What Learners Bring To School

As a mainstream form tutor, I used to worry a lot about what my learners brought to school with them. I used to do equipment checks on a Monday morning: pen, pencil, rubber, ruler. I was big on the alliteration and rhythm! I would worry about the kid who brought an almost empty bag and help them out so they didn't have to ask for a pen every lesson. Other kids brought bags groaning with everything they would need for the week: all their exercise books, giant Science text books, PE kit. I used to worry about their shoulders and backs being permanently deformed. I was of the opinion that what kids brought to school said a lot about them: how prepared they were to learn, how organised their home-life was and how committed they were to their learning.

I still think that what learners bring to school is important, and I still think that it says a lot about them and their readiness to learn, but what the children I work with now bring to school is baggage of a different kind. 

Have you ever done that training exercise where someone passes round a bottle of fizzy drink to represent a child? As it is passed from hand to hand the trainer says things like, "Simon has slept badly because his brother was playing loud music...his parents had a fight...he has had no breakfast...nobody washed his uniform so its dirty..." Eventually they stop and the person holding the bottle is asked if they would like to open the bottle. Unsurprisingly, no-one ever does. 

It's a good metaphor for the build up of negative factors that many of our children face before they get to us and will go home to. Poor housing, parents who argue, lack of money, no food in the house, washing machine broken so their clothes are dirty, lack of space and privacy...

Sometimes they really need 5 minutes peace, a bacon sandwich and a sympathetic ear before they go to class. It's not much to ask is it?

That, of course, is the tip of the iceberg. Dig down deeper into a learner's "baggage" and you will often find poverty, mental health problems and inadequate parenting. Dig right down and what you usually find is anxiety, depression and attachment disorders. 

I used to blame the parents. I thought that parents just had to do better for their kids - that there was no excuse for poor parenting. I'm less quick to judge these days - often the parents are carrying their own baggage which they inherited from their parents.  Working with a systemic therapist has taught me that the children in a family often become the focus of attention and intervention when in fact they are reacting to the problematic behaviours of their parents. The parents need help. The children get the help. The idea that the problem lies with the child is reinforced and so it goes on... The poor kid is dragging around their own baggage and that of their parents. No wonder they can't focus on Macbeth whinging on about the pointlessness of life from the battlements of his castle - his problems seem a bit trivial to be honest, and he did bring it all on himself.

I think back to the "difficult" learners I met in mainstream. The ones who never had the right equipment, hadn't done their homework, lacked focus. I think back to how their brothers were just the same and how their parents didn't come to parents' evening and were difficult to get hold of on the phone. I'm glad for all the times I gave a kid one of the emergency pencil cases I used to keep in my drawer to use. I'm glad for all the times I let them have a minute before they came in, or had a quick friendly chat about nothing very much at the start of the lesson. I wish I had done it more often. 

I was right to worry about those heavy bags. I just wish that I had had more of a clue about the invisible weight some of them were carrying and how they were being permanently damaged lugging it around.