Introduction

When I try to unravel discussions like the one described above, a few notions about the core content of schooling come to mind. For a balanced life, students on completing school should have learnt to relate – connect emotionally with the other elements in their lives

•  Learnt to relate to oneself (to nurture one's self-esteem)
•  Learnt to relate to authority figures (to obey, to question, to influence, to collaborate, to collude etc.)
•  Learnt to relate to peers and equals (to conform, to assert, to collaborate, to compete, to share in a wholesome way)
•  Learnt to relate to the external/physical world (to observe, analyse, classify, and understand the forces around us)

There is also a good overlap between these four aspects. The first aspect becomes the foundation for the rest. The relationship with the world around us is based on the relatedness we feel to those around us.
How do schools educate us about these key relationships? Where do we learn about these relationships if we miss out on these in school?

Kindergarten - Out of Eden?

School provides the first experience of a remote or impersonal authority figure in our lives. For many children, the nursery or kindergarten teacher is the first person outside immediate family that they relate to. They soon discover what works and what does not work with this new adult. Many rules and strategies for life are learnt here. As children rise to the teachers' expectations they receive approval and feel affirmed.
This is hopefully the experience of the majority of children- but even the ‘best' of them express their reaction to their curbed spontaneity in many unexpected ways.

True blues It was an ‘open-day' in school – when parents come to fondly examine the art and handiwork of their little ones. The nursery teacher was explaining what children had told her about their drawings. A ‘good' little girl has drawn her journey to school •  Mama says don't cross and she runs across the road. •  She plays in a puddle which she shouldn't do •  She throws the ball as far as it will go •  She hits another child •  She scolds the whole class She draws all the things she wants to do – but is restrained from doing. She has recognised her feelings of resentment and is dealing with them. in an imaginative way.

The ‘good' little girl has found a way to deal with her complex reactions to school in her drawings. It is safe and within her capabilities.She is learning to give disruptive emotions acceptable shape and form.She is managing to preserve her sense of self worth even when she is aware of her darker side. Ideally, all children should discover such ways.Many find that the safest thing is to do the teacher's bidding- losing their childhood in the process.Others are not so savvy and try to bend the teacher to their way- a non-starter really.
The issue really is something else.
What are the active steps that schools take to support children in their struggles to live balancing their sunny and stormy phases? The major steps seem to be
•  Telling children to ‘be good'
•  Suppressing ‘bad' behaviour by various threats

Surely we need to do something more to help our children cope with their own emotions, especially the less acceptable ones. Their emotional balance through life depends on the self-image (of ‘ok' or ‘not ok') they develop. If they learn to condemn themselves, they find it difficult to approve of anybody else. We should teach our children to be self- aware rather than self-critical.

Any damage to the self-image is not easily repaired. Psychoanalysis, counselling, meditation, are some remedies we have devised- but isn't pre-emption better than cure?

Seesaws and merry-go- rounds

The child's life in school alternates between the parental authority figure at home and the external authority figure of the teacher at school. Approval and warmth in these relationships become central to the child's sense of well being through out life. With physical and emotional growth, the child gains some autonomy. It is at this stage (around 8-10 years of age) that relationships with peers become important. Initially the adults encourage children to play with each other. By the time children are in their early teens adults are grumbling a bit about ‘peer pressure'. Perhaps this is an indicator of the changing balance of power – children are learning to assert themselves and parents are beginning to worry. The emotional fulcrum is gradually changing. By the time a child reaches the teens, approval or admiration from peers replaces the need for approval from parents and teachers. Parents and teachers suddenly find that the sweet child of yesterday is an impossible teen-ager now.

The mainstream approach to handle this stage has many consequences for the way we deal with authority structures in our society. Here are some examples of set patterns that this approach has generated:

•  Never trust the boss - he's too dangerous
•  It's okay to ignore rules/procedures as long as you're not caught
•  Just make sure the output is right – no matter how
•  Never disagree with bosses openly
•  If you want to fix the boss do it through others
•  Mobilise your group of peers and subordinates to tackle the system
•  When in doubt obey- then you're not responsible for fall out.

In offices and families we find many grownups arrested in adolescence, emotionally speaking. Schools seem to be missing many opportunities to equip children to deal with transition from dependence to independence and interdependence. The tragedy is that higher education has even less space for individual emotional transition. The accumulated baggage is usually unpacked in families and workspaces to be perpetuated socially.

One for all- all for one

Children in upper primary and middle school have an intense social life in which adults have nearly no part. The teachers are only dimly aware of the dramatic upheavals in the social formations within their classrooms.

If we carefully track the social life of children in middle school we realise that they are fully engrossed in learning lessons about group behaviour. Some phenomena, which are very noticeable, include:

•  Leadership and power struggles
•  Formation of cliques and subgroups
•  Emergence of group think-membership rituals, tokens, code words etc
•  Powerful group norms about secrecy, sneaking, tale-carrying
•  Tackling overbearing leaders, by offering and withdrawing support
•  Ensuring conformity and loyalty
•  Scape-goating to eject individualistic or unpopular members

In living through these emotional roller-coaster rides, children develop their stance to collaboration and discover preferences for the roles they will take on in later life.

These are the lessons, which come with people into social spaces later on. Teamwork, power struggles, political groups, empire building are large-scale versions of these childhood experiences.

Fellowship and follower-ship It was a parent teacher meeting for class VIII. The children were curious to know what happened there and were invited to be part of it. The teachers had said their piece and the parents had voiced their concerns. Someone came up with ‘It will be nice to hear what the children think'. All eyes were on them and the start was hesitant- but gradually they spoke about their intense social life. Subgroups within the class were constantly changing – to be accepted in the group they wanted to be in was ‘the only thing' in their lives. While all of them would rally for a common cause (say a teacher's threat to cut P.T), even minor transactions with members of other groups could be seen as major betrayals by their friends. There was a tight social hierarchy. Individuals who could not so readily fit into any slot had a hard time. For the majority, it was a satisfying way of life. Membership in a group often meant passionate and unquestioned adherence on important issues – like the preference for a matinee idol or a football hero or a current fashion.

These lessons are not really moderated by the formal education system in any way. Every once in while, a teacher comes face to face with these realities in her classroom. The usual course then is to ignore it all and use authority to control any effervescence.

In turning a blind eye to this aspect of school life or delegating it to the games field, we are losing out on opportunities to build a better society.

Linkages and cross connections

The child progresses by understanding facts and figures and assimilating the empirical and conceptual knowledge available to humanity. The knowledge explosion of the twentieth century is an indictor of how well our education system has addressed the issue of understanding the real world. At the same time there are disturbing indictors that such knowledge has not been applied with wisdom and compassion.

Any knowledge about the world when applied without recognising the implications for relationships results in some unacceptable outcomes. We have to care deeply enough about ourselves, our immediate group and about the ‘others' including other life forms to be able to act responsibly. Actions have to be embedded in learning about relating, so that we work in ways that would harmonise with the aspirations of other beings around us.

Although we know… We live with increasing symptoms of alienation among people and threats to social fabric and community life everywhere. Despite our awareness •  about the threats to global ecology arising from our ways of using fossil fuels- we have not learnt to collaborate and work with peers across the globe. •  that cigarette smoking is injurious to health- we can't relate to our own selves joyfully enough to gain the will to cut the habit. •  that rules in civil society are for our common good- we almost delight in evading rules arising from our negative orientation to authority figures Crime, drug abuse, conflicts (sectarian, international etc) and terrorism are day-to day realities.

Concluding Questions

To sum up the points I'm trying to make about the schooling system
•  It strongly influences the way we accept (or judge) ourselves and others
•  It defines our attitude to authority structures and the way we treat them as resources or restraints.
•  It generates understanding of group and social processes and enables us to work with peers.
•  It determines the future trajectory for the society

Significantly, there is no formal acknowledgement of the presence and importance of the subject of ‘relationships' in school. There is no curriculum, syllabus or assessment on any of these aspects. We have had to learn about all these aspects in our schooldays from the community around us almost by stealth. The fortunate ones are those who learnt to relate despite the schooling system.

Some question that then arise are:

•  Should we begin to pay direct attention to these aspects or continue our indirect ways?
•  What are the ‘right' things to say on these topics?
•  What must change in the teacher's heart for us to begin dealing with these issues?
•  Can we strengthen the elements in our present system, which do address these aspects?
•  How do schools and families work together on these issues?

To me it seems fairly urgent that we face these questions squarely- and that answers will be wide ranging. In writing this, my hope is to kindle reflection, debate and hopefully some action.

(The author invites feedback and comments –email jbiyer@hd2.dot.net.in)

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