Discussion of an authoritarian zero tolerance school

Little robots: behind the scenes in an academy school. An ethnographic study of a 'flagship'academy school with zero tolerance revealing bullying, regimentation, coercion, leading to a toxic environment in which only the compliant can remain. This is the opposite to what we argue, the spectre we argue against.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/little-robots-behind-the-scenes-at-an-academy-school

An excellent review by Les Back (Goldsmiths) here treating discipline here to a psychological version of corporal punishment (caning).

Lincoln High School Walla Walla

Everything we have argued for is found here, in Western Australia. Relate don't suspend!

This is how it went down: A student blows up at a teacher, drops the F-bomb. The usual approach at Lincoln – and, safe to say, at most high schools in this country – is automatic suspension.

Instead, Sporleder sits the kid down and says quietly: “Wow. Are you OK? This doesn’t sound like you. What’s going on?” He gets even more specific: “You really looked stressed. On a scale of 1-10, where are you with your anger?”

The kid was ready. Ready, man! For an anger blast to his face….”How could you do that?” “What’s wrong with you?”…and for the big boot out of school. But he was NOT ready for kindness. The armor-plated defenses melt like ice under a blowtorch and the words pour out: “My dad’s an alcoholic. He’s promised me things my whole life and never keeps those promises.” The waterfall of words that go deep into his home life, which is no piece of breeze, end with this sentence: “I shouldn’t have blown up at the teacher.”

https://acestoohigh.com/2012/04/23/lincoln-high-school-in-walla-walla-wa-tries-new-approach-to-school-discipline-expulsions-drop-85/

At the dentist

A visit to the dental hygienist today led to an interesting conversation. We will call her Kay and her assistant Jenny. Their children are in nursery and infant schools locally. Kay has known me for years and was asking about my research and I mentioned that Living Contradiction was published last September. That led to a conversation about infant schools when I said that my ambition is for schools to be happy places for children.

Jenny’s daughter was in Reception but receiving an extraordinary amount of homework “because the curriculum was too big to fit into school hours” (quoting the class teacher). Jenny’s concern was that this was upsetting her quality time with her child. She would normally read to her and with her, play imaginatively, chat about the day and so on. But homework was a formal list declared completed in a homework book. The child is 4 years old. What madness is requiring schools to do this? Seeking to fill every minute up to a 7pm bedtime? The mother’s instincts that relationship, enjoyment, and well-being should take precedence are absolutely correct. Homework at this age is inappropriate, the school’s neurotic response to government and inspectors misguidance. I advised ignoring homework and being creative with filling in the homework book. Jenny said she already was, but felt vindicated by our conversation.

Kay’s eldest was 7-8 and entering the world or digraphs and trigraphs (incidentally disempowering parents). This is classic step by step SSP (Miskin phonix) assuming that the children had not puzzled over tough, rough, bough, cough, dough, through and though long ago. I could read before school and can barely remember the process. Then, recognition, sounding out and reading as a habit all mingled. By 1982 I wrote a dissertation on reading readiness in which the current wisdom was this multi-approach was advocated. Of course phonics were not ignored, but English has more exceptions than rules, such as I before E.

I explained that my philosophy was that school should be an enjoyable place where children were happy and motivated, and that this was against government ideas of top-down authority and punishment. We will talk again. I have looked out a spare copy of Living Contraction for them.

Jarlath O'Brien

Looking at negative behaviour as the communication of an unmet need has transformed my understanding of behaviour.

His book:  Don't Send Him in Tomorrow: Shining a light on the marginalised, disenfranchised and forgotten children of today's schools from his experience in school and the police.

Review by Chris Searle, Sean's former school teacher

Review of 'Living Contradiction' by Sean Warren and Stephen Bigger (Crown House Publishing)

    'Living Contradiction' is an extraordinary book about education and also the adverse of it.

    It is full of very powerful arguments and poses the essential question to teachers: 'Is it possible to build good, positive relationships with pupils without sacrificing order and discipline?' At its centre it has a profoundly honest and lucid narrative about the conscious classroom odyssey of a teacher.

    One of its authors, Sean Warren, is also its main protagonist. The book tells his story, how he went to school in East London while living in Coventry Cross Estate, one of the worst estates in Tower Hamlets, and coping with very challenging family circumstances; how he left school at 16 and became a builder's labourer; how through his own determined volition he eventually qualified as a teacher.

    He tells, self-critically, of his embrace of classroom authoritarianism, how he became a champion of behaviourist approaches and 'quick fix solutions' based around zero tolerance, 'assertive discipline' and rigid sanctions, and how he 'patrolled the corridors and had the undiluted support of the head teacher.' He became the exemplar of the New Model Teacher advocated by OFSTED and took on the state-approved and teacher-pressurising role of the'county's behaviour and attendance consultant'. His own practice he describes as 'increasingly draconian' and admits: 'Control.... had come to define me. I was contributing to a climate of fear masquerading as respect.'

    Yet all this power-centredness was having a contradictory effect upon his own psyche, and he began to realise 'in my arrogance there is clear evidence of my administering sovereign power over others. I also actively suppressed myself.' For he began to recognise, what he was demonstrating to others was also gradually pulling him down. 'I psychologically adopted a bullish mask of confidence, assurance and assertiveness. It manifested in my walk and in my stance; it exuded from my personality.'

    Such realisations made him determined to change his methods and behaviour as a teacher, and the book charts Warren's struggle to shake off this authoritarian persona, which he began to understand was destroying any opportunities to achieve a self-activated learning, student cooperation and a democratic classroom. As such it is a teacher's story which is entirely gripping and relevant.

    For me it was a revelation, as 14 year old Sean Warren, now 52, was in my class in Poplar in the late Seventies, and was a powerfully creative student - the co-author with Paul Parris, a black classmate, of a fine anti-racist play called 'Moonlight' which was published by the Inner London Education Authority. When we showed it in his dressing room to the great Caribbean actor Norman Beaton (of 'Desmond's' fame), who was performing in Mustapha Matura's play 'Nice' at Theatre Royal, Stratford, E!5, Beaton was strongly impressed by the text and offered his own brand of generous encouragement. 'Keep on keeping on!' he said with a huge smile. It seems that Warren never forgot that, hence this powerful book, some 38 years later.