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SHARE YOUR STORY
"Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in."
-Leonard Cohen (in Anthem)
What is your story about schooling?
Tell us your narrative, or leave a comment or a thought. We try to respond personally to every post.
This is a public forum, and we will read your post before it goes up (that takes about 24 hours). You can decide whether you want to use your real name or be anonymous. None of that information will ever be used by us.
Thanks for TALKING ABOUT IT!
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| February 06, 2012 06:06 AM |
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Total Records : 41
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Name
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| First Name | : Rebekka | | Last Name | : Brucker | | Email | : bruckrn@hotmail.com |
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| June 01, 2011 11:49 AM | |
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I am a 21 year old college student, and I am constantly discovering ways that my school wounds might *still* be affecting my life.
I don't remember a lot about school before my older sister got sick in 1999, when I was in 3rd grade. Her illness threw a wrench into things of course, but for the most part we remained a pretty happy family. Of course, the happiness couldn't last and she passed away in April 2001. That september, I started middle school.
Grief, dealing with the relapse my dad had in his alcoholism from my sister's death, and an undiagnosed learning disorder meant my grades were absolute crap. I didn't have any interest in learning when I was too busy trying to deal with this incredible pain. Trying to meet the expectations of six or seven different teachers at the same time? Goodness.
From what I can remember, the teachers that year were not too bad, but it started getting worse when I entered 7th grade. I had this one teacher in particular that said these things that scared the hell out of me. I was still not doing well in school but instead of trying to figure out if anything was wrong, the teacher started saying things such as "If you keep this up, you're going to be held back in 8th grade. I'm one of the staff members that decides if a student gets held back". I felt so ashamed. I started seeing the idea of being held back as a punishment instead of another opportunity to succeed, but guess what? It didn't motivate me--I was completely stuck.
I remember once when I managed to actually pluck up the nerve to express how I was feeling, I started to talk about my sister and the teacher said "You can't keep using her death as an excuse forever." In hindsight, she was right... but this hindsight comes now a decade after my sister died. That conversation took place way too soon, and when I was actually trying to be open about my feelings.
8th grade was the year I gave up on myself and any ability I might have once had to succeed at school. My history teacher that year once mocked me because I didn't have any paper left. I kept hearing these little things from teachers... comments, nothing too ground breaking, but the comments were enough to make me feel SO ashamed of myself.
That was also the year my mom and I both heard of dyscalculia, a learning difficulty in math. She has every single symptom (and cried when she found out, because up until that point she thought that she was just stupid!), and I had nearly every one. To finally grasp an answer like that... I felt relieved.
I tried to bring it up to my math teacher, but he ignored me. I didn't speak about possibly having dyscalculia until I got to college, and didn't get officially diagnosed until this year. The damage has already been done... I've taken pre-algebra five times in my life and admitting that to people always makes me feel embarrassed. At least now I have an explanation to offer.
March 2004, the assistant principal unexpectedly stopped me from going to first period to tell me that I was being held back in 8th grade. She could have at least maybe called my mom to come in and be with me when she told me, or gave me some prior notice beforehand. I told her my family was moving, so I knew that I would not be repeating 8th grade at that school.
Turns out, I was given some sort of grace and continued onto 9th grade when we moved, but I was very apathetic about school at this point. At the age of 14! Does anyone else find that sad?
Around that time, my dad stopped drinking. Life was getting better.
I started to finally improve my grades by 11th grade but 9th and 10th were filled with too many failures. I ended up having to repeat 12th grade because I lacked enough credits to graduate. The school counselor offered these packets that I could complete and turn in for the credits, but they were $100 a packet and I needed several. My family couldn't afford them.
I was tempted to drop out and just get my GED because I felt that being a dropout would be less humiliating than repeating 12th grade. My self esteem was crippled. The years of school wounds caught up to me, and I almost gave up during my 2nd round of 12th grade. Luckily, I was completing that grade in a wonderful school-home program and my teacher was incredible... no one in that program gave up on me. I graduated summer of 2009 and started at the local community college that fall.
However, even now in college I still flip-flop between feeling like I might actually have a successful life someday, or that I'm just going to flunk out. I've read that part of success in school is to communicate with your teachers, but I am terrified of what they'd say. I give up on myself long before I let anyone give up on me first. |
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| First Name | : Laurie | | Last Name | : Couture |
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| December 15, 2010 8:04 AM | |
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Hi Kirsten,
>
> I'm the author of "Instead of Medicating and Punishing: Healing the Causes
> of Our Children's Acting-Out Behavior by Parenting and Educating the Way
> Nature Intended". I am 3/4 of the way through your book and I discovered
> this morning that you mentioned my former website, ChildAdvocate.org in
> your book. While I was delighted, I also felt badly that the page you are
> referring to is no longer live, as my website was rebuilt last year. The
> URL will still connect people to my new site, LaurieACouture.com. On the
> bottom of the homepage I have created an Archives of ChildAdvocate.org
> section, still in the works, and I hope to (at the mercy of my pro bono
> webmasters) add the articles for youth that you referenced.
>
> I appreciate you book and I had planned to contact you prior to seeing
> that you mentioned my former website as there are many things that have
> gone through my mind. As someone who was deeply wounded by school, I am a
> very radical critic of school and have unschooled my son. I have also
> worked in the mental health field for many years and have watched the
> corrosive, relentless suffering of children ages 3-18 in the public
> schools.
>
> I was wondering if you were aware that in addition to intellectual wounds,
> that in 20 states in the US, most down South, it is completely legal for
> schools to beat children with boards? While we don't see that in New
> England where I live, children (myself included as a child) are traumatized
> by teachers who restrict toilet use and emotionally abuse students and by
> student who relentlessly harass and bully. The list of wounds is holistic
> and overpowering.
>
> I did note your "A Learners Bill of Rights" at the start of your book and
> wondered if when you were on my old site if you had encountered "The
> Student's Bill of Rights" that I had written.
>
> I offer consultation to parents who are looking for help and a way out of
> the wounding school system. I wanted to let you know that I am a resource
> if you encounter parents in your research that need consultation, coaching
> and support to help their children. I will do pro bono work for
> impoverished families. Location is not a problem, as I work via email,
> phone or Skype.
>
> I appreciate you book, will recommend it to my clients, and hope that when
> I get to the end that it does recommend homeschooling/unschooling and
> democratic schools such as The Sudbury Valley Free School as options to
> escape the wounding process of schools. I look forward to corresponding
> with you.
>
> Laurie A. Couture
> www.LaurieACouture.com
>
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| First Name | : Robert | | Last Name | : W | | Email | : in germany |
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| July 16, 2010 7:56 AM | |
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pril 9 at 1:00am
Dear Dr. Olson,
Unfortunately, I need to be brief as I need to get ready for work. I am also a teacher. I have almost finished your book, "Wound by School" The only thing that I can say is thank you a million times over. This book should be a part of every teacher training course. Hell, everybody that roams the face of the earth should read it because it would clarify so much.
Dr. Olson, as I read this book, i can not help but to jump back and re-read certain passages and chapters again and again. I was also wounded by my school and my educational experience. It was just horrid. I was one of the "class fags" at a catholic school that my parents sent me to with the hope of getting a solid education that woud prepare me for university. I was mentally abused by both fellow students and teachers. My will to learn was crushed. Yet, somehow or another, I managed to get a diploma. Don't ask me how.
I doubted myself for years. I believed that I was stupid and that I would not amount to anything. I considered myself to be less than a person because of this tragic and traumatic experience that I had endured.
I, too, was put in a remedial reading class by my 9th grade English because I did not have any interest in reading "Johnny Tremain", some bullshit book about the american revolution I think. I never bothered to read it. The fact of the matter is that after being sent a very clear message that I did not know how to read, i essentially switched off. I remember so vividly being sent into what was basically a utility closet to sit with one other student and a woman that was the furthest thing from a teacher. I filled in the worksheets that any chimpanzee could have completed, yet I could not get out of this sentence. I would sit in this small room, while my classmates had their regular english lesson and jumped through Sister Catherine's hoops. When the bell rang and this torture was over, i would walk out of the room with my head down in shame and would suffer the ridicule from so many. I hated myself. I hated school. I hated learning. I hated books.
I could go on and on and on and on with the experiences that had been burned in my mind and heart; however, time is a limitation at this point.
Long story short, i became a teacher. I worked as a teacher trainer for the School for International training in Brattleboro VT. For the past 14 years I have carried those experiences with me and made sure that I would not ever commit the same crimes that the people who were charged with educating me to the students that I work with. (horrible sentence much too early my mind is racing, whatever)
Now I am learner and learning centered teacher, which often creates frustration on the part of colleagues who have no problem with teacher centered classrooms. I look at every learner that I work with as an individual and fully understand that while, "It" may not happen today tomorrow or next year, learning and the desire to learn can unfold, given the right circumstances. It did for me when I entered university.
You know, I have taught in some of the best schools in europe. i have had experiences that most of those people who were charged with teaching me never had and will never have. I have met great artists and politicians and opera singers, and yeah so many others that made me realize so much about myself and my ability to play an active part in civilized society. Those people in my schol will never know what they did to me. I dont think that they would understand. The fact of the matter is that they probably wouldnt even care.
I only say that they wouldnt care because when I was suffering the verbal abuse of "faggot, do you use vaseline!!" and a thousand other comments of this nature, i begged for help. Jesus Christ, i wasnt even sexually active at this point, nor did i fullly know if I was gay. At any rate, I went to those that sat in the leadership positions and asked them to do something to make it stop. A catholic priest told me, "What do you want me to do? Should I get on the P.A. system and tell everybody to stop picking on poor little Robert because he cant handle the pressure?" I was shocked and refused to go to school for about a week. I was "sick" for my parents and managed to avoid school. When that excuse no longer worked, i physically barricaded myself in my bedroom by pulling a dresser in front of the door, so that my parents could not come in and get me out. I was being victimized then and nobody helped.
I could go on. but i am looking at the clock and i have my responsibilty to the students that I work with.
Dr. Olson, I just want to thank you personally. because you and your book have helped me further to process this trauma that I went through. I would like to say that my life experience and my teacher training program brought out a lot of awareness, but your book added and is adding about another 10, 000 facets to my awareness as a teacher.
Thank you a million times over. Thank you!!
I would also like to know whether or not your book has been translated into German. I have shared some of the ideas with my colleauges and they are very interested.
Is there any possible way to take part in your mission. ??
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| First Name | : Betsy | | Last Name | : Nordell |
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| April 30, 2010 8:28 AM | |
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Hi Kirsten,
Many thanks for such a thought provoking talk. Your passion, dedication and perseverance are palpable and infectious!
I appreciate you sending along your article and your sharing of possible future funders for my work in the field. Every spare moment I have, I study and consider different possibilities for bringing this information to educators.
At the moment, my main focus is fostering Teacher Flourishing. The core of my work is Parker Palmer's, "you teach who you are". I am really curious about helping teachers thrive regardless of circumstance.
I have noticed such a decline in teachers' verve over my 17 years working with educators. A few weeks ago, a discouraged teacher said to me, "I really ought to smile more... I am a Kindergarten teacher". This experienced and skillful educator felt overwhelmed by the expectations placed on her, along with the overlay of intense testing and its impact on school culture.
I want to help this teacher and others like her. A question nags at me... how can teachers thrive even when things are far from ideal? The old -- how can they "grow where they are planted?"
We owe it to the children to find ways to help teachers because as the saying goes... "if Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy".
Part of the challenge may relate to what this teacher is "seeing"...
How might exploring what it is that she “sees” when she is in the classroom impact this teacher’s life? What does she notice? What does she tend to? Why? What part of her day is focused on the things that aren't going well? What might also exist within that same time and space that she doesn't notice?
Among other things, mindfulness work and Teacher as Researcher comes to mind.
What might be the impact on her and her students if she were to increase, even slightly, the amount of time she spent thinking about things that are going well. What might happen if she sought out the things that were working and appreciated them explicitly and intentionally?
Part of the challenge may relate to what this teacher thinks and says about what she is "seeing"...
What is this teacher noticing about her students? What does she know to be true about them? How does she describe them? On what is this knowledge and description based? What is her perception of their aptitude and potential? What might happen if she reconsiders these beliefs about her students through a self- fulfilling prophecy lens?
What interpretations/judgments is she making about what is happening in her classroom? What might be some other ways to interpret the situations? What words does she usually use? What other words could also be used? What might happen if different words were explored to describe the situation?
What might happen if she examined her own self-esteem and that of her students, through considering the work of Nathaniel Brandon… her mindset and foundational beliefs about teaching & learning through an exploration of Carol Dweck's work. How does this teacher interpret her own "mistakes" - failure? learning? What language does she use - both internal and external - to define her world? Her students?
Very simply, how can we help support teachers so they are better able to bring the best of who they are + the best of what they know to their teaching practice?
Thanks for doing such courageous and important work. I feel such gratitude to have met you.
wishing you well ~ Betsy
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| First Name | : Norma | | Last Name | : Sarmiento | | Email | : Live Laugh Learn Foundation |
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| April 30, 2010 8:12 AM | |
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I was thinking about what you asked me last night…if I had seen SEL working at high school level…well, I did teach high school many years ago, Spanish, I also home tutored kids who were expelled or suspended or ill, and although I did not have a name for it back then I did…
I would always start my classes saying…nobody has to do homework, take tests or even come to class, all of you are going to pass automatically…but I have to give them cause its required of me and I will be teaching it because I really think what I know has helped me out tremendously and I would love to teach it to all of you..Those who come to class and are interested in learning will get a great reward at the end and those who don’t want to learn don’t have to ….I am not here to judge you on your learning, I am here for you to judge me on my teaching, and for that I need you to come and see if I am able to teach you what I have to offer….
The kids were very confused at first, some didn’t show up and so I would ask those that did if they knew them to please tell them to come cause I needed to talk to them…and one by one they did, they came, they learned, they passed, they graded me (which was the most rewarding thing of all) AND I NEVER HAD A STUDENT FAIL A REGENTS or act up in my class !! But when they messed up I would show them I was upset and would say “this is the day of the second chance…, do you want to stay??”
True, it was many years ago, but believe me It worked…even with the suspended “bad kids” ,
It still works when I am dealing with kids in courts or wards or private home tutoring classes, and it helped with the sleuth of teenagers I had working for me at my business “lets bounce and party” – they were all on the honor system , they picked their own schedules, covered each other when they couldn’t make it, decided who did what had to be done, were self- correcting things they messed up with or apologetic…they went out and tried to get me business as if the place was their own and defended me like the place was theirs!!!,,,not to say they didn’t make me crazy and I didn’t get upset with them because they did mess up, (but don’t we all??)…they are teenagers and need a lot of tlc to get them through that …but they were so good overall and so grateful of their second chances…
I do believe people respond to feeling liked, even when I reprimanded them they were ok because they felt that it was a critique of that action which was independent of my feelings or judgements of them…
Well. I just thought I would answer that which I couldn’t answer last night and I THANK YOU AGAIN
Norma
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