Divergent Learning Diaries

So, as I wrote in my entry ‘Doubt and Dilemma’,  our daughter, Patti,  returned to her mainstream school after just under a year in burnout recovery.  It wasn’t anything to do with us.  Patti is a force of wills all on her own.  She was going to do it.  It was time.  We were fearful.  Cautiously not optimistic.  But we were also her cheerleaders.

She had a large panic attack on the evening of her first day back.  She persisted.  She was very tearful on the evening of the second day.  She persisted still.  The amount of time she was staying in school shortened.  This was fine.  We said it had to be her pace.  This was her process.

Afternoons and evenings turned into periods of great need.  The two weeks in which Patti attended school were tough.  She has always had a secure, sometimes overwhelming attachment to me.  More often than not,  she will cement this by demonstrating lashing spite towards her father should he deign to enter the same room as us.  This is hard for him.  As intensely as he loves her he finds it agonising to be so frequently spurned by her.  He will often complain of abuse.  He will often just back off and see that she’s struggling.  A lot of tiptoeing.  

Then there’s me.  I am most definitely Patti’s person.  I’m honoured by this.  I’m totally exhausted by this.   She’ll sit tight by my side, looking at me intensely as though I have all the answers.  Not aware, in the way I keenly am, of my very human limitations.  I can’t make that school better for her.  It’s just not within my powers.

So I didn’t have the answers for her.  The answers had to come from her. ‘E’, ‘Ducere’.

The two weeks Patti managed to attend school surfaced tensions in the family once again that had been diminishing during the process of her time for recovery.

After two quite bitty weeks of trying to go to school, a period in which she attended one Maths lesson, one English lesson and spent the rest of the time in a room, sometimes with a TA mostly by herself, Patti threw in the towel. 

‘I can’t go anymore, Mum.’

Her twin sister Joni’s response was telling.  ‘What?  No mum.  She has to go.  Mum make her.  What about her GCSEs?’  

I gently pushed back.  Patti needs to carve out her own path to success.  She’s going to go her own way.  It’s ok. You can continue to go yours.

Our response?  

Pride.  Relief.  Uncertainty.

Immense pride that she recognised her limitations,  That she wasn’t going to squeeze herself into the expected mould;  fix her daily mask to get through the school day.  I had seen where this led her before.  Patti’s decision was a testimony to a new found ability to preserve her wellbeing.  To have developed this skill, to be able to apply this skill at 13 years old is a little sad but also incredibly impressive.  Learnt the hard way, didnt she.

Relief, for mostly the same reasons as we were proud.  But the relief is for us as much as her.  We both know the mainstream secondary school environment well.  We sensed that it would crush her time and again.  We feared that she might keep failing and insisting she’d try again.  

But no.  

For the first time Patti has said she’d like to see other types of schools.  Ones with people like her in.  Ones where she doesn’t have to steel herself with iron will just to make it through half a day.  

Patti is a demand avoidant individual.  She’ll buy in when she’s ready.  Our fear was that she might never be ready.  But she says she might be now.  That she’ll try.

And then the uncertainty.  Where will she go?  Is there somewhere designed with Patti in mind?  Will she find her sanctuary?  Will she meet her people?   For anyone who knows how the next bit works, they know that a new test of wills is about to begin.  

As an educator, working in the mainstream for over 25 years, believing in the power and value of school education for so long, I have been on a sharp learning curve.  I’m inspired by the potential alternatives to learning in the standard, identikit school environment.  Having read Dr Naomi Fishers’ book, ‘A Different Way To Learn’,  following advice and guidance on Heidi Mavir’s The Marble Run about EOTAS (Education Other Than At School)  and from dipping into the refreshingly radical, ‘How to quit school and get a real life’ by American Educator Grace Llewellyn,  I’m beyond excited by the seemingly limitless potential of unschooling and self directed learning.  It’s completely shaken up my views about what Education could look like. Both inside and outside of school settings.

I learnt Latin at school.  My Latin teacher himself was from an ancient epoch and I can’t remember most of what we did in his lessons (or much Latin). He used quite a Victorian approach.  But, I do remember one thing he said about the word ‘Education.’  That it was a derivative of a classical linguistic construct which combined the word ‘Ducere’ meaning ‘to lead’, and the prefix ‘E’ which signifies ‘from’.  He said that ‘Education’ etymologically should be translated as ‘ to draw out.’  Therefore, he said, the role of the teacher was to draw knowledge from the student.  That learning came from within.  That it comes from our core.

Now, this guy left my school to retire when I was about Patti’s age (late 1980s) but I can remember this lesson like it was yesterday.  He was basically saying what I now fundamentally know.  That Education is about finding the core of each learner and ‘drawing out’ their creative purpose.  Their own brand of inspiration.  This is so far from what we have in the framework of UK schooling.  A kind of childist approach where adults model expected outcomes. The National Curriculum.  One size fitting all.  Nicely Orwellian.

So here was I, beautifully ‘researched up’ to explore radical alternatives to straight laced schooling for my unique child. Patti is naturally sharp and curious.  She has self taught Guitar and Piano.  She’s fascinated by Politics and Ethics.  Unschooling could be the thing that teased out the wonder and creativity that I know is lurking beneath her stern surface.   This could be good.  Great even.  

Unfortunately, this idea drew a big fat ‘NO’ from Patti.

She can’t learn at home.  Home is for fun and rest.  Nope.  She’s not doing any form of home learning.

Patti wants a ‘her’ shaped school.  A place that she can get on the bus to.  Where she can arrive and put her backpack in a locker.  Where she can organise her pens and pencils and other learning utensils on her desk.  But mostly, where she can lift her head and see other versions of her.  Other kids who couldn’t face the mainstream.  Who just aren’t built to conform.  Who may just have a shred of understanding about what she has been through.

Patti wants human connections.  A  peer group.  A life and a purpose of her own.  

Our purpose will become a flow of visits to settings with her to see if any of them look like she imagines.  Too see if any look like they will be able to wrap their arms around her.  If any of them have the potential to ‘draw out’ the fierceness and vibrance of her spirit.  Her spirit, dampened down by the trauma of adhering to the orthodoxy.

We have some appointments lined up for next week.  Patti will lead us through this.  When she sees the place, she will know it.

And at that point we will put on our combat gear to face the inevitable resistance of our local authority caseworker (sigh).  We’ll be in for the long haul.  ‘A drawn out’ conflict, of that I have little doubt.  

But for now, we’ll drink in some hope.  We are entering the first phase of something new.  Something better.  We just need to reach inside ourselves and draw it out.

Educere.

Thanks for reading.