This article touched a spot with me, so wanted to share with you folks. Tren http://www.omnimag.com/archives/interviews/miller.html

-- Anonymous, August 27, 2002

Answers

Thanks, Tren, this is great stuff!!

I have a copy of Drama of the Gifted Child and read it years ago; it was given to me by a teacher friend when Lotus was small. It all made perfect sense to me, and the lesson of always treating children with respect resonated with me immediately. Unfortunately because I was as yet inexperienced and insecure enough as a parent to not listen to my own intuition, I allowed my child not only to start school, but to start school early, because she "tested" way off the charts. The "authorities" convinced me that an alternative school was where bright children ought to be, and it would be irresponsible for me to deny her this 'education.'

So off we tearfully sent our precious tiny child, a child who never had displayed a moment's anxiety, saw the world as a place of love and wonder and excitement, talked freely with strangers and family alike, and loved herself just exactly as she was. And as the months passed by, with me watching her interact in the classroom because I volunteered there twice a week, we began to see changes in our little girl. For the first time, she began to doubt her ability to do things. She began to behave as though she were in some sort of rush, in most everything she did. She stopped assuming that everyone would like her for who she is, and became more hesitant around strangers and others outside our household. For three years she attended school, and with each passing month, she became less and less the child she was when she entered school. Her inate joy of just being alive had dwindled, and her always formerly smiling face was more and more sad and depressed.

What did they do to her that was so damaging? Only what most every school every day of a kid's life. Put them in 'groups', so they are forced to compare themselves to others, to feel superior of inferior in any number of ways. Forced to stop working on a project just when they are getting the creative juices flowing, because, after all, the teacher has a schedule. Forced to do things they have no interest in, no talent for, and would never in a million years choose to do on their own. Forced to be quiet when they want to communicate; forced to talk when they feel like being quiet; rushed through their snacks and lunch and 'recess'. Made to 'learn' things they are not ready for, or forced to wait with the rest of the class when they are anxious to learn. In other words, they are disrepected, and forced to spend their entire childhood living someone else's agenda. And we have come to believe that this abuse is normal, necessary, and for their own good.

What does this have to do with this interview? It has to do with respect, which I totally agree is what our culture does not offer our children, and I personally believe that compulsory schooling is the highest form of disrepect, mostly because the fallacy is it purports to be in the best interests of the child, and I believe it to be no such thing. It is merely in the best interests of a society that has organized itself so that there is no constructive place for children to be, to express themselves in a constructive manner. It offers no way for children to express the individuals they truly are.

It took another three years to get to a place where a modicum of the person Lotus had been to return, and even so, there is still plenty of legacy from her years of school, and this was a 'good' school. I consider those three years, even with the best intentions of all concerned, to have been child abuse, and that she will always suffer from it. When we first moved back to town, we drove by her old school, which ironically is only a couple miles from where we live now, and I watched her visibly shudder, and get very quiet, because those years will always color her self-esteem, the self-esteem we had worked so hard to build before her school years, and she remembers, she will always remember.

Tren, I know your reference to this article is more clearly direct, more in tune with physical violence against the young ones, which we surely all abhor and need this kind of new dialogue about. I applaud this wise woman's work, and how we can all learn from it, indeed we must learn from it if we are ever to stop violence in our species. My own personal experience with child abuse is more of the emotional kind, both from my mother and from my child's experience in school, so my point is there are all kinds of child abuse, some not as obvious as others, but all damaging.

The bit about Hitler was interesting to me too, cuz I have always been fascinated by people like him. I have always been interested in knowing how evil people's minds work, and have read many biographies of him and others. Just recently I read that CBS is planning a mini- series on Hitlers early years, and there was a large hue and cry of outrage from certain elements of the Jewish community. I was amazed........these particular people were of the notion that if we try to EXPLAIN how Hitler may have become the way he did, that somehow was EXCUSING that he did it! Unbelievable! They said something like.......it will make people look at him as a sympathetic character! And that he is just evil, pure and simple, and we should just leave it at that!. However will we learn anything if we live life with all sorts of blinders on. Weird what people's fears do to their intellect.

Enough of my blathering now.......someone else's turn.......

Blessings,

Thanks again, Tren, lets hope your attempt at this stimulating topic will gain some interest. ....(we must keep trying ) :)

-- Anonymous, August 27, 2002

Hmpf. From my point of view, it makes a "Hitler" even more horrific if he "became", i.e. was not "born", evil!

I read the interview too, and have reserved one of her books at the library. I guess I already believe that every human being has been abused in some manner and we all carry scars. Animals have it over humans -- if I'm impatient and cranky with the cat that I've tripped over 8 times in a row or the dog that just crashed into my knee (no, my knee DOESN'T bend that way!) for the umpteenth time, they don't hold a grudge or internalize it. Unfortunately, they don't learn to get out of the way or stop damaging my knees, either! {wry grimace}

-- Anonymous, August 27, 2002

I'm sorry, Joy, but I don't understand your first statement here; would you mind elaborating a bit?

-- Anonymous, August 27, 2002

Well, I'll TRY. How best to explain . . . I guess if a person can be "born evil" or "evil incarnate", there is nothing anyone can do about that -- right? But if one is not "born that way", something makes them that way. That's what I find more horrific, that one can be made evil. I don't know if that explains it or not!

As to being "made" evil, I definitely do think that upbringing can play a large part. I just am not sure how to reconcile that with also thinking that we are responsible for our own choices. I gotta go. I'll check back later, see if I want to add anything.

-- Anonymous, August 28, 2002

Explaining and understanding why people do the things they do, in no way, shape or form takes away from their being responsible for their behavior.

To me, knowing why people do evil things empowers us to to prevent them, as a society, in future. If we believe that evil people just 'happen', that some folks are just the devil's spawn, that IMO, is much more frightening, because we simply would have no control over it, and could relinquish our responsibility as a culture to help alleviate it's causes.

No, I believe like Dr Miller, evil people are made, not born. Individuals are perhaps born, however, with differing tolerances for abuse and neglect. A childhood situation that would create a Hitler in one case would create a self-destructive addictive personality in another. We cannot know this ahead of time, which is why it is imperative that people are taught how to parent, before they parent, and have myriad sources of non-threatening help when they need it. It is also why we need a sea-change in the way we view childhood, and how we treat our young people.

-- Anonymous, August 28, 2002

"Explaining and understanding why people do the things they do, in no way, shape or form takes away from their being responsible for their behavior."

My problem with reconciliation of responsibility is with how can you hold people responsible for however they were thoroughly indoctrinated when they were young? What if you never learned that love was possible? That there was any way to act other than in a hateful manner? Sure, when they're adults and "out in the world", they would be exposed to other people and other ways of acting. But would that be enough to overcome early conditioning? In larger society, there is plenty of behavior to mirror anything negative you learned at home, tending to reinforce rather than change any conditioning or learning.

Just my rambling thoughts . . . And just to be sure, given the problems with this medium, EM and I are just discussing, not arguing. About anything. {Don't argue with that, EM! ;-) :-P }

-- Anonymous, August 28, 2002

Guess I dont know where the term 'reconciliation of responsibility" came from. Sure doesn't describe what I'm referring to anyway.

How do we hold those responsible for monstrous acts after we can clearly see how they came to be monsters? To my mind, easily. The fact that they committed them is enough reason for penalty, completely separate in my mind from understanding the psychology of it. I have never understood the insanity defense for this very reason. Although it is necessarily instructive for the future to know why someone did what they did, it makes not a whit's difference to me in the sentencing if a murderer was technically sane or insane, the victim is just as dead. Yes, its tragedy to the max, for all involved directly and even indirectly, and I just think we as a culture need to take an interest in stopping the formation of these kinds of deranged individuals as much as possible. We need to take care of each other.

Arguing? Did someone say arguing? We's havin a discussion, aint we?

Where's Teri? (people are hiding,and inquiring minds wanna know!)

-- Anonymous, August 29, 2002