The Awakened Teacher

This is a piece I wrote in 2020, when I first started teaching fulltime on a Year 6 class. I had just finished Term 1, where I taught casually across four kindergarten classes. I had the pleasure of teaching one class for the first three weeks of school. It was a bit mind blowing, to see 24 little people as they began to adjust to the system…

I’ve sat on this piece for over four years, fearing it was too incomplete, too revolutionary to put out in the public eye. But, here goes - for that one person who might actually read this - I hope you enjoy.

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‘The System’

I see the dysfunction every time I go to work. I see roots of the system implanting itself in our children, sapping them of their creativity, individuality and enslaving them into ‘the system’. The system of power and control, teaches them what to do and how to do it. It’s the same system that forces adults to work the 40-hour week, until they’re too tired to cook, exercise, socialise or even fuck. Instead, they live on shitty takeaway food, sitting indoors, binge watching TV and scrolling through social media. Eating and drinking to numb the discomfort that lives deep down. The nagging feeling inside, telling them there is something wrong.

We have been oppressed for thousands and thousands of years. Economically oppressed, sexually oppressed, psychologically oppressed, physically oppressed and spiritually oppressed. For thousands of years the ruling elite - religions, monarchies, governments - have worked tirelessly to dumb us down and disconnect us - from nature, from one and other and from ourselves. We are too busy, too distracted and too tired to ask the important questions, to see the real issues, to see the darkness that plagues this world. We are exactly where they want us. The majority of people are so absorbed in the story, in the system that we’ve been fed that they can’t even see there is something wrong. They long to be told what to do, they give away their freedoms, begging the government to take care of everything. They send their children into the schooling system, without realising the extent of the handover. They don’t realise the amount of power they are giving away, they don’t see the complete control the institution has over their babies. 

Kindergarten

The indoctrination begins somewhere between the ages of  4 and 6, when we first send our toddlers into kindergarten. It's an interesting thing to witness, to see the understanding take them, as they realise that this ‘big school’ thing everyone has been talking about is every day, five days a week, no matter what. It's funny how we sell going to school as something exciting and fun, a rite of passage filled with joy and responsibility. When the reality is completely different. The reality is children are forced to give up their playtime and give up their freedom. It’s exhausting for them, they’re literally wrecked until their little bodies can get used to it. Get used to the lack of fun, lack of freedom and lack of light. 

The first term of kindergarten is about getting children into ‘routine’. The word routine is defined as ‘a sequence of actions regularly followed’. The pillars of the school routine involves children learning to sit quietly, listen to instructions, do what they’re told and behave appropriately. There is a focus on getting children to walk in two lines and sit in two lines. To learn to cross their legs, sit up straight, look at the teacher and listen with attention. They learn to be inside all day, they learn the appropriate time to go to the toilet, they learn when they should talk, what they are allowed to say, what things they can touch. Their reward for 2 hours of sitting still and listening is 25 minutes of play, after the next two hours they are rewarded with 30 minutes of play. This playtime can be taken away if the children are not behaving properly in the classroom. There are a variety of positive and negative rewards to help encourage children to follow the rules. Despite the type of behaviour management - positive or negative - the purpose is all the same: compliance. For those free spirited children who struggle to comply there is the label of ‘challenging behaviour’. 

Children like all humans want approval, they want the adults in their life to love them and care about them. This is why they try hard to cooperate and why for many children the transition into the school routine isn't too tricky. Young children are still learning about the world, learning the rules, their brain is perfectly aligned for adjusting. However, for those children who struggle with the routine, struggle with the lack of freedom in their daily life the label of ‘challenging behaviour’ is not a pleasant one. They become the other, the focus of their teacher’s negative attention. Even if the teacher tries hard to be positive, subconsciously it takes its toll. Because the child who can’t comply is the one who drains them, who takes away their attention from the 20-30 other students in the class. They are the focus of negative attention, they are the ones who need to be fixed or altered, who are always in trouble, always doing the wrong thing. 

For those with perceived challenging behaviours comes the questions. Why can’t they sit still? Why can’t they focus? Why can’t you remember to put your hand up when you want to speak? For some parents the calls start coming. “Have you noticed this behaviour at home?” “Have you taken them to see a paediatrician?” Then comes the doctors, the diagnosis and the medication. This is not to say some children out there don’t need extra help, that there aren't biological needs for intervention. This is to say that our education system - the one that locks children in classrooms, forces them to sit still, and to abide by strict institutional rules - is the one that requires diagnosis, questioning, probing, analysing. 

The ironic thing is, it’s the unnatural structure of the schooling system that creates the issue. The challenging behaviour arises because it is unnatural for children to be stuck inside for 6 hours a day. We have evolved to move, to learn from doing things, from building the fire, catching the food and finding the water. We are born into a family to learn from our parents, they are meant to teach us everything they know. It doesn’t matter if a child has extra energy when you’re teaching them to hunt and track food, or build a shelter for the family. One on one you can deal with kids who are energised, use this to their advantage as they learn to manipulate the world around them. When you have upwards of 25 students and only one teacher and you’re stuck in a room learning to write and read you can’t. What do you do if your child is a kinaesthetic learner, a young boy or girl who needs to move, who has lots of energy? Do they have a place in the modern school environment?

The 40 Hour Work Week

The introduction into the 40 hour work weeks begins when they’re too small to even understand it. I don’t even think parents and teachers realise what they’re doing, because they themselves see the sickness as normal. It's normal for most adults to dedicate their lives to their job, to struggle with a lack of leisure time, to be exhausted and feel disconnected. Our society demands this. You simply start full time work and get used to it. You learn to cope with being tired, or learn to drink enough caffeine to get you through. It's quite ironic, the only drugs the government allows us to have at will are caffeine and alcohol. Caffeine to make us more productive and alcohol to give us a mild escape from reality.