Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin, Ph.D.
Bay Area Family Therapy Training Associates
Issue # 4 & 5, Winter/Spring 99
Whereas this issue was initially advertised to be on relationships, the number of people interested in contributing stories around critical voices of school and the important incidents occurring in that environment convinced me to rearrange the publication schedule. Critical voices of relationships will thus be the focus of issue #6, fall/winter 1999/2000.
Schools... Let us stop for a second and reflect upon what they are about. On one level,
they are constituted by a group of well intentioned adults who for the most part, like kids,
want the best for kids and want to teach them the basic knowledge needed to function in
our society. On an other level however, schools have become a place where young
people struggle, where they are easily marginalized and are increasingly fearful of
academic or social punishment (including physical safety). How did this incongruence
happen? Given these good intentions, how is it that schools have become too frequently
a place of painful experiences? A closer look at the anatomy of the situation may yield
some insight. In many ways schools are at the junction of many pressures placed on
young people. In schools, young people have to reconcile the pressures to be a certain
way, on an academic level as required by their teacher, on a relational level as sanctioned
by their peers, on a personal level as expected by their family, and on a general social
level as determined by our cultural standards (gender specifications, appearance,
individualism...). In the midst of this pressure, it can be very hard for young people to
even have the space to determine the kind of person they want to be. So much energy
goes into trying to successfully fit into the standards of everyone
around them (standards
which can often be contradictory such as peer pressure and adult pressure) that it
becomes very hard to clarify what one really believes. And that is exactly when it is easy
for problems to infiltrate the situation. As youth make attempts here and there to fulfill
various expectations, their sense of self continuously becomes shaped by their successes,
failures and the meaning ascribed to these by the various witnesses. Frustration, anger,
discouragement, depression, anxiety, extreme attempts at fitting perfectly in a group are
but a few examples of the emerging problems. And whenever there is a problem and/or a
deviation from the social norm, there is often automatically a critical voice. Indeed,
when you feel different or others perceive you as different from a norm, a critical voice
can emerge to make you feel bad about yourself. Naturally, becoming critical of oneself
usually makes one even more vulnerable to problems and less able to succeed in meeting
whatever standard triggered the issue in the first place.
School can also be a challenging place for teachers and principals who experience a lot of
responsibility and pressure from parents and society. Expectations ranging from what
students are supposed to learn to how behaviors are supposed to be managed can be
overwhelming given the little support, the large number of children, the amount of work
and the scarcity of time. Teachers have to quickly make important decisions on a regular
basis about a number of issues and may easily struggle with critical voices such as self-
doubt, especially around their abilities, judgement or performances. Teachers must also
find a way of creating a classroom atmosphere where they can fulfill their responsibility
of managing their classroom without falling into an overuse of authority and discipline
towards their students (also called adultism, misuse of power by adults; most adults
inadvertently engage in such practices from time to time often with the good intentions of
teaching something to a child...but it can also have harmful and disempowering effects).
In conclusion, in this issue, you will have the privilege of getting an insiders' view on a wide variety of experiences of critical voices in schools such as depression, stress, procrastination, peer pressure, anorexia, discrimination, violence and others. You will also get the opportunity to read elementary school students' experiences of minimizing bullying in their classroom as participants of a program that I have created entitled the "Bugging Bug" Project. The goal of this project is to replace disrespect, intolerance, criticism, discrimination, teasing, fighting, bullying, peer abuse, bugging, and name- calling (to mention only a few!) by appreciation and cooperation between students. Although the theoretical conceptualization of this program can not be covered in this journal (professional article and conference in preparation), the reader will hopefully still appreciate the extensive amount of work that students have achieved in fighting the "habit of being mean/disrespectful" which was called the "Bugging Bug", as well as their teacher's willingness to take an honest look at the creation of a respectful classroom atmosphere.
My main goal in publishing these stories is to honor young people's knowledge and
successes at overcoming problems as well as the complexity of teachers' responsibilities
in bringing forth the best out of our next generation. I hope that you will enjoy reading
these stories as much as I and other BAFTTA staff have enjoyed working with these
wonderful and knowledgeable people of all ages.
Warm regards,
Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin
© 1999 by Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin, Ph.D.
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