I offer this account of my experiences in the hope that it might relieve the isolation and frustration felt by parents who have reached the stage in their moral development where they find violence towards children unacceptable. Here is my journey of stepping off the school-violence-roundabout and creating a new life.
I sent my six-year-old daughter to a school where I dropped her off in the morning with no injuries, but often collected her at the end of the day in tears with a school icepack. She invariably claimed to have been hurt by a certain student. Of course, I did not witness what happened, but I had always observed my daughter to be honest. Initially, it seemed to me that the teacher was supportive, and I interpreted her words as being assuring- that she would make every effort to remedy the situation. The situation temporarily improved, then worsened and my daughter became fearful and withdrawn. Over the weeks I steadily lost confidence in the teacher as the injuries kept coming. Perhaps the most disturbing thing my daughter told me towards the end of her time at the school was that the teacher seemed angry with her about reporting her injuries. My daughter’s understanding of the teacher’s words was that none of the assaults occurred and that if she was hurt again, she wasn’t to say anything to me. The teacher also seemed quite brusque towards me around this time. Naturally, I wrote to the principal stating my concerns. She wrote to me explaining about a programme the class was doing. Students were being asked to recognise certain behaviours exhibited by the child who was inflicting the injuries and then move away from this child. This strategy proved ineffective as, soon after, my daughter was returned to me injured on four of six consecutive days of her attendance. One injury still causes a lot of pain five years later and on some days she can barely walk. I was deeply worried about my daughter’s well-being, the physical pain she had to endure and the associated emotional strain. After weeks of ineffective strategies, I was losing confidence in both the principal’s and teacher’s professional competence as well as losing trust in them as moral, caring human beings. I felt that the only option was to keep my daughter safe at home, when I could, all the while wracking my brain, trying to come up with a solution. When I first communicated with the principal, in person and by phone as well as by letter, I had great difficulty understanding her as it seemed to me that what she said in our conversations was different to what she was committing to paper. I interpreted the disparities as being contradictory. Hmm…. Perhaps my language skills were lacking. I desperately wanted to understand and I thought I’d have a better chance if we stuck to just the one method of communication. For me, writing was the logical choice as I could study her words carefully, optimistic of ascertaining the salient points. After I asked for the written clarification of some points, the principal wrote ‘I do not believe that written correspondence is the appropriate means to solve the existing misunderstanding’. By this stage, I had lost faith in our ability to communicate and therefore thought it necessary that we did so only in writing. This never happened. On the points that mattered to me, I couldn’t seem to pin her down to the written word. After to-ing and fro-ing with the principal, voicing my concerns and not having them addressed to anywhere near my satisfaction, she sent me a letter stating, ‘Should the College have concern about an ongoing non-attendance pattern, we would be mandated to report this’……So, did I have to send my child to school regardless of the injuries or risk some sort of prosecution?........Can I prosecute the school for failure of duty of care?……no, of course not, it doesn’t work that way, what a stupid thought….. I felt incredibly trapped and afraid; as a mother with a little girl, I was mindful that I was no match for the might and power of the larger organisation with which the school is affiliated. This large organisation has a centuries-long tradition of mass atrocities such as burning thousands of people alive, torturing thousands of people and raping goodness knows how many women and children. Admittedly they are no longer legally allowed to do these things, however they are one of the largest global financial organisations and I’m sure could afford a battalion of lawyers, resulting in psychological torture. Unbeknownst to me at the time of my daughter’s enrolment, the national leader of this organisation was an unconvicted child rapist (oh… but apparently ONLY of the vanilla variety-whatever that means). Swamped with guilt about my choice of educational institution, I wondered how I could have entrusted the welfare of my daughter to people from this vile organisation? I felt deeply threatened and powerless to protect my daughter - We desperately needed to escape. On one of the best days of my life I was in turmoil. Brushing my daughter’s hair that morning was arduous as my arms had turned to lead and I felt sick. ‘Why was I doing this, why was I making her look so nice just to be hurt?’ I was torn, naively hoping for a solution but deep down knowing there wasn’t one to be had at the school. My daughter looked utterly miserable as we walked up the driveway. I could hardly breathe. Gravity had taken a firm hold of my legs, the air was molasses. ‘I don’t care about the money or work…… I can’t send her to be injured…Her spirit is being crushed, her curiosity deadened…... I did not become a mother to send my baby to be damaged….the most important thing is that my child is safe (this thought didn’t come from my head, it was deep and primordial) …….. I don’t know what the answer is but I do know it’s not this’. I stopped walking and looked up at our snow-capped mountain. I breathed deeply and freely. I let go and trusted in myself, in my own inner compass and in my own connection with a loving guiding energy. I faced my daughter and said that she never had to go to that school again. Shortly after, I enrolled my daughter in Home Education. I told myself that we would do this while the injuries healed and we looked at other schools. In spite of (or perhaps because of) our traumatised and spent state, the first weeks were halcyon days filled with wonder, happiness and adventure. On many a crisp morning we would pack food, take our bushwalking gear and jump in the car. Some days, as we meandered through the country, I would ask my daughter ‘Left or right?’ at each intersection. We drove to country towns, national parks and beaches and had time to explore each little place where we stopped. We felt free and alive and our perspectives shifted. Making scrunching sounds on pure new snow was a joy, dewdrop-bejewelled spiders’ webs became hypnotic in their perfection, and country town op-shops were Aladdin’s caves. I am overwhelmingly grateful for being able to spend this enchanting time with my daughter as, in this lifetime, she will never again view the world through the eyes of a six year-old child. On that fateful day, when I let go, it was my body that knew. It was trying desperately hard, using nausea and extreme lethargy, to get through to my dear old tortoise conscious mind. If I had listened and been more in tune with my higher guidance system just a few weeks earlier, perhaps my daughter would not have sustained the foot injury which still plagues her. I try not to feel guilty as it serves no purpose. We endeavour to accept this as the best we could have done at the time; accept the pain, work, time and money associated with it and just be grateful for her escape. Academically, we caught up on all the work my daughter missed out on when she was at institutional school. This took no time as she had started regaining her zest for life. My daughter had always played the piano but now I had the time to teach her more thoroughly with an aim of sitting formal exams. There was even time for a bit of fun guitar, recorder, flute and violin! My daughter’s natural default setting is art and she was now free to create all sorts of wonders out of boxes, sea-shells, feathers, glitter and other such treasures. Our local home-schooling community was mostly warm and friendly until I had to point out in polite but clear terms that my daughter was not to be punched, hit, et cetera. A home schooling community is a microcosm which is reflective of the macrocosm which surrounds it. Just as there are differing attitudes in the larger community and institutional schools concerning what is a reasonable amount of pain for a child to endure, there is corresponding variation within home schooling circles. Fortunately, when home educating, people who have very different views on these crucial matters don’t have to put up with each other as they do in institutional school!!!……. It’s fantastic, we now pick and choose the activities we do and the home-schooling people with whom we socialise. We not only enjoy ourselves but also come home not needing to visit the doctor……. Amazing!!!!! This is also a wonderful bonus for parents who have very different views to us, as they don’t have to suffer me and all my blah blah about children’s human rights. At one stage, my daughter and I were so repelled by schools and some home-schooling events that we were prepared to spend a lot of our time alone, rather than endure them and any more injuries. The universe is a funny old thing, for as soon as we had defined our inner values with absolute clarity, it made arrangements for more and more people and events which were in harmony with our values to come into our lives……. Quite magical really……. For over three years now my daughter has not been intentionally injured by another child even though she does lots of activities with other children. We have enjoyed a relatively tranquil life which has freed up our time, energy and emotions, enabling us to be more fully present and happy, resulting in my daughter blossoming. There is a lesson to be learned in every situation. I had naively and unwisely trusted people and organisations as it was convenient to do so at the time. I have learned to be more responsible for my daughter’s welfare and now I make greater efforts when discerning people’s standards of behaviour. When I’m feeling lazy I remind myself that the word parent is not only a noun but also a 24 hour-a-day-on-call verb. Yet another mistake I made… no, let’s be kind to me and call it a learning experience, was to actually think I could effect change in others. I couldn’t, it was utterly impossible…I know, I tried. I spent precious time and energy on the situations hoping for better outcomes - i.e. fewer injuries. It was exhausting and upsetting. One day I was chatting with one of my daughter’s aikido senseis about my woes and he laughed at me! “Have you heard about the man who tried to teach the pig to sing? He was wasting his time and really annoyed the pig.” Yes, thank you universe…I get it…. I’ve learned my lesson - change myself (i.e. grab my child and run…fast!) and do not try to make changes in organisations or groups which are ruled imperiously from on-high by people who have incongruent views to myself on child welfare. We are now very picky and only attend groups where we discern that everyone’s human rights are being respected. Upon reflection, in my more balanced moments, I am genuinely and incredibly grateful to all the people with different views on violence towards children to myself. To me life is a journey of discovery and evolution, and perhaps I needed to experience the absolute contrast between that-which-I-was-not-comfortable-with and that-which-I-am in order to move down the best path in the least time. Perhaps, in the area of respect, my daughter and I non-consciously chose to be educated so that we could move on to a more independent and peaceful existence, and the people with whom we disagreed were our consciously-unwitting teachers. I was given utterly stupendous teachers and situations, I must have been so stubborn-of-thought to need such thorough and painful training……so apologies there universe. Thank you to all and sundry who participated in my evolution!!!!!!! I wouldn’t be at the point I am now without you. Each school has its own centre of gravity with regards to levels of morals and academic, creative and social opportunities. If you are at or below this level then, yes, school may well be the place for your children. There are a significant number of children for whom spending six hours at school each day is a relatively positive experience and it is indeed far preferable to the violence, soliciting or drugs at home. If, however, at your child’s school the levels of violence are too high for you, the academic standard too low and the course contents mostly devoid of meaning and creativity, you might be tempted to offer your child an alternative which resonates more with your values. We started home education primarily to escape the injuries received at school. It was initially intended as a stop-gap measure but has turned out to be so much more - and not just academically, creatively and socially. To me the jewel in the crown has been the greater degree of self-sovereignty. I was utterly powerless to help my daughter while she was at school. When we faced similar obstacles in the home schooling community we were autonomous and empowered which enabled my daughter and me to not only create a solution but also to grow as people. If you choose, you can step off someone else’s merry-go-round, stop going up and down in circles getting nowhere, and walk your own path. You can always revert to institutional schooling if the comforting familiarity of the dissonant, wheezing, repetitious calliope is your thing……….but who knows, you might enjoy the freedom and freshness of a new and expanded paradigm?
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AuthorTess McQueen is a sole parent and has been home educating for 5 years. She has a science degree and a teaching qualification and has worked in the areas of science and maths teaching, piano tutoring, scientific illustration, chemical analysis, microbiological research and analysis and disabilities. She has also studied natural therapies and worked as a farm labourer and an interpretive ranger for Parks and Wildlife. ArchivesCategories |