School can be hell

I have two children of my own. They are 4 and 7, and they seem to enjoy the social and intellectual stimulation of school. But not all children enjoy school, and many do not feel that they are learning anything useful. This seems to be especially true of secondary schools, which are much less nurturing and less fun than primary schools. When I encounter teenagers who are not going to school, they will often be able to articulate understandable reasons for non-attendance, and the classic label of school phobia does not seem to fit in the way that it does with younger children. There is no irrational fear of an innocuous stimulus. Instead, I hear stories of frightening playgrounds, friends who taunt them, steal their personal possessions, even assault them, lessons that are at best dull and irrelevant to their lives, and at worst chaotic and noisy environments, where the teachers either withdraw apathetically or resort to control by humiliation and sarcasm.

The traditional treatment for school phobia is to get the child back to school as soon as possible. I recently visited a prospective new school for my daughter, and the head was interested to learn of my profession. She told me of her last encounter with a child psychiatrist, who had treated a teenage pupil of hers who was refusing to attend school. The psychiatrist had persuaded her to help the parents to get the girl into her classroom. This had involved three of them wrestling the screaming, struggling young woman out of her parents’ car and dragging her into the school like an animal to the slaughter: not once, but every day for weeks, until the girl realised she had lost her battle. This cannot be right, I thought to myself.

This kind of coercion reminds me of the military psychiatry of the first world war, that aimed to get combat traumatised infantry back in the trenches as soon as possible. Is social control the purpose of secondary education? Do high schools exist primarily to keep strong and energetic young people off the streets until they are old enough to get a job? Grace Llewellyn is an ex-teacher and in her book, The Teenage Liberation Handbook—How to quit school and get a real life and education,¹ believes that this is the case. Schools, she argues, are harsh and emotionally abusive institutions which are structured to engender conformity and compliance. Young people are taught to incorporate and reproduce knowledge, rather than to develop their own initiative and interests. As a result they leave school able to obey rules and pass examinations but totally unprepared for the tasks of adult life.

Her solution is radical: teenagers who are dissatisfied with school should leave school and never return. They should educate themselves, not through home tuition but informally, by following their interests at their own pace and using their intelligence and creativity to their full capacity. Personally, I would not suggest this course to every teenager, but I been profoundly influenced in my work by Llewellyn’s deep respect for teenagers. They want to learn and to use their skills in the adult world. Instead of lecturing and cajoling, I am learning to listen, and if possible to understand their aspirations. The best solution might not be to return them to the battlefront; often it is better to help them find a place where they can grow and learn.