Raising an UnTrump by Alfie Kohn
Dit stuk van Alfie Kohn verscheen in Salon en gaat over het negatieve ‘Trump Effect’ dat merkbaar is in Amerikaanse schoolklassen. Pesten, antisemitisme, anti-moslim- en anti-immigrantengedrag lijken toe te nemen sinds Trump met leugens en intimidatie het Witte Huis heeft veroverd. Het is goed om ons te realiseren dat haatpolitiek ook in Nederland zijn effect kan hebben in scholen. In dit stuk geeft Kohn enkele suggesties hoe we als opvoeders een tegenwicht kunnen bieden en onze kinderen helpen op te groeien tot volwassenen, die in staat zijn weerstand te bieden aan hun egocentrische verlangens en oog te hebben voor andere mensen en de wereld buiten henzelf.
Alfie Kohn is een Amerikaanse auteur die veel over onderwijs en opvoeding schrijft. Een paar van zijn, zeer aanbevolen, boeken zijn ‘Beyond Discipline’, ‘Unconditiinal Parenting’, ‘The Homework Myth’ en ‘Schooling beyond Measure and other Unorthodox Essays about Education’.
Zijn laatste stuk, Raising an UnTrump, begint zo:
When the words “Trump” and “children” appear in the same sentence, it’s often because the writer is trying to figure out how to protect the latter from the former. How do we shield our offspring not only from what this man does (particularly if the youngsters in question are at risk of being harassed or deported) but from who he is? How do we explain to our kids that someone who bullies, lies, and boasts about assaulting women has made it to the White House? The news these days presents parents and educators with what might be described as a series of teachable moments that we never asked for and cannot easily avoid.
Then, too, there is the ugliness that many children face as a result of what Donald Trump has unleashed and empowered in their peers. “The Trump Effect,” a survey of about 2,000 teachers published last year by the Southern Poverty Law Center, described the effects on students of a rise in “uncivil political discourse” — notably anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments — in classrooms across the country. A subsequent, much larger survey conducted by SPLC after the election offered even more evidence of Trump-inspired hate incidents in schools. And earlier this summer, Buzzfeed described events in 26 states in which students “invoked Trump’s name or message in an apparent effort to harass a classmate during the past school year.”
Kohn geeft een paar voorbeelden van manieren om kinderen gezond te laten opgroeien in een wereld waar haat en vooroordelen steeds normaler dreigen te worden. Dit zijn mogelijkheden voor een kind om een ‘UnTrump’ te worden:
- To avoid his neediness and nastiness, help kids be at peace with themselves.
- To avoid his egocentricity, help kids focus on others’ needs.
- To avoid his desperate competitiveness, help kids to collaborate.
- To avoid his hunger for money, help kids to lead more meaningful lives.
In zijn stuk werkt hij deze voorbeelden nader uit. Hij eindigt met:
It makes sense for us to let children know there are deeper satisfactions in life than a fat paycheck or the latest digital device. And it’s important to show them this by the way we live our own lives. But perhaps most decisive is the warmth and responsiveness of our relationships with them. When children’s needs for close connection and acceptance are met, they may be less likely to grow up trying to fill an emotional hole with material objects.
And when they come across a “wealth addict” (in the sociologist Philip Slater’s apt phrase), someone who not only needs more and more possessions but has to slap his name on everything he owns, perhaps they will react not with envy or admiration but with pity. That will be one indication that we did our job as parents.
Het hele stuk is hier te lezen.
