Fearful Pyramid

Western society works in pyramids. As humans we are conveniently stacked so that we know who is above us, who is in charge and therefore whom we must strive to please lest they ‘tell us off’. In this way, fear permeates our society.

In the Education System, this pyramid is embedded, seeping into our schools and filtering down into the mindset of the very children the system is meant to serve. Each ‘layer’ fears those above them, stifling our innate drive to learn, driven by our Fear of Failure

Policies are created at the top of the pyramid, away from the very people who will be implementing them, leading to an automatic disconnect between policy and practice. This is turn leads to more monitoring, more ‘telling off’ until a state of compliance is reached, masked as the all-elusive 'consistency'.

Teachers fear the oppressive ‘SLT’ who, armed with 20 page policies, step into their classroom space ready to find fault, to ‘tell them off’. In this way a Culture of Shame is embedded and attempts at innovation and creativity are stifled. Monitoring happens behind closed doors, with hardworking staff waiting to be judged, to be told what they are doing isn’t good enough.

Teaching Assistants, who, being closest to the action, can see a poorly thought through policy unfolding disastrously before them, are fearful of pointing out what’s not working because ‘it’s not my place, I’m ’just a TA’. As products of the education system themselves, they fear the certain shame that will come from speaking a Deep Truth to power, even if they innately sense that their truth could benefit the children whom the school is meant to serve.

For Headteachers, the pyramid causes another problem, it puts distance between them and the children, the ‘clients’ they are there to serve. This distance perpetuates the Victorian ideal that children should be seen and not heard and children automatically default to ‘am I going to be told off’ when the Headteacher approaches, their innate curiosity and drive to learn, stifled as they step into the presence of the person at the top of the pyramid, the person most likely to shame.

The pyramid prevents school systems from doing what they should be doing: working as Learning Communities, learning all the time. Learning and failing fast.