Oops! Trustee’s wife shows evidence of brainwashing!

Photo courtesy of Greg du Toit

Here is some interesting evidence of the power of a group.

If David Cameron and Michael Gove’s plans for Free Schools in the UK do involve, as they are proposing, schools which are “so unregulated, that no-one will ever know what goes on in them”, then they could learn a lot about the folly of that course of action from the Titirangi Rudolf Steiner School.

In fact, the school’s actions are such a fantastic example of why that’s a shockingly bad idea, that it would be a further crime if the information wasn’t made more widely available.

If the truly anti-child actions of this organisation, the cavalier way that some of its parents have dismissed cruelty towards children on the justification that it didn’t and couldn’t happen to them, the foundation of a sense of community actually on a practical aversion to democracy, the casual negligence of the Trustees, if any of that is to serve any purpose whatsoever, it should be to educate the world about these dangers.

Yet against all odds, the bullied-child expellers continue. And because of research, we’re informed about the gaps in the law that allow that to be the case. With gaps like that in the law, the idea of self-regulation, which is part of the High Trust model of private schools in New Zealand, is a load of tosh.

Why? Because some schools have an element that will make people overlook things rampant bullying, crappy management, negligent Trustees. Steiner education appears to be one such. Certainly looking at the statistics about small private schools that have closed down and why. Being part of the Steiner movement is definitely one reason why the Titirangi Steiner School has got away with so much for so long, and it accounts for why the school has now placed itself right at the centre of the Steiner Movement in New Zealand, not to say at the head.

Something about needing Steiner education (or needing to stay out of State education), has the power, when it’s scarce, the need of it can actually change people’s minds to prevent them having to take logical action based on personal experience.

That’s really the opposite of self-regulation, if that’s possible.

To illustrate this point, have a look at the two emails below. These two emails are from the same person, Pauline McCoy, who wrote them less than six months apart.

The obvious question is, how could the person who wrote the first one, possibly have been persuaded of all the points of view expressed in the second?

And if she was, why didn’t she say that in June?

Three days after she wrote the first email, Pauline’s husband, Desmond Burdon, the Trustee who told us the school was a Micky Mouse operation and that Mark Thornton was a weasel, wrote his rather mewling email to say that he really couldn’t ‘take sides’ in the matter of his employee breaking contracts with us and hurting our kids, by unlawfully expelling them.

That’s right. The following email was written by the wife of a Trustee three days before our children were unlawfully expelled:

3 June 2009

Yes, I think it is time to over-haul the schools approach to bullying. It appears to have been an on going issue for some time (many years). I am curious to know what they say about past events, especially where families have left the school due to this issue being unresolved. How have they justified their actions in the past? Do they acknowledge that one child is causing problems with many children?

But really it is not about the child in question, it is about how they deal with the parents and how they can guide them through a process of addressing their childs anti-social behaviour. What steps have they taken to addressing this issue? It is much harder for adults to confront adults on such a touchy subject and maybe they don't have the courage - a bit like how many past parents have found it difficult to confront the school management about their child being bullied and then given up (and left). However, I do hesitate to make assumptions regarding the anthroposophic approach to the bullying issue, simply because I know nothing about it. But surely they can take some time to explain their approach in this context. I like to think we are alternative thinkers and can take on board others ideals and philosophies without taking offence.

It's much easier not to address the problem.....but I hope you do have the will to keep persuing it as co-operatively as possible.

Please note that Pauline, who is still we believe at the time of writing married to Desmond Burden, who is still we believe at the time of writing a Trustee of the school carelessly admits she knows nothing about the Anthroposophical approach. That’s fine for a Trustee’s wife, but our kid’s expulsion letter claimed we had a ‘fundamental disagreement’ with a school policy, namely behaviour management, and all we asked was they followed it! They cannot and have not, and have not even been required by any law, to say which part of the behaviour policy they believed us to have a fundamental disagreement with.

Neither have they been required to describe, name, identify, the behaviour which leads some badly informed people to claim that we were expelled while our children were not.

Which part of the behaviour policy was it? It obviously wasn’t the one that says that bullying will be taken very seriously, as Pauline’s letter demonstrates. It must be the other, unofficial one, expressed to us verbally on several occasions about boys needing to behave in certain ways.....

The unacceptable thing we did was to flag up the fact that the official policy was not able to be followed because it contradicted the belief system operating in the school, which, because it is very “alternative” must not be visible. Not only to flag it up, but to continue to flag it up in the face of the school’s tactics to avoid the obvious fault-line in school policy.

Pauline’s reference to other families and to the length of time are absolutely authentic and our own experience shows that clearly - of meeting people, in the community, who have been “rejected” by the Titirangi Rudolf Steiner School, who’s children have been rounded on, their self-esteem shredded by not being seen or heard if it doesn’t fit with the (unspoken) dogma.

I suppose it is logical, given how many there are, that the school could not back down. That’s the problem with getting all on your high horse. Honestly folks, we did nothing to provoke, or deserve such an attack on our whole family, who was, really, if you think about it, very involved in the school.

We had a daughter who had been there for fourteen months, who’s teacher we adored, and the experience of making friends there, was wonderful for people coming across the world to a deceptively disimilar country. Our youngest daughter had just applied for Nursery and was a mostly regular attender at play-group, and obviously we had one in the scary class.

Steve cleaned the Hall, which made Kimberley very happy, and Angel was ecstatic to have been given the opportunity to work on marketing using video! We attended all school functions and were increasingly involved, basically, in the natural way of things.

We asked, simply, that our daughter should not come home bruised, battered, scared, fragmented, feral. And Pauline McCoy was only one of many who agreed wholeheartedly that no children should.

These matters will be examined in detail, but in the meantime, contrast the above email with this one, written six months later.

Notice the complete turnabout and re-arrangement of facts, feelings and opinions into one target, our daughter, and indirectly, obviously us.

24 November 2009.

Now to change the subject...... For a long time I have wanted to tell you something of how I feel about the situation that happened with your family at the school. You may not want to talk to me again after what I am about to say but it is my personal opinion...

I can't help feeling poor [your eldest daughter] became a victim of her parents behaviour and alot of what happened was her meerly acting out the expectations of her parents with regards to the bullying. - and yes, I'm sure there was bullying going on but was any of that bullying provoked? She is only a child and no doubt wants to please you both. In a funny way the more the situation erupted the more she may have felt it was getting the right results for you both.

It is the hardest thing to hear - critcism, especially when your child is involved. ...

The kids in class 3 & 4 have all settled down now and are getting on fine.

I hope you can listen to my personal opinion without getting angry at me - after all, if you truely believe in your argument/cause then other peoples opinions shouldn't really matter! It's a free world after all.....

What Pauline says does make it look as though she is generally happy to speak to me, whereas in reality, I haven’t seen her for a year...but for the record, of course, we would be happy to hear Pauline’s account of how she came to say the opposite of what she said earlier and I’m sure lots of other people would be too.

It was only when Pauline sent me the second email that I remembered that she had written to me before, and I was as surprised as you to read them next to one another.

Still, we do believe that everyone is entitled to their opinions, (even if they are mutually exclusive) and they are enlightening, aren’t they.

The stuff about the kids in class 3 & 4 is taking things a bit far, because we know that in spite of an apparently improved teacher, the bullying still goes on. But you never know: maybe the people who talk to us just tell us what we want to hear!

So how did six months without us at the Titirangi Rudolf Steiner School manage to change Pauline McCoy’s mind so completely? To make her lose her genuine sympathy with another and another’s children, and blame them all instead?

How does the school manage to change people’s minds in this way, as they have been doing, obviously for such a long long time?

The answer’s obvious really isn’t it. It’s brainwashing!

Obviously I must have brainwashed her into writing the first email and then forgotten about it due to my own brain being addled. Silly me.

It’s probably all those late nights. Traumatised children are so time-consuming.