Unsolved Questions About Children's School Education

By: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

Debates may be heated; disagreements may stay unresolved regarding the question as to what kind of school education could best meet the needs of a child. Certainly, educators would agree that disciplining the child is an important component of education, so too counselling. What they may disagree about will rest largely on the kind of discipline. Should the child be made to suffer from harsh punishment when rebelliousness is a pattern of his/her lifestyle? Or, should he/she be cautiously and expertly talked to, so that staying away from non-compliance becomes the ultimate outcome? Either approach may have their problems. To punish a child severely, sometimes through the whip and sometimes by means of an arduous task he/she has to perform, often corrects bad behaviour. The child would know that a repeat of such a punishment could strain the energy so much and, perhaps, put health at risk; so he/she may try very hard to refrain from a recurrence of the unwanted behaviour. But one could say that this harsh punishment, though an effective deterrence, sometimes works badly on the emotions and mind of the child. The alternative of being lax on punishment is not helpful. A child delights in an incorrigible behaviour if he/she is not made to be aware that the behaviour is unacceptable; the uncorrected behaviour is seen by him/her as a lively addition to a rather repetitive lifestyle. For instance, a vibrant male child full of energy, a fun of the show of strength through bullying, may strive to even make a deviant act more so than before. Unless disciplined, he will be a big bother to his peers who prefer to stay calm and normal in disposition. If a school system has many of such incorrigible children, the school might have abandoned harsh punishment, structured disciplinary procedures or constructive counseling (of children) in favour of a loose conglomeration of policies and disciplinary measures that could be interpreted and practised in any number of ways.

Indeed, educators may structure a teaching procedure in a way that may slot in harsh punishment for non-compliance. The common practice in many traditional educational systems even punishes a child for writing wrong answers to questions. For example, a child may have written the word Wednesday as Wenesday. To make sure that he/she does not repeat this mistake, the teacher commands that the child has to write Wednesday eighty times. Before the child goes on to do the written exercise, he/she has already brought to the attention of the mind and emotions ripples or torrents of frustration. Suppose he/she goes through this kind of punishment many times, there is the danger of his/her losing the natural focus of the mind and emotions. The problem here is that the mental aptitude of the child is wasted on a superfluous exercise instead of being shifted to undertake tasks that are creative in extent and liberating in mental effort. But, then, the practice of caning or whipping children is even more fruitless. It instills the displeasure of fear in the internal structure of the child. The incidence of this punishment determines the magnitude of fear. A male child, for instance, who is frequently caned on the basis that he is academically a deviant perceives himself, not merely as a victim of circumstances but as a disliked creature within an academic culture that stands in a hostile position to him. His fear in life is expressed in multiple fashions - and particularly so any time he sees a male adult who reflects the image of his male teacher.

Irreducibly rebellious children who suffer from the whip or cane can confront their adversaries openly or silently. There is more problem if silent confrontation occurs; for the victims’ inner drives tend to enrage the emotions. Acts, thereafter, happen to be eccentric; unearthed talents go through an unending process of suppression and distortion. Rebellious or non-conforming child-students who pass through a school system with a rigorous disciplinary procedure often encounter structured instructions that are difficult for them to satisfy. There are many schools that make children too busy, dangerously focused on book studies, tied mechanically to a style of studying that demands memorizing and reproducing stuff, sometimes verbatim. It is common to see students in these schools doing too much homework and examinations and having little or no time to play. In addition, students may have to undergo routine drills comparable to military exercises; so where is the time for students to play with happy feelings? At what times can students observe, internalize, process information and issues about the world around them with the power of the imagination and the spirit of creativity? When and how do they develop the analytical or logical aptitude? What one can see here is a whole class of students whose social skills are stunted while their emotional development gets postponed indefinitely.

It cannot be disputed that a rebellious male child for instance needs attention, the kind of attention that can reinforce his self-esteem and draw to him robust admiration from his boisterous peers; or, he may require reasonable admiration from his teacher, which involves private but expert and down-to-earth counseling in as private an environment as possible. Thus, a teacher, Jim, takes Ray, a rebellious student, to his office and begins an elementary counseling process. “Ray, I really love you very much. When I see you in class being consistently naughty, I know you do not want to be like that; so, I feel very sorry for you. I will be very happy if you behave much better than the other students in class. Suppose you do that, I’ll give you a special gift; and do not tell the others about the gift. Tell only your parents; they’re going to be very happy about you. Also, they will make you a great boy for all to love.” Ray is likely to change his bad ways. The attention-grabbing talk by Jim generates an instant inner pride in Ray. What is interesting here is that Ray would strive to maintain this pride, this dignity as the basis for going on in life within the framework of a winnable spirit.

But, then, where does the rebelliousness of a child in school come from? Is it from the school? If it is, then certainly it is not from the classroom but from classmates or school mates who meet together somewhere to share similar acts. And why is it that the child’s parents do not realize the need to correct the unwanted rebelliousness? Are the parents themselves rebellious? Do they sanction their child’s behaviour? Certainly not! A child usually cultivates an unwanted behaviour for the reason that parents are often not with him/her. The regular parental guidance necessary for the child to straighten up the rough boundaries of his/her character is missing; so an emotional and psychic vacuum is created in the child’s life, which he/she seeks desperately to fill with vigorous elements from outside the family.

It is helpful to understand that the best disciplinary course of action in school ought to relate to the relevant needs of the society. Many modern societies are full of the entrepreneurial spirit, of individualistic motivation, sometimes in a team, sometimes not, and germinated from the roots of various forms of capitalism or socialistic systems. The educational system, one might say, ought to serve - or has been carved to serve - in particular, the economic system in place. A traditional school system that insists on structured discipline, harsh in tone, inexorable in scope, contradicts the essential demands of a free-spirited culture such as that of a species of capitalism. Surely, a free-spirited culture needs to tone down the irresponsible acts of those child-students who find it thrilling to go against norms, mores. Non-academic institutions, public services are established - or ought to be established - to guide deviants and guard against acts that the reasonable person will readily construe as objectionable. But the pain that comes along with a free-spirited culture is that it is often associated with economic/business priorities that get wedded, without fail, to the school system. Programs in school are prioritized, more so in higher institutions.

Today, many schools are resorting to mistakes that are largely structural and business-oriented, not pedagogical. Policy and decision makers deliberate on how to rank school programs so as to produce school graduates that fit the demands of the prevailing economic system. They go on to assert or presuppose this. “These are the programs that are hot for purposes of business – or in the job market. Let us make them much more competitive with regard to the admission and passing requirements; then let us go on to sustain and, in fact, promote this value.” This is where neglected or belittled programs suffer constantly in attractiveness, in recognition. And in progressive but very technical societies, which are judged ‘developed’ or ‘emerging’ on account of their economic vibrancy, a child’s cleverness in school is, as if by a rule - or really as a rule - connected to his/her proficiency in Math, the natural sciences, perhaps languages, and, in limiting cases, in his/her exceptional skill in the other branches of knowledge. Yet, technicalities give the most credence to Math and the natural sciences, or variations of these two branches of knowledge in today’s economic structures that repeatedly advance according to the invariable beliefs in technology and its results. To the question, where does a child adept in music and sports fit into this system, one is bound to face a discouraging answer. Mary’s natural weakness in Math and the natural sciences shows up over and over again! Her professed talent in music and sports does not concern her teachers precisely because these two branches of knowledge are claimed, according to the ranking system, to be of little worth. Mary’s improvement in Math and the natural sciences gets no further. Her brains and emotions are overworked to the extent that one may construe this anomaly as silent punishment worse than the open punishment from a whip.

Silent punishment is now a dominant feature of modern educational systems that aim at training a child to become skilled in areas unrelated to his/her unearthed talent. The problem is that silent punishment is a clear contradiction to a free-spirited culture that advances - or claims to advance - according to the free development of the individual’s flair. So, what must have gone wrong when an individual’s freedom to study and excel in where his/her flair lies is downed? Has not the culture in question pulled brakes on the natural development of the individual? The child’s internal character undergoes unnatural uproars, which register in failings or underperformances. So, what is the use of disciplining such a child for not doing well in prioritized courses that the spirit of his/her inward talent resists time and again? It is as if the child is saying: “let democracy in school be expressed partly in the courses or programs each student is capable of excelling in!” His/Her lamentation goes unanswered!

Of course, it is not the job of children to decide for themselves where their talents reside. Their immaturity overrules this undertaking. The adult teachers and parents ought to be there to grasp the child’s talent and guide him/her with persuasive teachings to develop it. If there is a road map to follow, which can lead the child to where his/her aspirations lie, the teacher has to draw it. The child follows the directions of the map with the judicious application of his/her talents. Attempts by the teacher to command the child to follow a specific direction without the child’s ingenious talent conforming naturally to it signals educational tyranny.

Discipline, punishment, guidance, and direct teaching of the child are four central constituents of a child’s education. We want these four to function in a fashion that stimulate the flourishing of the child’s talent. While the child is in the learning process, his/her conscience or/and the sounds of his/her emotions may echo the point: “I am learning and developing at a pace that fits very well with the talent in me.” This assertion certainly sounds peculiar – or would be found wanton - in most present school systems, which have aligned themselves so overwhelmingly to what programs or courses sell in the job market, the marketplace.

Yes, talent-based formal education has been dethroned by economy-determined formal education. What is the reason for this? The general consensus seems to be that human resources ought to serve and protect the direction of the economy, not animate the spirit of culture. Until the time comes when what a child studies in school - and is developed - arises largely from the talent readable from his/her doings, the school system in many places would not - and cannot - be seen as a true reflection of children’s talents.