| Chapter 2: | The Shadowy Edges of the Path: Shifting Power From the Teacher to the Students |
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Another blow occurred 6 months later when we moved to Vancouver, which meant the loss of my very favorite and dear playmate, Vanda, along with my entire extended family. I became a withdrawn child who was viewed as unhappy and dissatisfied.
By the time I was sent off to grade 1, the wounding had taken a firm hold. Even though I was an able student, I was uncomfortable in school and shy with other children. I was fearful of being rejected and was socially awkward. As well, sitting still and learning by rote as I progressed through the grades contributed increasingly to a shutting down of my vitality along with my abilities to express myself. I was afraid of my teachers in a vague sort of way, and I was terrified of the principal because I knew that this role was invested with the authority and the right to strap me for certain misbehaviors. Even with the best of intentions on the part of my parents and my teachers, I was becoming a casualty of less than optimal child-rearing and educational practices. I was being systematically and persistently “taught” (by the “hidden curriculum”) to be fearful of people, my emotions, and life even though the intent was to prepare me to live well. Fortunately, that is not the end of my story. Like the proverbial phoenix, I was destined, by my determination, to rise from the ashes.
My writing is not an autobiographical account of the process of my rebirth, although you will find some bits of this, but mostly it is a narrative of the outcomes as a result of extensive inner work to uncover my own wounds and allow the emergence of my more authentic self and its expression in my work as a psychotherapist and an educator. While individual stories will vary, I think that the pattern and themes of my experience regarding family and school relationships are not unusual. The shutting down of vitality and exuberance in children is tangible, and many elementary school teachers have suggested to me that by grade 4 the energy seems to have changed dramatically in most children. I think that school and schooling have a central role in this, and of course, educational institutions and practices are not separate from the society and culture within which they exist.