Phil Beadle
There is a certain kind of person who might be termed ‘high conflict’. I’m not going to say the real name of their condition, their disorder, out loud but, if you know, you know. Because of something that happened to them as a child, they are unable to cope with feelings of shame, they project their own behaviour problems onto others and are capable of substantial cruelty. Once you become fully aware of this condition, once you have properly researched it, you notice how prevalent it is in people.
Ultimately, there are sheep and there are wolves. The soppy old sheep expect everyone to be like them, but not everyone is a sheep and, because the sheep live in a fluffy world where they expect everyone to be as nice as them, they have absolutely no idea how very many wolves there are. And there are a lot of damaged people; there are lots and lots and lots of wolves. They are everywhere, hiding in plain sight, pretending that they are not wolves and, if you are a sheep, they can do you an enormous amount of damage, perhaps even turn you into a wolf.
At my first school, Eastlea, I don’t recall meeting a single wolf. Everyone was lovely. I held the senior staff in the total esteem that their experience and knowledge deserved, was well mentored by two very good drama teachers and the atmosphere amongst staff was collegiate and full of relaxed laughter. We all knew that it was a tough school; we all knew that we had to have each other’s backs as behaviour could be challenging, and things could go wrong if we didn’t properly look after each other. Over the years, and I was there for seven, it became a marvellous place to earn a living. Brilliantly led by superb headteachers in succession, I struggle to recall a single human being I did not like, and there were many I adored. I didn’t notice any wolves, not because I was more innocent then but because there weren’t any wolves.
(One of my friends from there, Chris, a great bloke and superb teacher, retired yesterday after decades of service teaching kids who were lucky to have him as a guide).
After that, I worked briefly in Lewisham and had two passages in the same school in Wandsworth, JPII. That was lovely too. Similar to Eastlea, it was a challenging school, but the staff were like a slightly dysfunctional but enormously loving family. I type this from Bali airport on the way to work again and stay with lovely friends I made there who are now resident in Australia. Much of my friendship group is from my time at that school.
Then academisation … I went to two schools in Croydon. I made some more friends, but at the second, where I made a further lifelong friendship with Mr. S. and loved working with Kev, I noticed something: a growing lack of respect from structures for teachers’ human rights, a nudging toxicity brewing. There was a poster in the staffroom saying, ‘Everyone is Important in the School’. Mr. S and I were briefly tempted to write “unless they have a teaching qualification” under the legend.
Over the years since, I’ve worked in a range of places, met some more wonderful people but have noticed, post academisation and increasingly, there are more and more wolves about. The wolves seem to have little belief in the existence of human goodness, seem to think that controlling other humans is a reasonable desire, seem to be capable of substantial cruelty (that they may not even recognise as such) and seem to be obsessed with punishment and the self. They also appear to be entirely unbothered if they hurt other humans, be those humans children or staff. The wolves have been in control for a long while now.
As a result, we now have a school system where, in some places (though a friend tells me this culture is now embedded everywhere), significant cruelty is carried out to both teachers and children by the type of people who get kicks out of being cruel.
There are various responses to trauma. Some of us internalise it, agonisingly punishing the self because we ourselves have been hurt. Some, however, unable to carry shame, externalise it, project it and further traumatise others. My contention is that the education of children has been in the hands of the latter variety of people for a long time. Consequently, education, controlled by wolves in many parts of the UK, is now actively traumatising the sheep in its care. It may not be aware of this (as wolves do not recognise who they really are when the mirror seeks to confront them, they deflect) but, unless something wholesale is done about the pedagogic and behavioural culture in our schools, the impact for society as a whole will be and has been:
This is where I think we are, in places. This is the enormous human impact of allowing people without serious track records undue influence over a hugely important realm they know vanishingly little about. This is the result of allowing people substantial influence on the basis of the number of times they post vituperative opinions (in which they may not even actually believe) on social media.
Bridget Phillipson’s mention of “freedom” is unbelievably welcome. When I speak at universities to new teachers, I point out that there are two kinds of teacher, those who will use education to free people, and those who will use it to exert control. The system has been in the hands and under the control of the latter kind of people for a very long time.
Wholesale systematic change is long, long overdue. Put the sheep back in positions of command, mainly because they don’t want to be and have no desire for it. And put teacher training back in the hands of universities who will actually take the time required to test the psychological suitability of new teachers for what used to be (and still could be again) a caring profession.
Added Fri, 26 Jul 2024 07:36
