by Angie R.

With a quite alarming increase of autocratically-leaning politicians worldwide, proposing autocratic policies and limiting the freedom of speech, human rights of medical access, and much more which has been taken for granted until recently, I assume many people, like myself, have wondered how that could be.

After all, we’re our most enlightened in human history, aren’t we? We have science, a good understanding of the world, facts, and a look back into history in detail available to the public like never before.

Education is the most available it has ever been in human history – crossing a wide span of classes, ethnicities, skin colours, sexual preferences, etc. The internet has given us access to pretty much any piece of information we could ask for (and a lot more we didn’t ask for) – so, why are we going back to a place where people seemingly prefer to be told by an autocrat what to do, think and choose?

Obviously, I will not be able to give a fully-fledged answer to this in a short blog post. Millions of books have been written and are being written about this very phenomenon as we speak, exploring the issue from a wide range of perspectives. So, as for most things in life we believe, this is not inventing the wheel new. It is just a short perspective from a mother of two, worrying about the state of the world, thinking and reflecting. Wondering.

If I were ever up for the Miss Universe title (and it’s very, very unlikely that this will ever happen), and the question popularised in the film Miss Congeniality would be asked: “What is the one most important thing our society needs?”, I would not answer with “world peace”. I mean, that would be nice and all, but it’s vague and unlikely.

Instead I would say, “Education and parental systems in which children can thrive in the way they are. Where we celebrate their uniqueness and raise them to be critical thinkers, question askers, and where they are not only allowed but encouraged to challenge views, procedures, as well as their mentors.”

We have come a long way in how we perceive children and how we want to parent. However, I believe that for a vast majority of parents, and definitely in the school system, what we know and perhaps even want to do and what is actually happening every day, are often miles apart.

The role of parenting

Let’s start with parenting. The roots of authoritarian parenting are so deeply set in us, from our ancestry, our cultural upbringing, the decades and decades that have come before us. This makes it very hard to break through them and realise when we are still practising authoritarian parenting, even if we think we have bettered ourselves. For authoritarian parenting is not simply spanking your children, shouting at them, throwing them out when they’re not behaving the way you want to, being distant and unloving, and all other standard tropes we associate with authoritarian parenting.

The way we parent has first and foremost to do with how we view the child. Alison Gopnik wrote a beautiful book called The Gardener and the Carpenter, where she delves into the question of how the relationship between parents and children matters to have healthy children. She compares the work of carpentry and gardening. In carpentry, we have a certain thing in our mind and whittle a piece of wood in a way that it looks the same as what we had in our head. The wood is shaped according to our image in our head.

In gardening, on the other hand, we have a layout of what we want to achieve, but know that gardens are fickle things. Where you have sown chrysanthemums, sunflowers will probably start popping up, for birds have brought the seeds there. A flower you wanted in one corner, doesn’t thrive there, so it has to grow somewhere else. But in the end, the garden that thrives is beautiful. The gardener doesn’t mourn the fact that sunflowers don’t thrive in the shade like begonias. Both flowers simply have different needs, but they’re both beautiful and have their right place in the garden. The gardener provides the ideal environment, and then lets the flowers grow.

Authoritarian parenting is like carpentry. I see the child as something I have to sculpt according to my vision. Obviously, when that doesn’t work out, I experience disappointment, frustration and anger. I might be angry at the piece of wood for not being as malleable as I would like it to be, or I question my tools to make it so. This is why authoritarian parenting is actually very fragile. You cannot shape a human being according to your vision and succeed. Either you will end up with a chair instead of a table and be frustrated, or the table will be completed, but it will be wonky, and, perhaps, even break under the pressure.

I presume there are hardly parents out there who actively WANT to be authoritarian parents, i.e. be labelled as that – and yet, I see authoritarian parenting techniques pretty much every time I get in contact with other parents in groups, kindergartens or schools – AND also in my own parenting. I am not letting myself off easily either. The “do-as-your-told” trope is deeply rooted within us, and I have used it far too many times, knowing how useless and unfair it is.

However, the first step to becoming a gardener and steering away from carpentry in parenting, is being aware of our own ways and to work towards solutions we can implement in our parenting. Accepting your child as something you didn’t expect, can be hard. In the book by German psychiatrist Dr Oliver Dierssen Kinder Lieben, Auch Wenn’s Schwierig Wird (Loving Children Even When It Gets Hard), he writes that it is harder to accept behaviours in our children we don’t naturally display in ourselves. For example, if you are a very empathetic person, but your child is more direct or doesn’t portray a lot of empathy in a situation (perhaps given their age), it can be hard to accept this behaviour in our child. And yet, accepting our children, even when they challenge our views, our behaviours and world principles is what makes them into assured, critically thinking adults.

And what about schools?

“Good” parenting (whatever that is in its entirety) is very hard to objectively measure, and it is equally hard to evade harmful parenting, as parents still very much “own” their children in this society. While there are – thankfully – various laws protecting children from primarily physical abuse, there is still very little control or means to control what parents do at home with their children.

There is, however, massive impact and control over what happens in schools. Schools are public institutions (and with public I mean they are somewhat regulated by the state) in which the people who deal with the children have to be vetted to some extent – an education, a clean crime report, etc. Almost all children visit such institutions in their life, and spend many hours of their lives there. So even if what’s going on at home is not ideal, schools could and SHOULD make a huge impact on children’s lives for the better.

Living in Austria and having attended school here, my insight is somewhat limited to other nations; however, schools systems pretty much operate all in the same way worldwide, i.e. there is a certain hierarchy of subjects (science and languages at the top, arts and sport at the bottom); children sitting on desks facing a teacher lecturing. There is some form of grading, tests, homework.

It is fascinating that although there is so much research done worldwide, showing clearly how inefficient schools worldwide are functioning, that they still continue to function in this way until today. Even though there are alternative models that have proven education can work in different ways, like Montessori or Waldorf, to name to well-known examples. This post is not about advocating for any of those schools, but pointing out that we are living in times of rising autocracy in which schools still sit children down hour after hour after hour and telling them to shut up and listen to the one authority in the room. It doesn’t take a genius to see why that could be a problem.

In his famous TED Talk of 2006 Do Schools Kill Creativity, Ken Robinson already laid out the harm our schools systems do to the potential of our children. He said that “creativity is squandered ruthlessly”, and it’s partly because of the hierarchy of subjects and the insipid frontal teaching practices that are, sadly, still very much prevalent in most schools worldwide.

When I was training to be an English teacher for adults in Manchester in 2019, they always told us to reduce the TTT as much as possible – the Teacher Talking Time. They argued that it was rather boring for participants to be lectured for 50 minutes, so we should involve them as much as possible. We’re talking about a 50 minute-session for adults who pay to willingly be there. Children have to sit through 50-minute session after 50-minute session without the chance to leave if they’re bored, and yet the reduction of the TTT appears to be of little importance in most schools I have visited.

So what does this little detour have to do with the lack of parental and school systems aiding the rise of autocracy or at least not opposing it? Quite a lot, if you look at it closely. If children are disengaged in school and discouraged and bored, they will try to find their peer group elsewhere. If we cannot excite children with education, they are more likely to trod down a different path, may it be pseudo-spiritual or extremist political – somewhere where they feel seen and heard, if that’s not happening at school. Somewhere where they feel they’re appreciated and their talents matter.

Education is not only about academic progress. It is about shaping a well-rounded human being who can think independently and critically, and is open for discourse and other views. Education is not only about knowing math and geography. It is our greatest hope against ignorance, narrow-mindedness and autocracy – and yet educational institutions all over the world fail to give this sort of education to the millions and billions of students entrusted in their care.

Instead there is heavy leaning on standardised testing, comparison, academic progress and “getting somewhere”. Education in most schools predominantly serves the purpose of becoming something, rather than being something. There is very little room for individuality, creativity and even disagreement – for all these take time, patience and rethinking the entire frontal teaching model. Instead we continue to rely on an outdated system that teaches our children to sit still, don’t ask questions, never challenge an authority figure, and to fear punishment if they do any of the above. Nevertheless, we expect to get well-rounded, independent thinkers at the end, but I would argue that children coming out being independent thinkers (and many do), have become so despite the school system, not because of it.

What to do with this?

I have thrown a lot of information around and the prevalent question is: What do we do with this? You might say, I can’t change the system, and I agree to some extent. As one person it can feel overwhelming, but there are still things we can do.

Firstly, we can start at home by accepting our children’s disagreeable sides – and, just to be clear, I don’t mean to condone bad behaviours, but rather to not shame our children for displaying them. To separate the behaviour from the child’s identity. Instead of saying things like, “You’re making me so mad” or “You’re always grumpy when you’ve watched TV, so we can’t have it anymore”, I try to say: “Your behaviour is really making me mad right now”, or “I have noticed the TV makes you act grumpy. I think it’s better if we watch it less.”

You will fall back into your old patterns regularly – I know I do, but it’s like training a muscle. Over time it will become stronger and less exhausting and tiresome to move, and at some point you will engage in less shameful parenting without thinking about it.

Now with schools. Changing something here, unless you’re a teacher, is somewhat harder. Yet, there are many things you can still do as a parent. First, if you can choose between schools where you live, make an effort to look at them beforehand and gauge which is the most progressive. Still, classes live and die with the class teacher, so even if you’re in a good school and your kid unfortunately got stuck with a less than ideal teacher, you might face problems.

Second, you can address issues with the teacher, even if it might make some people roll their eyes. Ask about their phone policy, about their class principles, about their views on the children. Fight for your child without being the teachers’ enemy – that can be a true balance act, but we should do it for our children. Also feel brave enough to suggest something, if you feel the current way isn’t pedagogically progressive – ideally backed up with some studies’ results. And you could of course always write to the political parties in your district and ask what they’re planning to do to improve education and share your thoughts and suggestions.

Finally I want to say that although schools should improve vastly, the main area where we as individuals can act is the home. Regardless what happens at school, we can let the pressure off the moment the child gets home. And we can show them how to think critically, how to accept other people’s views, and how to become the well-rounded adults they deserve to be.

#schools #schoolsystem #education #parenting #authoritarianparenting #gentleparenting #riseofautocracy