One of my great interests is the pattern we see in so many dysfunctional families called, Catch 22 or Double Bind Communication Patterns. It is also sometimes called, "Crazy Making Talk" by therapists. I have pasted one such interaction below to illustrate just how much local schools seem to be involved in making their kids if not crazy at least terribly neurotic. The story comes from The Opinion Journal of the Wall Street Journal.
Schools and Catch 22
Tyler Stoken, a fourth-grader at Central Park Elementary School in Aberdeen, Wash., is in hot water after taking a standardized test, Bloomberg reports:
Tyler came upon this question: "While looking out the window one day at school, you notice the principal flying in the air. In several paragraphs, write a story telling what happens."
The nine-year-old was afraid to answer the question about his principal, Olivia McCarthy. "I didn't want to make fun of her," he says, explaining he was taught to write the first thing that entered his mind on the state writing test.
In this case, Tyler's initial thoughts would have been embarrassing and mean. So even after repeated requests by school personnel, and ultimately the principal herself, Tyler left the answer space blank. "He didn't want them to know what he was thinking, that she was a witch on a broomstick," says Tyler's mother. . . .
Because Tyler didn't answer the question, McCarthy suspended him for five days. He recalls the principal reprimanding him by saying his test score could bring down the entire school's performance.
"Good job, bud, you've ruined it for everyone in the school, the teachers and the school," Tyler says McCarthy told him.
Why in the world did he think she was a witch?
Schools teach kids to respect and obey their teachers. Tyler was doing his best to carry out that training, but he had a terrible Double Bind. The evil principal pulled a fast one on the kid by giving him a question that he could not answer without disobeying her.
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