Overcoming school phobia
A Touch Of Nokoko by Kofi Akumanyi
A boy has been excused school. - because it is driving him mad. Just the mention of the word makes 12-year-old Oliver Newman go berserk.The truth is now out. And it took thirty odd years (in my case) to be publicly accepted that not everybody is cut out or gregarious enough to share a classroom with other children in an educational institution.
Medical experts agree he is suffering from "school phobia" a recognised clinical condition. And education chiefs have decided Oliver can be taught by a Tutor at home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. His phobia developed after he started at a local comprehensive school last year.
- Daily Mail
When I was a little child of about ten, I realised that I could not relate to other children very easily and I felt that my teacher could not understand me. My parents, hard working as they were, could not see my point of view either and kept telling me that if I wanted to go to college and on to the University I did not have any alternative but to sit in with the other children and behave like a normal little boy.
However hard I kicked, cried and produced all the tricks in little boys' code of conduct aimed at drawing sympathy from understanding adults, my parents stuck to their guns.
That's why I ended up attending primary, secondary and the university like everybody else - reluctantly
Now, thanks to schoolboy Oliver Newman whose peculiar case has elicited an official sympathy one hopes that poor little boys and girls with that affliction will now be saved from further embarrassment and name- calling by unfeeling schoolmates.
Having suffered the indignity of being called a skiver for a perfectly medical condition, I am supposed to be ready to recognise a similar condition in my own children however, I was a little surprised when I was faced with one the other day. Habits die hard. Armed with the knowledge that the 'disease is not congenital' I dealt with the problem in the orthodox fashion.
Monday morning is a pretty rough morning for all school kids especially after a weekend of birthday parties, but when 9-year-old Jimmy said he didn't want to go to school little did I know that he had got the appalling disease.
"Now, look here, Jimmy, I don't want us to go through this school business again. Get up and get ready" I said as firmly as a concerned, no- nonsense father should.
"But daddy, I just don't feel like going to school", he repeated and I immediately saw my past flashing before my eyes. I thought about my own childhood and the days that I never argued with my daddy but just played truant any day I felt like it.
"Now, wait a minute. You've got to convince me as to why you don't want to go to school and it had better be very good reasons".
"They are, daddy, they are very good reasons" he said with a mischievous grin.
"Oh, I see. You've got a tummy ache".
"No, I don't like my teacher".
"You what?" I couldn't believe my ears.
"Your teacher, Miss Solomon is a very nice young lady. You couldn't have a nicer person than her".
"That's what you think; she's horrible. She shouts a lot and beats her breast when the children make her angry in the class'.
She does that? Oh dear. OK I'll talk to your headteacher to put you into another class" I said. "Well, and there are my classmates too".
"What about them?"
"They don't like me".
"Why is that?"
"I don't know. They laugh at me".
"Well, I have only one solution to this particular problem which my father taught me many, many years ago. He said 'my dear son, if someone hits you, hit him back. That's the only way to succeed in life'. So if they laugh at you, you laugh back", I said.
"Would you do that if all of them laugh at you at the same time?" he asked. I had no ready answer.
"OK, OK, sonny boy, it seems to me that you don't like your teacher and your mates. I quite appreciate your difficulty. How about me talking to your head master so that you can go to the library and read books to avoid your teacher and fellow classmates".
"Daddy you still don't understand. I don't like books!"
"Now, this is going beyond a joke. You don't like your teachers, classmates and hate to read books. What sort of education do you imagine you can have at this rate"
"Education? who needs education when there is so much unemployment" the little boy said to my amazement.
"You leave unemployment to grown-ups to solve and sort out your own 'school life' I'm going to take you to see a doctor".
"I don't want to see a doctor! I don't want to go to school... I don't want to do anything at all... I just want to sit right here all day!"
To cut a long story short I remembered an ancient remedy used by my parents and others to sort out little boys and girls who, once in a while get the "school blues". A hard smack on the soft behind of the recalcitrant kid always works wonders; it dispels all ideas of "school phobia".
In the case of Jimmy it worked - in double quick time the spirit of 'school-phobia' was effectively exorcised. It may work for 12-year old Oliver Newman, who knows.
