Surviving Student Support

We live in a highly Orwellian age. And no institution is more Orwellian than the public elementary school.

At Ian's school, they have a single measure for imposing both behavioral and academic discipline - from gum-throwing to homework neglect to forgetting to bring in your all-important yellow folder. When I was a lad, this was called "Staying In from Recess," - really more geared toward behavior than then enforcement of academic protocol, since it was the 1970's in Boston - and it was understood that this was a punishment. In Ian's school, infractions are treated by a ritual where, during your recess, you march off to a venue where you review your offense with a designated official - a teacher, it turns out - and then they assign you a sentence to write, to help you avoid such slippage in the future, such as "I must remember to check my backpack for my homework and my homework folder before I leave the house in the morning." Apparently, once you have served your written "sentence," so to speak, you are free to enjoy the remaining rump-recess, in its now abridged, mutilated state. 1970's Bostonian youth were merely punished, and it was all-or-nothing. Apparently, 2010's youth of New England's Outer Provinces are rehabilitated, however painfully, and then released. And the best aspect of the entire institution is its name: "Student Support."

[When Daniel acts up, I sometimes threaten, somewhat gleefully, to "help" him; maybe I should "support" him from now on...]

That being said, Ian was a beneficiary of Student Support today. I don't question that some kind of punishment is required to maintain the Social Contract, however un-mutual a contract it might be. The offense was talking in line. Again, why ask why. But New England institutions, however Orwellian, also tend to be Irish, in the qualitative sense of the term, and Irish guilt-and-gloom adds a whole new kick to the cocktail.

Earlier this evening, Ian told me - and this is Classic Ian - that he had gone to Student Support today, and that he managed to be happy during the whole thing, but this only made the teacher angry. I didn't ask any questions, but later, at the supper table, a fuller story emerged:

Ian wanted to tell the teacher - but he couldn't, because she was already angry - that the reason that he was happy during Student Support was that he knew that, even when things get bad, the important thing is to think about happy things, and then, even in bad times, you'll always be happy.

If he were me, he'd be happy out of spite, but I really think he was just "being" happy so as not to be sad.

I didn't undertake to explain to him - and I'm sure he didn't realize this on his own - that in institutional life, punishment is pointless unless it inflicts personal, psychic pain on the malefactor. In other words, the Behaviorist model of negative and positive reinforcement is not enough; when you're being punished, you must feel the punishment - personally, and hopefully acutely - or this labor of authoritarian love is reduced to a travesty.

But what I find beautiful about this story - and I mean authentically beautiful - is that Ian identified the ordeal as one of life's hardships, applied a concrete inward coping measure to it, and apparently really managed to make himself happy. The fact that Student Support actually "rated" as a hardship requiring the mustering of inner strength, is certainly moving. And the fact that the whole thing made some middle-aged career bureaucrat angry adds a final spritz of humor.

(September 27, 2011)