On school, nausea and Bella’s violin 
Autor: Dago | Publicado: 2013-11-28T23:57:00+01:00


I have to blog this
before the sick feeling in my stomach recedes. You see, I just came back from
Anabella’s Kindergarten where we had Parents’ Meeting. The topic which
literally nauseated me was “Preparing the Kids for School”. In summary, the
parents whose children will soon be going to school were worried that their
kids might not pass the test the school makes their children go through in
order to “be accepted” into the school. OUCH! We’re talking about six-year-olds!
Basically, they HAVE TO know how to count to 20, draw human figures, recognize
numbers, write their names, and so on. I mean, it might not make me want to
vomit if the test were a generic diagnostic curiosity of what the child's strengths/weaknesses might be. But the fact is that the test will say if the child is IN
or OUT. At 6!!! In my opinion, the worst is not the IN or OUT label, the real
problem is the pressure on the parents and ultimately on the kids. No wonder
most kids don’t really enjoy school! 



Here is a thought (but
first let me excuse my pretentiousness by saying I am not promising anything).
If Anabella doesn’t pass the stupid test at 6 and has to stay one more year in
Kindergarten, so what? What difference will this year make 30 years from now? What’s
the hurry? Well, it depends. It depends on how much pressure and expectation I
laid on her in the first place. The way I saw the parents reacting this evening
was scary. Luckily the German government covers psychotherapy. 



Fact: everything I am
good at right now at 36, I learned NOT IN SCHOOL. I can either thank my parents
or people who cared (even a couple of teachers). My filmmaking,
my music, my language skills, if I do any of these well it is not thanks to the
school system. The system has damaged me in that it has pressured my parents to
pressure me, and now I catch myself pressuring my self. Hello therapist!!! And
the natural tendency is for me to load the pressure onto Anabella’s back. Sure, there might be times when such pressure is healthy, but this is another story.



Another fact: the
system’s “evil teacher” lives within us, right in our chests. It is a demon
that we have to control. It turns us parents into anxious, evil teachers. Here
is an example of what I mean: Anabella has a violin. Sometimes she picks
it up, and starts to “play”. It screeches, it crackles while I, the
father-teacher, watch with an ever-growing anxiety and an almost incontrollable
need to go and make her play it correctly. If I approach Anabella with this,
let’s call it, spirit, she will most likely not enjoy my “help”, even if I try to speak politely. Worst-case
scenario, she won’t ever want to learn how to play the violin. Now, what if before
I take any action, I notice the demon within me, take a deep breath, ask myself
“why do you need to correct her? Is it out of love or out of anxiety that if
she doesn’t get it right, she will be compromising her future?” If I am led by
the former inner-motivation, namely by love, then fine, I can go and show her
where the bow should position itself on the strings. The audio-waves coming out
of my mouth will most probably enter her ears gently and she will unconsciously
know that I care for her and not for her future educational “success”. &nbsp;



At the parents’ meeting
I kept quiet until the very end when I raised my hand and asked if I could
comment. I tried to say in my simple German what I just explained above. I
mentioned Pink Floyd’s “we don’t need no education”. Perhaps for the next
parents’ meeting I won’t be invited J.



Disclaimer: any
resemblance with John Holt or Ivan Illich or unschooling is sheer coincidence. J&nbsp;



OK, let me go throw up now. 
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