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24/10/13 |
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> Child To Adult Transition. >Relationship: Parent/Child >Education >School<you are here> > "Post Angst" > Fixing The Damage > To Love Oneself > Loving Others |
School
If education was "the what", teachers "the who" then school is "the where".
I could dive into all the varying aspects of primary secondary and further education, but I am going to take a more holistic view and look at School from an "environment" perspective. Compared to other animals "school", (a communal coming together of unrelated offspring) as a means of conveying information from one generation to another, is not common, most other animal parents educate their own offspring or at lest close family members. Man, as a highly developed social animal and the fact that the amount and complexity of information to be conveyed, makes school a necessity. School is an institution that acts in loco parentis, Latin for "in the place of a parent, a legal term which refers to the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent. School, (as well as being the bricks and mortar), the institution is (as I have already dealt with in education) responsible with what is taught, but in addition to this it is also responsible for safety and security of the children. Perhaps equally as important as all the others items of responsibility is the conveying the more esoteric aspects like ethos and atmosphere that pervade the school environment. As this piece of writing is in a chapter about child hood and the influences that children have as they grow up, the school environment in terms of ethos and atmosphere is of fundamental importance. What is euphemistically called "bullying" is an issue of paramount importance in terms of negative influence on a child. If a child goes to school and is subjected to any from of behaviour that causes it to feel threaten, frightened or anxious, the school has failed in its duty of care towards that child.
I have to concede that this issue is one of my bête noires, as I am sure it will be for many but the aspect that incenses me most is the tacit acceptance of low levels of bullying that go under the dismissiveness of "oh well that's just kids for you" attitude. If one would not want it said or done to one's eighty year old mother, why would we allow such negative behaviour to be experienced by our children? Yes I am sure that there are schools that take all bullying very seriously but regrettably not all and to varying degrees of stringency. What I suspect is that people are not fully aware of the influences that such behaviour has on the totality of the atmosphere, the perpetrator being allowed to set the background ethos of the environment.
Still working on this bit
I could dive into all the varying aspects of primary secondary and further education, but I am going to take a more holistic view and look at School from an "environment" perspective. Compared to other animals "school", (a communal coming together of unrelated offspring) as a means of conveying information from one generation to another, is not common, most other animal parents educate their own offspring or at lest close family members. Man, as a highly developed social animal and the fact that the amount and complexity of information to be conveyed, makes school a necessity. School is an institution that acts in loco parentis, Latin for "in the place of a parent, a legal term which refers to the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent. School, (as well as being the bricks and mortar), the institution is (as I have already dealt with in education) responsible with what is taught, but in addition to this it is also responsible for safety and security of the children. Perhaps equally as important as all the others items of responsibility is the conveying the more esoteric aspects like ethos and atmosphere that pervade the school environment. As this piece of writing is in a chapter about child hood and the influences that children have as they grow up, the school environment in terms of ethos and atmosphere is of fundamental importance. What is euphemistically called "bullying" is an issue of paramount importance in terms of negative influence on a child. If a child goes to school and is subjected to any from of behaviour that causes it to feel threaten, frightened or anxious, the school has failed in its duty of care towards that child.
I have to concede that this issue is one of my bête noires, as I am sure it will be for many but the aspect that incenses me most is the tacit acceptance of low levels of bullying that go under the dismissiveness of "oh well that's just kids for you" attitude. If one would not want it said or done to one's eighty year old mother, why would we allow such negative behaviour to be experienced by our children? Yes I am sure that there are schools that take all bullying very seriously but regrettably not all and to varying degrees of stringency. What I suspect is that people are not fully aware of the influences that such behaviour has on the totality of the atmosphere, the perpetrator being allowed to set the background ethos of the environment.
Still working on this bit