Force Fed: Compliance in Education
When I was in school, a teacher would stand behind us as we scooped out our food from the lunch buffet. We had to pick one vegetable and one fruit. And we had to take a carton of milk.
I hate milk.
We weren't allowed to go to recess until we had eaten "enough" and finished our vegetables.
I remember being made to sit at that cold lunch table, my classmates waiting in the recess line across the gym. Watching me.
I felt like I could vomit.
My teachers voice in my ear, "Everyone is waiting for you. Two more bites. Finish your peas. They're waiting for you. One more sip of milk."
I still hate milk.
They force fed us food and they force fed us information. It didn't matter if we were interested or cared in the slightest. It didn't matter if it made us sick. It didn't matter if helped us achieve our own goals. That wasn't the point. The point was to prove yourself and to do as you were told.
We had hours of homework every night. Pop quizzes. Grades sent home in sealed envelopes with notes about our behavior.
Sometimes, if I was late to class (because I didn't want to go) I would have detention. We would copy out of the encyclopedia. To teach us a lesson- Stay in line. Do as your told.
If we forgot our name on an assignment we would write our name 100 times in a notebook at recess. To teach us a lesson- never make mistakes. I remember feeling confused, then angry, then powerless.
But this was a very expensive, very exclusive school. Looked great on a transcript. Very well-respected teachers.
They knew what they were doing, right?
Later, when I went to the local public school, I starved myself. I would sit at the lunch table with no food. I would go days without eating. No one would tell me what to do ever again.
You see, after you've been forced to eat, starving feels like power.
To this day, when I feel powerless, my reaction is to starve. I've had to unlearn this coping strategy. I have to remind myself- I'm not powerless, not anymore.
I wonder how many of our wounds come from being forced to comply even as our bodies and minds are screaming NO. I don't know which is better- accepting that someone else controls your life, breaking down bit by bit, or fighting like hell. Because sometimes fighting back hurts. Sometimes it leaves permanent scars.
We are not teaching the lessons we think we are.
Imagine if we respected children. Really, imagine it. Imagine if we laid out the buffet of life without micromanaging what the children put on their tray. What if we showed them all the possibilities and the wonders this world has to offer without critiquing their every move as they explore it? What would childhood look like if we let go of the constant need to judge and measure and compare our kids as they learn, and instead we got curious right alongside them? What if compliance isn't a virtue at all?
When I see a child who is "disobedient" and wild- I see a child fighting back in the only way they know how. Someone who needs to be seen, really seen. Someone who has no better tools to cope and no other way to say, "I will reclaim my power even it it hurts us both."
May the children know their power without question. May they use their energy not to fight back, but to care for and tend to and strive toward.
May they never be force fed.