Education matters

The thing about being human is that we are all unique. It might seem sometimes that we are all very similar; we have the same basic needs and generally want the same things in life for ourselves and our children, but we are unique because the way we perceive all of our experiences is filtered through the lens in which we look at the world and that lens is formed by the experiences we have in childhood.

Perhaps the most obvious way to explain this is by considering mental attitudes.  Whether you are of a positive or a negative mindset is based on your experiences of life. 

Children who are convinced that they aren’t going to do well at something view whatever it is they are giving up on through their filter of previous experience. This means that whenever they come across that subject or problem again, their tinted filter on life will tell them that they can’t be successful, therefore they will view it as an activity to avoid or to generally not put much effort into in the future such is their mental attitude toward it.

Teachers often view parents or children with tinted lenses too. 

If a child isn’t strong in maths for example, every time they look at that child they will view them in the same way or if a child has behaviour issues, they are perceived less favourably than a child who doesn’t so even when a child behaves correctly, they are viewed to be more likely to have misbehave should the occasion to do so arises.

The reason that adults view people in certain ways is down to their blueprints, or to put it in a more straightforward way, people judge others on the way that they perceive the world should be. 

Your personal blueprint dictates how people should act, dress, study, speak or even walk and it all starts in childhood which is when blueprints are formed for the first time and – you guessed it these blueprints – are formed through experiences. 

Generally, we treat people who do or don’t match our blueprints differently but unless we are very careful, when people, especially children, are made to feel shame or guilt for not meeting expectations, it can lead to all sorts of problems.

So, some people might presume that someone who doesn’t speak the Queen’s English is less intelligent than someone who does. Likewise, others might see someone who does a manual job rather than an office job as a lesser individual because they perceive that it isn’t as skilled or that it requires less intelligence. Both viewpoints are equally wrong but they are viewpoints that can be seen expressed verbally and non-verbally in Bahrain every day.

The trouble with personal blueprints and a tinted lens on life is that once they are set it is difficult to change them; difficult, but not impossible. 

The first step in changing your perception is to consider what your view of the world actually is and then to challenge the stereotypes and views that you hold but some people are so stuck in their ways, they don’t see why they should. 

I heard of an excellent example of this recently when a new head teacher on the island couldn’t cope when her blueprint of what a teacher and teaching is was challenged entirely when greeted with her new staff of all different nationalities and teaching experience.

At the start of the academic year this particular head didn’t want the teachers she had in the school and did everything in her power to bully them out of it. By the end of the year, however, it had become very clear that because the head couldn’t change her blueprint she wasn’t going to survive in the Middle East. 

She didn’t.

In the next two months, a lot of new teachers will be arriving on the island and for many of them it will be their first experience of working abroad. 

They will all have their lens on the world set and their blueprints in place, but it is only the ones with the ability to evolve and grow who will survive, because working in schools in the Middle East can be challenging but it can be very rewarding if you can take the time to adapt.