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June 2016
DISCIPLINED THOUGHTS

A final few thoughts, loosely connected to education and certainly for all who have our younger generation in their charge. We are entering, as many of our ancestors did, a “brave new world”, so maybe a quote from Mr Huxley would be appropriate. He wrote that “children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardour, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision”. It is therefore essential, when we have any dealings with them, that we remember that. A child reprimanded for doing something that they know is wrong will, underneath any denials or guilt, accept that reprimand and you, the adult, will retain their respect. But a child told off for nothing or in an inconsistent manner will begin to question, inwardly, both the authority and the intellect of those doing the telling off.

Children will push boundaries, they always have, they always will. It is the only way to explore. It is our job to make sure that they are pulled back and that they understand both the need for discipline and the reason it is applied. I have heard children told 10 times “if you do that again ………………..”. They did it again after the first time. They have now identified you as someone who doesn’t mean what they say. You have lost that position of guide, mentor, helper and, sadly, authority. I hear parents ask their children, “would you like to go to your room”? You know the answer will be no and that you will say then “well don’t do that”, or something similar. I suppose even worse would be if the answer was “yes”. What would you, the parent, do then. So, why ask? Why not just say, “Don’t do that again and, if necessary, explain why? Full stop. If kids are playing or engaged in some activity, I will always give them a second chance but on the third time, I raise my voice, considerably. Very considerably. It almost always works. No need for a smack, no need for stupid psychological questions.

As an aside, I spent one year working with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties; except most of them didn’t really have these. They had problems, sure. One little boy had been rejected by his mother and then farmed out for adoption and been through three families in 2 years. He felt rejected but underneath he was a nice, naughty, normal little boy. One day in class he stopped working and started doodling. I would have asked him to go back to work, twice, and if ignored, increased the decibels of my request. However, at the time, a child psychologist or someone with a bit of paper, was observing him. She asked him why he didn’t like work and where was his inner anger. He was 8. “What is worrying you”, she said? His little eyes, sensing he could get away without a telling off, wandered around the room and I saw them light up as he spotted a phone in the corner of the room. We used to teach them in a house to make it feel less school-like. “The phone”, his plaintiff little voice said. “I’ll get it removed”, she said and left the room. I swear he winked at me. I also swear that he knew I liked him and that was what he needed. We knew our roles. His was to push my boundaries, mine was pull him back when he went too far.

On a similar point, there was another boy at the school who had been diagnosed with ADHD. I am not a doctor so I have no idea if this diagnosis was correct or not. His father would always come to the school and sit in an outside room “in case of problems”. One day, telling the school secretary where we would be, I took the boy out on a geography field trip. We were away for just over an hour. When we got back the father and the psychologist were waiting at the door. As soon as we walked in, and in front of the boy, I was told, “we were worried. Didn’t he try to run away. He sometimes does”. I’m not sure I managed to even give an answer and, if I did, it was probably “no”. It should have been “no, I never thought he would, I never suggested he would and I never acted as if he was going to abscond, so he didn’t”. To a degree, children will act according to your behaviour toward them, what they sense you expect them to do. You have to be aware of that all the time. Remember, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.

And, make no mistake, it isn’t the easy route. If the children are playing around and you are watching television, it is far easier to keep repeating “don’t do that” or “be quiet” than actually making sure your wishes are carried out. Sometimes you may lose out on what you want but it should never be for want of trying or because it is easier to do nothing. At one dinner time, when my daughter was about 4 or 5, she wouldn’t eat her vegetables. She was told a couple of times and then sent to her bedroom with the plate, no question as to whether she wanted to go, and told she could come back for pudding when she had eaten everything. Remember a child is a devious and clever creature. I followed her upstairs and made sure the bedroom door was shut. Then I sat, round the corner, at the top of the stairs. Yes, my dinner was getting cold but I had an inkling of what might happen. Sure enough, after about 10 minutes, the bedroom door opened and my devious (intelligent) daughter set out across the landing to the toilet carrying her plate and uneaten vegetables. “Jennifer”, I said, quite loudly.

At this point my story goes a bit wrong because she, startled to know I had outwitted her and was still sitting there, jumped and her dinner went on the floor. However, the point was, and still is, that she was aware of the fact that this parent was prepared to take their time to make sure their wishes were obeyed . Even now, some 35 years later, she still knows she cannot keep a secret from her dad.

Looking after children, being a teacher or a parent, takes a lot of your time if you want to do it properly. You need to observe, to think, even remember how you thought and behaved and, most importantly, make sure that if you say something, you mean it and you will take the time to follow it through. My son, having been told he could not stay out later than 8pm once brought a friend back with him at the appointed time. Then, the friend starting asking whether they could stay out till 9pm that night. Five minutes later and the friend had gone. I asked my son, “why did you bring him back to ask, I had told you what time you could stay out until”.“He thought he could get round you and you would change your mind like his dad would. I told him you wouldn’t but he didn’t believe me. I knew you meant what you said”. There was a consistency. His discipline did not depend on a whim or whether I was busy. My son knew where he stood with discipline with his parents. He was, possibly, told off less than some of his friends because he had firm rules and not wishy-washy ones which might be applied one time and then not the next with the child having no idea which would happen.

And please don’t get thinking that I was a perfect parent. I made mistakes but now, in my grumpy old dotage, I can at least identify the bits I got right.

My final point concerns being reasonable and not just exerting authority because you can. In 2005 I went to work in New Zealand for a while. I quickly discovered that there was a Bruce McLaren school. This man was my hero ever since I met him at Crystal Palace in the late 1950’s with my father. To be grammatically correct my father and I met him at Crystal Palace; he wasn’t with my father. I just had to work with this school. It would be like finding a Tina Maze school today (check the last blog as to why). Now, perhaps I should have realised there might be a problem. On the first day we met, August 30th 2005, I told the principal and his deputy how honoured I was to be there, especially on the day that would have been Bruce’s 68th birthday. “Oh, is it”, they said.

Anyhow a few months later we went along and gave a talk to the pupils who would be working with us. They all filtered into the hall, sat on the floor and listened for about 30 minutes. Then we had questions. We got the usual ones about where did we want to visit next, what did we think of New Zealand, what country we had visited did we like best? Sometimes we got the same question in a different form just because someone had wanted to be part of it all but couldn’t really think of something new. It didn’t matter to me; it meant they were enthusiastic about working with us and we had successfully motivated them.

At the end, the deputy principal walked to the front and I thought he was going to thank us or even ask a pupil to do so. He did say thanks but then said that he had noticed, while we had been talking, that shoes were squeaking on the floor. The pupils were all sitting, cross-legged, on a wooden floor with their feet under them. He announced that, as a result, everyone would now sit still for five minutes. I have a feeling I may have shouted out “you idiot” but maybe I didn’t. He had just undone all the work we did. When they left that hall, those pupils would most likely remember having been made to sit still, not the joy of working with us. Everyone did as they were told and we all waited for those five minutes. Unfortunately, while we waited, I could still hear little squeaks, although I don’t think he saw my feet moving. That was an example of unreasonable discipline and it could affect those children all their life. Not only did it dampen their enthusiasm for something but I believe that if you are unreasonable with children, they may grow to be unreasonable too.

This story actually had a happy-ending for me anyway. A few months later I went along to a little garage in Remura and met and talked to Bruce’s sister, Jan McLaren who helps to run the Bruce McLaren Trust. I told this little story to her and, it seems, that she and I had a similar view on education.

And that, said John, is that. We, of the older generation, as parents, grandparents and teachers have an immense influence on the lives of the next generations. As that influence, that stoker of curiosity, that window cleaner on knowledge, just remember that your personality, your attitude to them, will affect the way they see you and, ultimately, the way they formulate their lives. It’s one hell of a responsibility.