A word of thanks is in order to begin with. On 5 September, Mrs Evi Geysels was a guest on Danira Boukrhriss’s new talk show Vandaag op één. She came to testify about the aggression that teachers experience in the classroom almost daily. It has become a matter of survival. It was very brave of Mrs Geysels to speak so plainly about what she and other teachers go through. Necessary, too. Not everyone would dare. Even so, she is sending out a signal. Do not let her be the only one who speaks. Let others follow her example. Me too! Not in order to complain, but in order to give a clear signal to society and to policymakers. And in order to look for solutions and apply them. And those solutions exist!
I have been a teacher, a coordinator and a head teacher myself. I have seen the aggression and the acts of sabotage at every level and have sometimes experienced them myself. It does not take fistfights to knock you down, because words cut sharply into the soul. They stay with you. They leave scars that sometimes heal only with difficulty. Verbal aggression, contempt and belittling clamp down on your breathing. They touch you in who you are. As though you were not good enough. In the end you have to work hard not to believe it yourself. That same evening on the programme, footballers came to talk about the racist remarks they receive. It is about the same thing. You are attacked on a level where you cannot defend yourself. It has become par for the course. Or perhaps it has always been this way and we simply see many more examples of it now, thanks to social media.
It goes without saying — even if you are intrinsically a good teacher — that your resilience diminishes when you are regularly beset by aggression. Your muscles become tense, your breathing turns shallow, you are on your guard and you react less spontaneously. You sleep less well and your mood suffers, even if you try to put a brave face on it. In the end the arrows of verbal aggression have a deep impact on your health and on your personal life. That is no benefit to teaching or to the pupils.
So things have to be different, and they can be different. Schools will have to shift gear to turn the tide, but it is not a matter for schools alone. It is a matter for society, in which everyone is involved and from which everyone benefits when something changes.
How is it that more and more young people seem to choose the road of verbal aggression, contempt and belittling? It is really quite simple. Someone who feels good in their own skin has no inclination to attack others and bring them down. Someone who is content with themselves wishes others the same.
Children and young people bring society in through the school gate with them. They are mirrors. Big mirrors, in fact. And what they do is reflect. Nothing more and nothing less. Every parent knows the phenomenon. If you come home in the evening tired and worn out, the chances are greater that your children will behave badly. If they see you fit and full of energy and they notice that you are a contented person, the chances are greater that they will start behaving that way themselves.
Just look around you. What do you see? How many people have lost contact with themselves? How many people feel separate, are ill, have burnout, depression? Look further! What do you see? All around us we see media creating fear and insecurity: reports about terrorism, attacks, wars, financial crisis, shady dealings in companies, with our food, in the health sector, examples of intolerance, poverty, political stagnation and a climate we have ruined. Look further still! What do you see? Great leaders who wage war without batting an eyelid, keep a corrupt system in place, nuclear threat and competition in space. Celebrities and members of religious orders who abuse others. Look further still! What do you see? An entertainment industry churning out films that are brimming with violence and a lack of respect for life. Is the world not like that, then? Oh yes, it is. In part. But the other part exists as well. The part where people search for connection, for solutions to small and global problems, who work together and have fun together. People with a great respect for life, for nature and for their fellow human beings. All of this exists on a large scale too, but we hardly see it reflected in the news. What we are shown of the world is severely out of balance.
What does this do to a person’s nervous system and state of mind? To their sense of safety, self-confidence and self-worth? It plunges into the depths. The same symptoms come back: muscles tense up, breathing catches, and so on… Inside, the human being is crying out. Will I still have work? Will I have enough money? Will I stay healthy? As long as there is no war? Those inner cries of insecurity and fear are picked up by children and young people. They cannot really put into words what is going on, but they show it in their aggression, in their humiliating and reproachful language. They mirror the imbalance on several levels: with their aggressive re-actions they tell us that they do not feel good in their own skin (1) and they cry out their despair about the imbalance they see in the adults (2), from whom they expect and need safety in order to be able to develop. On top of that, on a large scale they signal that there is an imbalance at a much wider level: namely the lack of respect for life, for justice and for care of one’s fellow human beings in society (3), despite the efforts of many to make a contribution. On a large scale we have lost the connection with ourselves, with our fellow human beings, with nature and with life. And these happen to be precisely the things that make us feel good. We direct our attention outwards instead of inwards.
What Mrs Geysels is doing by not teaching for a few months is directing her gaze inwards. That is a good movement. A movement out of which new insights and a new approach can arise. More of the same through repression and punishment is not what we really need. Respect for ourselves and for who we are is crucial. Inside is where we find the answer.
Mrs Geysels is right. The teacher should be at the centre. Usually the pupil is put first, which is not the right place. In a school, attention for the teacher is needed. Urgently. Why? Teachers are the capital of a school. Their motivation, their knowledge and their appetite for working with children and young people grow when they are well cared for. What do teachers need in order to do their job well? That is a question that can be asked in every school. The answer may differ from school to school, but it certainly has to do with being able to unfold as a human being, with feeling safe, seen and heard at school, and with being given room to really teach. The anchoring of the teacher within themselves. It is a subject that does not feature in teacher training. And yet it is crucial. The same goes for the pupil. In which subject does a pupil learn to make the connection with themselves, apart from a few isolated initiatives?
When teachers know how to be in deep contact with themselves, and when they then do this together with their colleagues, the teacher takes on a different strength. Easy breathing, being present in the moment, using your body as an instrument of perception, teaching from the heart and becoming aware of the impact of projections and mirrorings are some aspects of a deep anchoring that can support teachers and pupils alike in the process of living and learning. You would be amazed at how quickly pupils go along with this. That has mainly to do with the self-image, which becomes more positive, and with self-worth, which becomes stronger, so that people are not willing to do things that are harmful to themselves and therefore not to others either. And with the not-to-be-underestimated feeling that a great many matters can be solved from within. Surviving in the classroom is then no longer necessary, because you learn to live from conscious presence. More zest for life and more appetite for learning are the result. These ingredients for a better classroom climate will be swept off the table by some, but they work. Every teacher deserves the chance to train further in this.
It is not a matter for schools alone. Who supports the parents in this process? Where do they learn to anchor themselves firmly in life and in their willingness to live? Irrelevant questions? Apparently not. During educational constellations we see that pupils panic when one of their parents is not sufficiently willing to live, or when teachers can no longer see a way forward. That translates into behaviour in the classroom. Introverted behaviour, bullying or setting oneself against the system can be consequences of it. How does that happen? Everyone has a deep longing for respect for life and for its unfolding within themselves. It is our life’s purpose, and we will do a great deal for it.
Educational constellations are a way of working that gives deep insight into the background of what is going wrong in the classroom. It is a way of working that clarifies the mutual positions and motivations in a way that respects the self-worth of every participant. The answers are surprising. They are different from the answers we had formulated for ourselves. In an educational constellation we usually see that the behaviour of aggressive pupils exposes a situation that the adults are not seeing. Constellations therefore tend to defuse a situation emotionally (forgive the military term), so that those involved find calm again and can carry on together. Sadly this way of working is still unknown to most schools. Together with learning to be present within yourself, constellations are an indispensable aid for situations such as the ones Mrs Geysels discussed. A support for teachers, pupils, parents and, not to be forgotten, policymakers.
Hilde Van Bulck
Author of De eigenwijze kikker (The Headstrong Frog) — The secret of teaching and bringing up children.
Systemic constellation facilitator for education