The Toxic Polygon of Trauma
Systems of organization: The downfall of the traditional school structure
This toxic triangle of relationships is guaranteed to injure all. Systems are not what they used to be. These days, there are experts at organization who look at the relational fields established in different types of structures. They create relational fields which work. Employees are motivated to work efficiently, while management directs and shifts methodologies tao keep up with the changing environment. Effective structures are essential for maintaining a company in a competitive, capitalist environment.
Toxic learning settings: We must have Control!
What I would like to know, is what genius crafted the structure of the traditional school. Let’s take a moment and deconstruct the basic structure, components and relational fields. The corners of the relational triangle are the students, the teachers and the parents.
The kids need to get ready for school. Usually this requires parents to move the process along with encouraging words. But sometimes kids move a little slowly and parents increase the pressure on the kids to get ready to go. The kids don’t like this pressure. Sometimes they become frantic, sometimes they cry, throw tantrums or cave in and crumple, unable to do anything. Parents then increase their push until the kids are at school. The flooded kids are then packed off into a whole room full of kids in various stages of awake, asleep, upset, shut down, and flooded. Now the kids are expected to sit quietly and learn … all day.
We must keep you in 'victim' mode
The kids need to get ready for school. Usually this requires parents to move the process along with encouraging words. But sometimes kids move a little slowly and parents increase the pressure on the kids to get ready to go. The kids don’t like this pressure. Sometimes they become frantic, sometimes they cry, throw tantrums or cave in and crumple, unable to do anything. Parents then increase their push until the kids are at school.
The flooded kids are then packed off into a whole room full of kids in various stages of awake, asleep, upset, shut down, and flooded. Now the kids are expected to sit quietly and learn … all day.
This is the first pole of tension.
The trauma in the relational field between parents and their children!
The relationship between parents and kids ideally are peaceful, loving, positive and synergistic. Parents are enormously powerful in the eyes of their children. Sometimes parents are not aware of the power of their anger and frustration. Kids do not have internal skills and resources to navigate these scary times. When these traumas happen, cracks form in the relational field and the relationship is shifted. There are negative feelings. Of course, there will be moments of conflict in any relationship. But this daily rigor does nothing to support the feelings of connection and support that families need.
Our kids are destined to be more than factory workers!
Then the students assemble in their classroom. There is one person, usually a lady, who teaches them all day. Part of her job is to teach order and control. In the early days of school, this type of control was necessary. The mandate was to produce orderly factory workers, who could be controlled with money and fear of the lack of money. Money was replaced with grades. Grades were given a mythical importance and dangled over the children’s heads as a way to motivate — or more accurately, coerce them into doing things they did not want to do. The teacher often uses shame and guilt, the horrible threat of exposing kids in front of their peers — a fate worse than death to many kids. The teacher frequently assumes the role in the relational field of the cop or the bad guy, the enforcer and the tyrannical dictator.