School Doesn't Exist in a Vacuum
I once wrote this sentence down:
“School doesn't exist in a vacuum.”
Then underneath it I wrote:
“Studies don't exist in a vacuum.”
Not particularly profound, perhaps.
But I knew what I was trying to capture.
Sometimes a maths exam is just a maths exam.
You sit down. You know some of the answers. You don't know others. Perhaps you revised. Perhaps you didn't.
And sometimes it is a maths exam after a sleepless night.
After an argument at home.
After being frightened.
After somebody has died.
On a calm day, sure. Perhaps it really is as straightforward as can be. It is a maths exam.
But on a day full of pain or sorrow, the maths exam has company.
And that company comes into school too.
A child doesn't leave themselves at the school gate
I think what I was trying to capture is something quite simple.
A child doesn't leave the rest of themselves at the school gate.
Their body comes in.
Their thoughts come in.
Their fears come in.
Their memories come in.
Their relationships come in.
The argument from last night comes in.
So does excitement.
So does falling in love for the first time.
So does embarrassment.
So does grief.
And then we ask that entire human being to sit down and learn algebra.
The outside and the inside meet at the desk
We sometimes talk about learning as though it were a fairly isolated process.
Information is presented.
The child pays attention.
The child remembers it.
The child demonstrates what they have learned.
Simple.
Except the brain doing the learning is also the brain experiencing everything else.
Anyone who has tried to concentrate while waiting for frightening news knows this.
Read the same paragraph ten times.
Nothing.
Your eyes have travelled across every word, but your mind has been somewhere else entirely.
We adults generally understand this about ourselves.
I'm sorry, I'm not really with it today.
I've got a lot going on.
I didn't sleep.
I can't think straight.
We recognise that something happening in one part of our life can spill into another.
Children don't become exempt from this simply because the bell has gone.
Sometimes behaviour is the bit we can see
The difficult thing is that we don't always know what walked into the classroom with a child.
We see what happens on the outside.
A child isn't concentrating.
They put their head on the desk.
They snap at somebody.
They don't complete the work.
They refuse to come into the classroom.
They become silly at exactly the moment everybody needs them to settle down.
They seem uninterested.
They explode over something tiny.
And because behaviour is visible, behaviour can easily become the entire story.
They're being difficult.
They're not trying.
They're disruptive.
They don't care.
And sometimes that may even be partly true.
Children, like adults, can avoid things they don't want to do. They can test boundaries. They can make poor choices.
But behaviour doesn't appear out of nowhere.
In another note, I wrote:
“A child's behaviour is never random.”
Again, quite a blunt sentence.
What I mean is that behaviour happens in a context. There is something before it, around it or after it that gives that behaviour its function.
Something happened.
Something was felt.
Something is being avoided.
Something is being communicated.
Something worked once and was learned.
So perhaps alongside How do we stop this behaviour?, there is another question worth asking:
What is happening here?
Not as an excuse.
As information.
The glass didn't become heavier
Imagine carrying a glass of water.
Easy enough.
Now carry the same glass while holding three shopping bags, answering your phone and trying to open a door.
The glass didn't become heavier.
You became more loaded.
I think children experience versions of this all the time.
On a calm day, the maths problem may require 30% of what they have available.
On another day, getting themselves into the classroom may already have required most of it.
Then we hand them the same task and are surprised that the result is different.
This doesn't mean expectations disappear whenever life becomes difficult.
Actually, I think there is another side to this.
Life doesn't always move the deadline because something terrible happened.
There will be things we have to do while sad.
Things we have to do while frightened.
Things we have to do after barely sleeping.
Things we have to do while part of our mind desperately wants to be somewhere else.
So perhaps learning how to continue when life is difficult is one of the most important things we ever learn.
But “keep going” is itself something that needs to be learned.
I wrote that down too.
And then:
How do you keep going after your parents separate?
How do you keep going after somebody dies?
And perhaps the bigger question:
What does it mean to keep going?
I don't know that there is one answer.
Maybe that's the point.
Children need to learn the inside too
This is where, for me, education becomes bigger than what we traditionally call education.
Children spend years learning about the world outside themselves.
Numbers.
Language.
History.
Countries.
Plants.
Planets.
The human body.
All important.
But they are also carrying around an internal world that will accompany them into every exam, relationship, job, loss, failure and decision they will ever have.
Perhaps they should learn something about that too.
What happens to me when I'm frightened?
What happens when I'm overwhelmed?
Why is concentrating harder today than yesterday?
What does grief do to attention?
What does lack of sleep do to me?
Why do I want to avoid something when I think I might fail?
What helps me come back?
How do I notice that I'm reaching my limit before I explode?
How do I keep going when something hurts?
This isn't about asking children to endlessly analyse themselves.
It is about giving them some understanding of the person who is doing the learning.
Because we don't just need to look at what is happening outside.
We need to look inside too.
And, perhaps most importantly, at how the two meet.
The maths exam has company
There will be calm days.
On those days, perhaps a maths exam really can be just a maths exam.
And there will be days full of pain and sorrow.
The exam will still be there.
But perhaps education can do more than simply place the paper on the desk and measure what comes back.
Perhaps we can help children understand what else has arrived at that desk with them.
Not so that every difficult thing is removed.
But so that they can begin to recognise what is happening inside, how it interacts with what is being asked of them outside, and what they might need in order to take the next step.
Because school doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Neither does learning.
And certainly not the child.
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About the author
Anita Toze is a Clinical Psychologist (HCPC registered in the UK) with a background in Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy. She works online and in person with adults and young people aged 11 and over.
Cover photo by note thanun on Unsplash
