Take a minute to think back to the not so lazy, hazy days of elementary, middle, or high school days. How many bad times come to memory? How many good times?
Kirsten Olson, author of Wounded by School (Teachers College Press, 2009) spent over a decade researching and interviewing many of those who remember very distinct bad times.
About the Author
Olson is involved in education in many different ways. She is a writer, an educational consultant, a national Courage to Teach facilitator and a frequent lecturer and presenter. Add to that, Olson got her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and was an English major at Vassar College.
Olson has worked in education as well as having been an active participant in learning.
She said, “My learning experience is that it is one of the most pleasurable activities human beings can engage in.”
Olson continued, “Everyone in the research came at this largely from a model of knowing they need to be in school and many have had positive experiences but there have also been these very traumatic and difficult events.”
She worked on the school wounds project in graduate school and continued her work for five years prior to finishing the book. She interviewed over 100 people as part of her research.
The Joy of Learning
Olson’s research spanned several age groups including school age through those that have not been attending school for many years.
Olson said, “With the tendency to work in urban school settings with high poverty levels, there was some time spent also talking to those in middle and upper middle class school settings and people in their 60s and 70s who haven’t been in school for decades but were also highly impacted by school experiences.”
In contrast to the long lasting bad memories or wounds inflicted by school Olson wrote, “On the other hand, experiences of joy in learning vivify and inspire.”
Three faces of the joy or pleasure in learning Olson found include:
- Autonomous pleasure – arises from the activity of learning that is self-sustaining and highly generative.
- Social reward – comes from social feedback such as gold stars, getting an A plus, or receiving special privileges.
- Tension and release – the pleasure that comes from completing a stressful project.
One of the side effects from school wounds is that the joy of learning is diminished or demolished.
Reading Levels
Reading levels have long been thought to be a central skill needed for successful schooling and Olson found that reading levels in her research were also important.
Olson said, “It is a robust, universal finding that if a child is not reading fluently by the third grade, they’re going to experience the kind of failure that becomes more severe and compounds with every passing year.”
She continued, “Not being able to read and moving up in school is very wounding and is a critical indicator of all kinds of school underperformance. From the emotional standpoint, they feel like an imposter, they are hiding it, and they don’t feel good enough and that sticks with people.”
School Wounds Continue
There are always two sides of every story. While there are many people who came out of school with vividly positive experiences, those who were wounded by disappointing experiences often continue to be effected by those wounds long into their adult lives.
The title of this book has touched so many Olson said she is heartened by “how many people have responded to the title and want to share their stories.”
As such, Olson is continuing to collect school stories at kirstenolson.org.
Read Wounded By School book review here.
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