This week, on Masterpiece Theatre…
We discuss mutual experiences of democracy or lack thereof
in the classroom. After last night’s class, while I believe some people were
galvanized and ready to discuss things…I was completely drained. It is
depressing to consider how often democracy and representation falls short in
school because administrators do not care or teachers misuse their power. I had
a teacher in fourth grade that berated the students and another in eighth grade
who told us we were all going to fail the GEPA. Until last night, I had no idea
how common cruelty and abuse of power can be. Incompetent teachers, it seems,
are universal.
Then, what, perhaps, is the product of this? Have they lost
their way in a democracy? Have they grown accustomed to abusing the students
and thinking that this is permissible? Is it because they believe no one will
stand in their way? It bothers me to think about the teachers I had and that
other endured who subjected their students to misery simply because they could.
It seems so petty, for one thing. How, exactly, does picking on a child make
you a better person? Or superior?
For that matter, how does standing aside while one child
bullies another make a teacher better? Almost all of the class experienced
bullying. In my case, the teachers never noticed it or never stepped in to
help. How does this emphasize the idea that, as my school proposed, “all
encounters in our school are based upon mutual cooperation, respect, and
courtesy”? It does not, really. All it does is emphasize the emptiness of such
pursuits.
Yet, there are examples that show how exemplary a school can
be if they try. One of the people in my group had a school that supported him
and helped him to participate within society. It gave him the tools he needed
to become a social justice crusader rather than someone who was personally
responsible (if that). When the school makes a concentrated effort, good things
can happen. Why, then, do schools choose not to do so?
It seems to me that schools believe that only lessons
learned in class are life lessons. Only lessons should be taken as examples of
democracy and even then, teachers can demonstrate the wrong ideas. The lessons
I learned outside of class taught me more about democracy, sadly, than most of
what I encountered within class. When a bunch of boys ganged up on me in gym
class and threw basketballs at my head, my guidance counselor’s response was, “Boys
will be boys.” (My parents had to spend the extra money to get frames that were
flexible, because people kept breaking my classes in gym class). So, then, is
democracy really composed of the greater and the lesser? It seems like it is…and
then, no encounters are based upon equal anything. Some people are entitled to
more because they fit the dominant culture of being white Anglo-Saxon males.
It upsets me to think that students and teachers who
committed abuse upon each other could have “gotten away with it”. To what end,
then, does our democracy start and stop? Does democracy within the schools
really mean, “We’ll protect our own and to hell with everyone else?” This is a
concept I will struggle with throughout the semester. Everything I learned in
my formative years taught me that democracy is a failed concept within
schooling. Yet we are expected to teach it.
It reminds me of an argument I had on a completely unrelated
matter last night. An acquaintance and I were discussing Regina Mills from Once
Upon a Time and her parenting practices. I commented that Regina, having a bad
mother growing up, has no idea how to be a good mother. It is like that with
democracy in the classroom. Having had no good examples for it, how am I
supposed to know how to set a good example myself?
Perhaps, as the term goes on, I will figure this out. Or
perhaps I will always grope for it; it will lurk there, just beyond the
horizon.
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