advice:

“Three words I try to keep up in front of my mind now when I deal with children—and I mean two-year-old children, I mean one year old.

“Dignity. Courtesy. Respect.

“I think it’s terribly important that we try to be polite. I think it’s important and very difficult for us to talk to children in the same tone of voice that we use talking to somebody else. Here I suggest something that any adult that wants to can do beginning right now. If something would be painful, or shameful, or humiliating to us, then we ought to try, as far as we can, not say or do that to children. If we could do that much I think a lot of other stuff would begin to flow from it. And that little bit of dignity, courtesy, and respect is something that anybody can begin to work on.”

[Anonymous]

Thank you, R&B, I couldn’t have said it better myself and frankly didn’t have the time or desire to push the point.

[Anonymous]

-sigh-

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Anonymous]

[Admin Note]: This thread is being closed.

There are very strong, differing views about this, and they are passionate and irreconcilable. The only course for this thread now is argument, and that’s not what we do here.

[Author]

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