oreohive activity log

Controlling with fear: is it time to take a stance?

2025-02-12 | oreo

This was written in the oreohive.org Notion ecosystem on Monday, the 10th of February 2025. It has since been uploaded here onto this page, as of Wednesday, the 12th of February 2025. IMPORTANT NOTE: This was not a critique of the punishment and guidance of ill behaviour in classrooms, moreso the societal standard of excessively angry presentations as such efforts. In most cases, teachers are justified in raising their voices to control an otherwise rowdy class, and sometimes they are left with little reasonable option. However, I found that in some minute cases, some teachers can seem 'trigger-happy', not necessarily in being strict, but perhaps in heavy-handed responses where they sometimes may not be warranted that relate to matters external of the situation.

Introduction

‘It’s really rude. Repeated, as well!’

‘I don’t think we’ve been harsh enough with our effort grades.’

These statements may seem fairly reasonable on the surface, but if you’re in the public education system right now, you’ll be familiar with the gut-twisting heartwrench that can ensue from stern comments like these.

Punishing kids or telling them that something they’re doing is wrong is kind of like a balancing act. On the one hand, you want to correct their perceived wrong, but on the other, you don’t want to hurt them… do you?

How children have historically been disciplined in school environments

It’s a common sentiment that students these days in secondary education and college / sixth form have it lucky these days.

Dating back to the 1950s presents us with the sentiments that children were often meant to be ‘seen, but not heard’. Benjamin Spock’s ‘Baby and Child Care’, which was first published in 1946, greatly influenced how people felt children should be raised.

Jumping a bit later on, in the 1970s, the likes of the slipper and the cane remained prominent in the disciplining and ‘control’ of children.

These days, we look back with disdain; this is unacceptable. Controlling with hurt was so very clearly not okay.

But what if I told you we still do this?

Control in modern schooling

My argument would be that a thin guise of innocence can often mask underlying sentiments with more a similarity than one may initially guess, at least before further investigation.

I suppose it’s hard to really assess these situations having not really been there; in modern schooling, no, the likes of canes are not employed, but instead, the verbal ridicule and shaming of students in front of the entire class remains incredibly commonplace.

Who decided, somewhere, at some point, that the emotional agony inflicted on children is really that much better than the physical punishments of yore?

The wellbeing of students in this day and age

It’s no secret that my generation of students are not the most mentally healthy individuals, coming from one myself.

I’ve waded through states of a complete lack of motivation to do anything. They had me stop cleaning. They took away my passions. Cleansed me of my interests. Purged the inquisitive curiosities that had defined me as a child. I had felt so sincerely a shadow of my former self, someone ‘alive, but not living’ who just happened to be in the same body as who came before me.

However, I possessed the stomach-knotting feeling that I must continue, regardless of how much of myself I eroded, in order to prove myself worthy of my own life.

Sitting next to me right now is a peer, sharing with dismay their belief that they ‘think [the teacher] hates [them]’. This, of course, usually isn’t true, but we don’t know that.

Either way, let’s dive into how harmful these kinds of thoughts can prove, and how we might want to stop prompting them.

The role of a teacher in a student’s life

It could be argued that a teacher’s role in a child’s life lessens as they grow older, with teachers and such supervisors playing such immense roles in a child’s development in their earlier years (before the age of about ten), then having these roles dwindle as the child develops and becomes more independent of them.

However, I’d argue that a teacher’s role in a child’s life and emotions remains about as important as ever in later secondary school years and beyond, in the likes of college / sixth form education.

The teacher’s voice, in a classroom, is the one felt to be listened to. It’s the voice that all the students receive from. It’s the voice of reason; the voice of truth, the voice of fact, and, ultimately, the voice of information.

Why this matters, you may ask? Well, if a teacher shames a student in front of the classroom, what does this do?

How pupil shaming can affect children

In my experience, it can vary depending on how this is done, and how the class may behave in response.

• In the best case scenarios, a child could feel a failure for their supposed wrongdoings, and an embarrassment to be mocked or looked down on for their peers. This would especially be the case with teacher comments like ‘It’s rude!’, which could feel to question the student’s very core, integral morals, questioning their status as a good person.
• In worse cases, though, I find that this encourages peer ridicule and shaming. I find that students of such ages are on a constant, almost perpetual mission to ‘one-up’ each other, and the shaming of children in front of their peers can very easily encourage ridicule among peers.

Is this something teachers are aware of? If so, do they employ the fear of damaging reputation among peers to hang over the child’s head? If not, is this something they should be more aware of?

Are teachers completely out of touch with the social circles kids of our day and age establish? Is this not something they should be forced to garner a familiarity with? What kind of teacher hasn’t been to school?

Why is this such a big deal? Don’t the kids just learn, and move on?

No.

If your mind worked or works like that, colour many like myself almost envious.

Mine did not, and I know of many who share my struggles with this. ‘Moving on’ is not so easy. I don’t know how much of this is my neurodivergence, but while I wouldn’t be shocked to find this affects neurodivergent students considerably more, I doubt this is an issue entirely exclusive to children who struggle with neurodivergence in education.

Instead of simply constructively moving on, the mind of a child like mine can let each negative comment build up, and build up, and build up.

We carry this weight home.

This weight stacks atop the child’s mind, crushing them down into a soul feeling little but despair for their history of failures and the inability to learn and grow they may feel.

This is where statements and thoughts like the one I mentioned before comes in. ‘I think [this teacher] hates me’ is not an irrational thought, so much as a representation of real fears of failure that resonate with many kids like myself.

Imagine this, though. The individual stood in the role that has been placed to reaffirm your achievements and aid your growth is someone you now feel hates you, or is rejecting you, or is condemning you for your failures to learn. How much of a waste would you feel?

Well, I know about how much. I’ve experienced it firsthand.

My mental health issues were not brought on entirely by teachers shaming me in front of classes, but to say these kinds of things didn’t contribute to feelings of self-hatred and failure would be a lie.

The heartwrench

‘It’s really rude!’

The class goes silent in shock.

The teacher glares with piercing eyes that feel as though they’re slicing your heart in two. The spotlight effect marches into the room in full force; everyone is looking at you. You’re the centre of attention. The focus of the room.

And it’s not a full picture of you, either. It’s just what you’ve done wrong. That’s the focus. That’s what everyone in the room is thinking about right now. They’re thinking about your failure. Your rudeness. Your status as a bad person.

They don’t know about that good thing you did yesterday. They don’t know about all the things you did right. Just this thing you’ve done wrong. They hate you. They deem you a failure. You’re a disservice. You’ve interrupted learning. You’re the problem.

Half an hour passes. You’ve been sniffing. The teacher looks at you in worry.

"Are you okay?"

You explain that you’ve had the cold since Thursday. It’s then you realise; the teacher never hated you. But the feelings remain. They’ve left their mark. And more marks will be left as the story recurs.

These feelings have been internalised. The damage is done. The wound in self-esteem is carved.

Rejection sensitivity, and being reduced to nothing but academic performance

Now, as I touched on before, I am neurodivergent, As a part of my ADHD (they came in a lovely little package for me, I know), I have something called RSD, or ‘rejection sensitive dysphoria’. This is no formal diagnosis, but it’s a well-documented phenomenon among ADHD individuals like me.

This runs rampant in education. Education is where we are graded, quantified, stripped to nothing but a number on a test - the devastating digits of which comparing our worth to our peers and making definite just how much we fall short - which form great ammunition for internalised self-hatred.

This self-hatred erodes souls. It stops people from caring. It then exacerbates any problems surrounding effort, distractability or paying attention in lessons.

I just called the students in question ‘people’; they’re not just students. They’re people, too. They exist outside of education, but for so many years, I found myself forgetful of any existence I held outside of education.

I would wake up, prepare for school (I spent all of last night in dread, so didn’t find the time to), then go to school. Then, I would come home and eat. After that, I’d watch blankly, as the hours of free time I might’ve had disappear to homework and what felt like two seconds to sit in paralysis, clueless.

Then, I’d sleep, haunted by the bag and revision folders metres away from my bed.

I was seldom reminded of my positive traits, only what I needed to work on. I was reduced to a collection of my weaknesses. But here, I feel that the focus placed on children like myself has a great effect.

Rather than celebrating individuality, or, God forbid, anything we do right, we always pursue imperfections to improve. We do this to get that number up. The number that tells the schools they’re doing a good job. The number that tells tus students that we might be able to live a comfortable life, where we can afford food, clothes, and a roof above their heads.

Let’s cycle back, though. We’re back in that classroom. The focus is on nothing but what you’ve done wrong.

See the problem yet?

When was the last time the class was stopped to celebrate what someone did right? What someone did well? How Alfie crushed it? How John smashed that six-mark question? Admittedly, I feel this happened a fair bit in primary school, but since secondary school, and now in sixth form, I’ve found this barely happens at all, if ever.

Is there an understating lower down in education that positive affirmations and the broadcasting of positivity helps children feel motivated to grow? Where does this go as soon as we reach secondary education and beyond?

I propose we refocus.

I say we shift that spotlight.

On the one hand, it’s important we identify places to grow. Places to gleam. Places where we can do better in some ways. But on the other hand, I feel we should better recognise positive things we do.

If one is only ever represented by ‘Can we please stop talking?’, that can become almost a subconscious means of self-address and self-regard at least in my experience. If children associate schools with little but being critiqued, this can’t be healthy, can it? Why would we want to reinforce these negative impressions of schools and educational environments and settings? Shouldn’t we be encouraging growth in ways deviant from simply highlighting flaws?

If a student is talking while the teacher is, does this mean they’re a bad person? What was it they were talking about? Were they asking for help? Were they happy? Were they fearful? Why is this the only thing we’re led to see of these children, and ourselves when we’re shamed in this kind of way?

I propose we remind kids of what make them great. Let’s celebrate achivements, to remind kids around the world what they’re doing right. Why they should keep going. What they should hold closely to their heart.

What they did right.

- oreo