2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
I would like to start this article with gratitude to the teachers who met on my way. They prompted me to love school and the state of "learning", had patience and respect for me as a person, they could not break, see and help, their souls were alive, knew how to cry and laugh, empathize and show timely severity
They considered my success and their success, took the children "to heart", were so close that one could feel their calmness that it was impossible not to fall in love like a child, but there was no need to suffer, because they knew how to tactfully and subtly observe subordination … Without humiliating, not imposing, without losing either your own or childish dignity. They were! And they are! I am sure that even now there are many people among modern teachers who are devoted to the profession, and I know many of them personally.
But, alas, in my practice as a psychologist there are more and more requests from the parents of "uncomfortable children" who became "uncomfortable" solely because there was no person next to them who was in love with his profession, a true Teacher.
It is so painful sometimes to hear stories full of despair and resentment: "I'm being kicked out of school!" And, from my personal and professional point of view, the paradox lies in the fact that children who come to an appointment with such appeals are just worthy for the school to fight for them, for their presence, their intelligence. But the school insistently asks to leave it, the school does not need "uncomfortable children". Alas, the most demanded criteria are: calmness, perseverance, fulfillment of school requirements, and not the ability to think and make decisions. "Inconvenient children" are not saved from expulsion from school by their brains, victories in Olympiads, or the high status of their parents. Because "peace and quiet in the classroom" is the dead whale on which the traditional education is held, which provides decency and pacification to the ocean, pathetically called "good school". With children who do not fit into the regulations, no one wants and will not bother - "we are not paid for this!"
And sometimes they pay. Then the teacher will "draw" the mark, but he will not study and pull the student anyway. Why? Yes, because this is hard labor, you need to love him, get pleasure from him, comparable in strength to the pleasure received from the first steps of your own children. I know people who are in love with their work, but there are too few of them! And there are catastrophically many children who fall under the criterion of "uncomfortable". And more and more every year. And to think that this trend will change is utopia.
Why are there so many? Who are these children? Alas, the number of children entering school with a "diagnosis" is growing due to the better (in comparison with the last century) parental awareness. This does not mean that there were fewer children, for example, with attention deficit before, just no one tried to hang a label on the child. A diagnosis is made today almost in a maternity hospital, because "difficult childbirth" is already a reason to understand that in the future something may go wrong. For many parents, the diagnosis causes a contradictory reaction, unwillingness to accept it translates into an inability to cope with it. And parents do nothing for years, and then they simply use the diagnosis to justify the problems that have arisen. After all, what, in fact, gives a diagnosis-label? The ability to write off everything on him, not to try to cope, namely to write off. Poor writing? So he has dysgraphia! Can't read fluently? He has dyslexia! Inattentive means attention deficit disorder. Cannot communicate normally with children - autistic. And with such global opportunities of the Internet, few teachers are trying to figure out how to deal with it, what to do with it, and how, in the end, to help the child cope with it. Frightened parents, upon hearing the diagnosis, cross the threshold of school in such a depressed state that they, more than a child, need help and support, because a teacher for such parents becomes not a friend, but a punitive body: “You are to blame! … ".
I know several families where children have achieved unprecedented success (with absolutely catastrophic, from the point of view of medicine, diagnoses) just because the parents did not give up. Because they had the courage to turn to a specialist in time, hear his recommendations and not close their eyes to problems, but solve them.
There is another category of "uncomfortable" children. Children are rebellious. They have their own opinions, go against the often absurd and unreasonable school rules, do not tolerate injustice and indifference. They can break the chain of command, for which teachers are usually fiercely fighting; they only learn what they find interesting; and they also speak out loud the inconvenient truth and are ready to defend it even with their fists. Such children have overcome their fear or are looking for ways to overcome it, but this is often not liked by adults. After all, a frightened, humiliated child is comfortable, easily manipulated, submissive. But, alas, he is not at all critical, which means that he is not capable of perceiving new information that they are trying to put into his head.
Teachers and school administration choose very tough methods of fighting the rebels. One of them is "the righteous anger of the parents." Its essence can be expressed by the maxim of the Roman Senate "divide and rule", for the best method of managing a scattered state is inciting and using enmity between its parts. As a rule, the teacher himself is the initiator of such "parental anger". In fear of justified and real claims against him personally, he, through personal calls and influence on "confidants" from among especially anxious mothers or the parent committee, tries to incite hatred between parents, subtly understanding what fears of parents can be pressed. And the fears of the schoolchild's mother are a dime a dozen! Especially if she is already equipped with a "diagnosis".
The second source of the formation of "righteous parental anger" is the frightened mother herself, who, as it seems to her, is not the most successful / obedient / intelligent child (emphasize the appropriate). Dealing with anxiety, she initiates the persecution of any more or less active child in the secret hope that such a scenario will allow her and her child personally to avoid the same fate. In fact, her inner slogan: what I am afraid, I try to impose on others, at the same time I will see how they cope with the problem, which means that I will have a script of how to act if something happens … This mother does not understand one thing: it is her child who will take the place of the exiled from the collective "bully". This is the dialectic of the school. The second method of preventive work with "inconvenient" ones is intimidation with exclusion on the basis of the "School Charter" or other normative documents, which, as a rule, no one has ever seen. Rare school administrators have the courage to acquaint parents and students with the Charter. By the way, bullying children with expulsion from school is a favorite technique of many teachers. This is a win-win whip for both children and parents. This is some kind of global universal fear of the inhabitants of the post-Soviet space, where school was considered the standard of social adaptation, and admission to the pioneers and the Komsomol was its pinnacle. It is worth mentioning here - the law does not allow a child to be expelled from school without providing him with an alternative learning opportunity. These can be: a district school at the place of residence, home schooling, in which you cannot be denied if you have a diagnosis, and an external study as a form of education outside of school. By the way, Kiev external schools are overcrowded! I don’t think it’s worth explaining why.
There is another way to get rid of - complete disregard for the child as a person. If such a student has adequate parents, they, as a rule, will pick him up from school, where he is an invisible C grade, especially if the child is not without abilities. But to endure indifference is above children's strength. "But there is a school psychologist!" - you will reasonably say. He can help, figure it out, he's a specialist! Alas, I know examples when school psychologists simply fulfilled the order of the administration to expel a child. These cases are isolated, but one must understand that the school psychologist is often, alas, powerless. If you look through the job description of a school psychologist, one of the points in it will be work with the pedagogical team, i.e. directly with teachers.
Ask the teacher: how long has he been with the psychologist? Have you discussed personal issues with him? Have you consulted on what to do with this or that student? Does he even know a psychologist by sight? Yes, he will laugh at you at best, and at worst … And at worst he will say that a psychologist at school is not serious, an inexperienced girl, she will tell the director everything, no one will share problems with her. And in general she is here temporarily. Yes, and we studied this psychology at the pedagogical institute, we will figure it out ourselves, it is not gods who burn pots. It's a pity. Among my colleagues working in schools, there is a huge number of real professionals.
I have many versions of why teachers are often so indifferent. And, believe me, salary is not the strongest argument in favor of indifference. It seems to me that at the very initial stage, namely in pedagogical universities, now they do not fully give propaedeutics - the correct entry into the profession. When the future teacher is given the opportunity to realize what the essence of the profession is, where are its boundaries, what qualities are necessary for mastering it, what he gets as a reward, and what he can be irretrievably deprived of. And, probably, already at this stage, a person would have the opportunity to change his fate and the fate of hundreds of children who will meet him on the way - timid and rebellious, kind and offended, loved and disliked. After all, physics, biology, mathematics and even psychology are sciences, but pedagogy, of course, is a gift from God and an art. The art of being Human.
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