If your child is in physical danger then they are not
"doing well at school".
If they are anxious, depressed or harming themselves they are not
"doing well at school".
If they are tortured, harassed or belittled they are not
"doing well at school".
If they are screaming, crying and not wanting to leave your care, they are not
"doing well at school".
That a child is still achieving, striving, learning despite the torturous space then that says far more about the child, then it does the school.
It is not school they are doing well at. It is learning. Now imagine that the terror, fear and pain, the shame and self-loathing is removed and try and imagine what they could learn.
"Doing well at school" has come to mean a child's academic ability. Yet the ability to learn is not rooted in pens and paper. The lessons they are learning stretch far beyond the subjects and tests.
If they are learning they are unworthy, hated, and undeserving, does that matter less? If they are told they are thick, difficult or "naughty", does that matter less? If they are learning that their safety and well being is not important, does that matter less?
To be truly "doing well at school" their safety, health and happiness has to be part of that equation.
If we were talking about adults in these situations and it was a job you would leave, and probably sue the company. Yet school is seen as a corner stone, "the norm" and everything that happens there is normalized. No matter how terrible it is.
It is not okay.
It is not "normal".
There is something you can do about it and when you are on the other side of it it will blow your mind you ever were the hand that helped enforce the system. You took them there, day after day. You had meetings and discussions and nothing changed, or it did for the worse.
If you have a park or a garden, a library and google, some charity shops and a sense of adventure you and your children can learn almost anything.
Home education is far too important to take seriously.
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