A New Hope

"If you put a good person into a bad system, the system will win every time". So said Geary Rumler, a pioneer of the understanding of human performance in organisations.

When our children started school, I was insistent that they attend the local school for the catchment area in which we live. As immigrants, I placed more importance on their social integration than any potential academic performance, especially at this early stage. We're blessed with intelligent offspring, and I figured that so long as they learned how to learn, the details of what they would be taught wouldn't be terribly important.  Eventually, I brought Liz round to my point of view, and in due course, off they went to our local school.

After five successful pre-school years I was hopeful that our son would take enthusiastically to school, and a more structured environment. By the end of the first term I had been disabused of this naīve hope. School was an almost unmitigated disaster. Our son has been able to read from the age of two. When he started school aged six, he had a reading age of sixteen in English. He had taught himself to read in Norwegian to a similarly high level.  The inevitable – and surely spirit crushing – boredom he must have experienced at being introduced to one letter of the alphabet every week, led to frustration. Frustration led to anger. Anger led to violence. Violence led to meetings.  Help was sought. Plans were made. Meaningful action, however, was barely forthcoming.

"We can try more interesting material but your son doesn't want to learn", they said. Nothing changes. The consequent disruption is detrimental to all the children in the class. Conformism rules. We discover that our son is spending most of his school day in a separate room on his own, reading. This becomes the new routine for him, day after day.

Our bright and curious little boy has gone.

At the end of the first year, our son's teacher leaves. It's no great loss. He gets a new teacher in the second year. She's new to the school, and enthusiastic, and energetic. Our son is reintegrated into school life, but in spite of the new teacher's best efforts, real damage has been done, and our son's difficult times continue, though thankfully with lessening frequency over time. Perhaps we're making progress.

On our regular visits to the school, we often notice young children wandering around unsupervised during lesson times. I try not to make comparisons between the wholly unremarkable school I attended in 1980s post-industrial Britain, and small, semi-rural school in twenty-first century Norway. Even so, I can't help but think that there's a vague air of chaos about the place, which extends well beyond any sphere of influence of our unruly children.

The hopelessly inadequate rektor [principal] demonstrates a spectacular lack of empathy with children and parents alike. He's definitely from the manager mould rather than a head-teacher mould.

Eventually, I capitulate, and agree with Liz that she should apply for positions at the international school. There is a waiting list, and it's long. We can expect to wait years.

Two years after our son started, our daughter starts at the local school. She can already read well in English and is looking forward to school. I'm confident she'll enjoy the arts and crafts. It turns out she's good at maths.

By the end of her first term, a familiar pattern has emerged. Unruly classroom behaviour. Disruption. A collapse in her self-esteem.  We're now being called to the school several time a week. Can you come and calm the children down? Can you take one of them home? Sometimes a drama in one classroom initiates while another is in progress.

Then, in deepest winter, I'm called by the rektor. Our daughter has run away and she's making her way home. I drive to school and find her, literally lying in a ditch, tearful and exhausted at the side of the road. She's made it half way home on her snowy three kilometre trek. The rektor is standing over her, bemused and helpless. He can't comprehend why she would run away.

Our bright, curious little girl has gone.

At the end of the year, our daughter's teacher leaves. Local rumour has it she was let go for meanness to the children. The inspektør (deputy-head) leaves too. Shortly afterwards, the rektor leaves, and at short notice.  High staff turnover is usually a signal of a poorly-performing organisation, failing to improve.

New school management are installed. We begin to wonder if we have chanced upon a failing school. We make enquiries about changing schools. "It isn't usual, it's better to sort it out here". Our son demands, tearfully, to go to a different school. Moving to another country is an option – everything is always an option where your children are concerned – and is duly given serious consideration.

The decline continues. Our daughter is locked out of the school in temperatures of -16°C, as either a punishment or containment tactic. Our son throws something in a fit of frustration, and a teacher is hurt.

We discover from our daughter that a classroom assistant has taken her to their own home during school hours, while she is in the care of the school. This is unauthorised by us, and the school claim to be unaware of it.  Deeply inappropriate conversations have taken place on these visits. Our daughter's behaviour and mood deteriorates further. We tell the school we intend to involve the police. 

The institutional defence mechanism is immediate and swift: Children don't behave like this normally. There must be a cause. It can't possibly be the school environment. It must be the home.

We are reported.

We are investigated.

We engage lawyers.

We are visited.

We are interviewed.

In due course, after no small expenditure of nervous energy, time, and money, we are exonerated.

Relief.

We are now, officially state-approved "good parents", with documentation to demonstrate it. Crucially, we emerge from this harrowing process with important parts of the machinery of state on our side. They agree that changing schools is the right thing to do.

They discover that our daughter has been seriously abused in the school environment. In the UK (which has a much lower age of criminal responsibility than Norway) it's likely that a crime would have been committed. 

Inevitably there is an irredeemable breakdown of trust between us and the school. We insist that the children will be moving, and finally progress is made.

We make enquires and discover other children who have moved from the school under similar circumstances. Other parents share their tales of concern, and tell us they would move their children too, or move house. We hear that some other parents put up with the shortcomings of the school because they went there themselves as children, and have a nostalgic attachment to it.

Eventually, after a direct appeal to another school, which steps outside "the rules", we are offered two places at another nearby school. The very same day we receive news that a place for our son has come up at the international school.

We rejoice!

And so we come to 'skoleavslutning' (school finishing) on the 22nd July 2018. A celebration of the end of the school year, and the beginning of the long summer break. It is both kids' last day in this institution. Our son refuses to attend – he doesn't think there's much to celebrate. For all his troubles, our son has never resisted going to school, only complained about being at school. I don't make an issue of it. He can stay at home.

I go to watch our daughter and the other children dance. She's been practicing for weeks. We picnic afterwards, as is the natural order of things. She plays with her friends. I talk with the teachers, the current crop of whom have done what they can in difficult circumstances. One is leaving after a few years, Another presents me with leaving cards the other children have made for our son. They're touching. Later, Liz will cry when she sees them.

Another parent approaches me. "What do you think of standards in this school?" they ask. "Both of our children will be in a different school next year", I answer, "so draw your own conclusions."

If you put a good teacher into a bad school, the school will win every time.

I try to avoid being sentimental. I hope today's entry can be one of very few here which looks back further than a few days into the past. We must look forward with hope, and fortitude, to make the future a better place than the past, for our children.

And we will do so.