http://stevehein.com

This is from my old online diary.

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The prefect - an agent of the school authorities - 5/26/2001

For the past couple days I had an ex-prefect staying with me. A prefect is a student in the Australian system whose main job is to report on the other students when they disobey the rules. For example, at one elite private highschool in Sydney - called Barker College (in Australia college often = highschool. And uni = university) the boys have to wear ties and must keep their shirts tucked in. This rule applies even when they are walking to and from school. I find this almost incredible, but I promise you this is how it is. And it is so common that few people even question it.   If a prefect sees a boy who has taken off his tie, (or even loosened it!), she is supposed to go tell him to fix it. This really is almost unbelievable, but I am not making this up. Any Australian will tell you I am not.

So anyhow, this girl who came to stay with me was a prefect about 5 years ago. She still believes she was doing the right thing when she enforced the rules of the school. She got very defensive when I questioned her about it. She said things like:

 
- If you are going to wear the school uniform, you should wear it with pride.
 
- It was my job to report them if they wouldn't obey me.
 
- I was only doing my job.
 
- If I didn't want to follow the rules then I shouldn't have taken the job.
 
- If someone else wants to look the other way and not do their jobs properly, then that is fine, but I wasn't going to take a job and do it badly.
 

(When she said "that is fine" she didn't feel fine about it, she felt disapproving, judgmental and self-righteous).
 
 
This person, who I will call her Clara, told me she was proud of her school. She told me that when she sees the students from her school not wearing their uniforms "properly" she wants to go tell them to straighten up because they are hurting the reputation of the school. People like this are brainwashed in Australia to believe that the reputation of the school is a very important thing. And that not tucking your shirt in is terrible thing to do because of the damage to the school's reputation.
 
Hmm. I will have more to say about this later, but for now I will write some more of my notes.
 
Clara is still identifying with her school. She also was identifying with her country. She said she was proud to be an Australian. She told me the Olympics in Sydney were the best in the world. She said the fireworks during the millennium were the best in the world.

Then I asked her what she was proud about in herself and she almost didn't know what to say.

She has been so brainwashed by her parents, relatives, teachers etc. about the importance of family, school and country that she has almost no sense of self. Fortunately she was not also brainwashed with religious propaganda. I saw some encouraging signs from Clara, so I feel fairly optimistic she will move further away from her identification with authority figures, the status quo etc.  

She said it was harder to boss the students around who were her own age. But she said the younger ones "need to be obedient."
 
She tried to defend herself by saying that the prefects also had input into things at school, but it doesn't sound like they have much power at all. Probably more like what kind of music (within an approved category) they will play at the school dance.
 
I asked what would happen if a prefect said "I am not going to enforce that rule because I don't agree with it." She was at a loss for words. She had never conceived of anyone doing such a thing. Then she said "Probably nothing would happen." I asked if the prefect would get fired, she said she never heard of that
happening.
 
So why might that be? Either because no prefect has challenged the school authority, or because nothing really does happen - it is all just the implicit threat of something happening -sort of like the Wizard of Oz with all his smoke and lights. And like my mother who would say "There is going to be big trouble if you don't do so and so." But she never said what big trouble was. And I never found out because she made it sound so scary I nearly always obeyed
eventually.
 
Clara also said that she was proud of being a prefect because it looks good on her resume since it was a position of responsibility. I asked if it were possible to have responsibility without being an authority figure. She never thought of that either. I suggested something like a peer counselor or student mediator, where she didn't have direct power over people, but she was helping them solve problems and teaching them conflict resolution skills. She never had thought of those kinds of things. Probably her school doesn't have them. It would be giving up too much control.
 
We talked about how university students often get jobs selling things like steak knives during the summer break (there is a big American company called Cutco who suckers kids into selling their expensive knives)
 
Clara could see that the company was just using the kids to make money for the corporation. But when I said that the people who own Barker College were using her to make money for themselves in the same way, she got defensive again. But it is true. Barker College is a very expensive school. And because it is privately run, one family is making a shitload of money from the school. They want the kids to wear their uniforms and look neat and clean because they can charge the rich parents higher prices that way. I think it is basically as simple as that. The reputation of the school is another word for the status of the school. Going to Barker College is a status symbol in Sydney, it may even be known all around Australia. It is what we call a "prep" school. It is to prepare you for getting into an elite, expensive, private university like Harvard or Cambridge. That is why we have the word "preppies" in case you didn't know.
 
Ironically, Clara is a psychology major, along with law.
 
Now I want to make a connection between Clara and Johanne's daughter, and other lawyers.
 
First, Johanne said that her daughter was becoming hardened. We talked about how lawyers are not in touch with their emotions, just as doctors are not in touch with theirs. Emotions are "unprofessional." Think of a professional soldier. Another word for this is a "hired gun." That means he will work for pay and do a good job for you as long as you are paying him. Doesn't matter what he thinks of your cause or goals. He is removed from his own conscience in other words.
 
I have noticed kids who were over-controlled by their intelligent parents often go into law. In law they can finally win some arguments - win some power struggles let's say. In law there are lots of opportunities to fight, to battle, to prove yourself. Most lawyers I met have a lot of unmet emotional needs. So they need to win. It is like an addiction for them. It may actually be one for many of them. They feel a need to win as if their lives depended on it. But it usually doesn't matter which side of the case they are fighting on, just as a mercenary soldier, a hired gun, will fight and kill for either side, as long as he is getting paid.

(Here are some notes on Gerry Spence, a lawyer who made millions in the USA.)
 
Now back to Clara-

She is psych major as well as a law student.
 
In her psych classes she studies a guy who has done experiments with obedience to authority - Stanley Milgram. Milgram proves how obedient people are and how dangerous this can be for society - for example, Hitler's soldiers. (We also talked about the experiment where they took some ordinary people and made some prisoners and some prison guards and how scary that became - so bad in fact that they had to stop the experiment.)
 
Clara could see how obedience can be scary theoretically, but she couldn't see a problem with it in her own personal situation. Her defense mechanisms were too strong. (And we are not defensive unless we are insecure.)
 
C. also told me that her parents hit her a few times, but she insisted she deserved it for talking back, getting smart, etc. She insists they were good parents. She was very defensive about them. At one point I asked if she had ever been raped or abused, she looked down and away quickly then said, no, very unconvincingly.
 
She also used the phrase "it's all good" several times. This is a common phrase in Australia. It can be a good thing to remember or it can be used as a way of denial or brainwashing. In her case everything was not all good, but she desperately wanted to believe it. I expect that when things were not going well in her house her parents would say "It's all good" to try to either calm themselves or their children. At some point there is a line between positive thinking and invalidation. If I say to you my father is sexually abusing me and you say, "It's all good," then what the hell is that about? How helpful is that?
 
I noticed many times when C. was talking that she would say "you" when she wasn't talking about me. For example:
 
"If you are going to wear a uniform you are should wear it with pride."
 
I pointed out to her that she was making these global, general statements as if she thought the whole world should do as she thinks they should.
 
I also pointed out to her how many times she used the word should.
 
When we making dinner over the campfire she said "you should pour that can of soup into the other one." I said, "I should, should I?" I said, "And what if I don't?" She didn't know what to say. Then I said, "I have noticed you use the word should a lot." She looked puzzled. Evidently no one she knew had ever questioned it before. And I guarantee her parents say it a lot.
 
I asked, "How do you feel if I say you *should* do something? Tell me in one feeling word."  

She said, "pressured."  

I was very impressed that she was able to come up with that word, and I was encouraged. I said, "Now what else could you say?" She suggested the word "could" instead. I said, "Do you think that word feels as much like pressure?" She said no.

So she seemed to agree with me. Later we joked about the word should. We also joked about how she would say "you" when she meant "everyone." I felt encouraged that she seemed to catch on to somethings I said pretty quickly and that we could joke about it. This meant her defenses were dropping.
 
It helped when I asked her how she was feeling. She said she felt like I was interrogating her. I said, so you feel interrogated? She said yes. I said, "Analyzed?" Yes also. Judged? No, not really. Defensive? Yes. How understood do you feel between 0 and 10? 6. (I thought she would say 5, because I knew I wasn't showing much understanding. It was all so hard for me to believe.)
 
Later she told me she was afraid she had told me too much, that she was too open. I asked her what the problem with being open was. She said something like "Well you just don't tell your whole life story to someone you met five minutes ago." She laughed and said, "Well, I just don't do that." She couldn't say what she was afraid would happen though if she did. She said she thought it was just weird. I assured her that many people have told me their whole life stories as we sat next to each other on trains and planes for example and as far as I could tell they were still living after we talked. She laughed and could see my point. But it was obvious her parents and or someone had brainwashed her to believe you don't open up to people.
 
Now I wonder why would they tell their children this? I am assuming it is because they are doing things in the home they don't want their children to tell others about. I believe psychologically abusive parents are probably the best at this. They convince the children that you don't talk about personal matters, you don't talk about your family to others. This way they are more likely to be able to continue abusing their children. This might also go for other kinds of abuse as well or maybe more so. But it seems something fishy is going on when a child is told not to be open. It is natural, of course, for children to be open and trusting, so there must be something up for parents to want to change nature so badly.
 
Ah - before I forget - she thought doing her job "properly" (and watch out for people who use words like properly and appropriate - they are usually very rigid, judgmental thinkers) meant just following orders, never using judgment.
 
Something else encouraging, though, was when I asked C if she would rather have her child go to a school with a reputation for clean uniforms and lots of rules or a school with better teachers where the people felt more free, more creative, more inspired, more respected and had more choice in what they learned and were more likely to be happy working for themselves doing something like artwork than more likely to be good corporate employees or accountants, bankers, lawyers etc.
 
She said she would rather her kids got to the alternative school.
 
Ah - something else I forgot. Clara said that when she talked back to her father that she "handled it badly." She said she could have said it in a more "polite" way. She never once said he handled it badly or that he could have handled it in a different way.
 
A few more words on this "you" business.
 
I was thinking how Clara sounded like a tape recorder when she was saying "If you are going to do so and so then you shouldn't do so and so."
 
I realized that what probably happened is that her parents said "you you you" but they meant "everyone everyone everyone"
 
In her mind the lines between her and everyone were blurred and confused. This is one reason why she has almost no sense of personal identity. And why she sounds like a tape recorder- she is probably repeating word for word what her parents and teachers said to her.
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S. Hein - Originally written in Cap Chat, Quebec May, 2001

Here is something else I wrote about Clara in another place....

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Clara from Australia was my first visitor to the Canadian program which started in 2001. She arrived in Cap-Chat by getting a ride through Allo Stop. The driver dropped her off at Cap-Chat, then she hitchhiked from there. (About 8 kilometers) By chance she got a ride with a good friend of my neighbor, Pierre! He and Pierre had been visiting at Pierre's house and he just gone into Cap-Chat to get something. On the way back he saw Clara hitchhiking. Luckily he spoke a little English, because Clara didn't speak French! I had given her Pierre's name in case she got lost and I was away from the phone. So she explained where she was going and, voila!, I found her sitting on Pierre's back porch sharing a drink with Pierre and his friend!

Once Clara and I started talking we rarely stopped. Clara was studying psychology and law. We talked about how she was raised in a wealthy suburb of Sydney and was heavily socialized to behave according to other people's expectations. She had been in Canada for about 9 months. This is the longest time she has ever been away from home and she is just now starting to find her own identity. She deliberately wants to expand her horizons. She said she always knew she did not share all of her parents' values and beliefs and that she didn't really fit in with the people she called her best friends in school.

Clara was a "prefect" in an upper class private school. As a prefect she was given authority over other students and was rewarded for helping enforce the school rules. We talked at length about this and how she felt about it. As prefect she had the power to tell other students what to do, and if they did not do it she could report them to the school authorities and they would be punished. One of her duties as a prefect was to make sure everyone was wearing their uniform "properly." I asked her what she would say to a student whose shirt was hanging out. She said, "I would just walk up to him and say "Tuck your shirt in." I asked what would happen if he refused and she said that she would give his name to the school authorities. At the time she didn't think there was anything wrong with this, but hopefully I helped her realize that no one likes to be bossed around and threatened with spunishment.

As we talked asked Clara a lot of questions. I asked how it felt to order other students around like this and how she thought the other students felt. I asked her what the purpose of education really is and why it was important for the boys to wear their ties all the way home even after they had left the school property (something which was actually another of the school rules).

I asked Clara how she felt about my questions and she said she felt defensive. We talked about that for a while. Asking her how she felt and letting her explain why she felt defensive helped relax her so we could continue to talk openly.

We also talked a lot about her parents and how she was raised. I asked if she had ever been hit by her parents and she said yes. Then we talked about whether a child ever deserves to be hit. Clara started feeling defensive and insisted she had "good" parents. I then asked her what "good" meant in that context and how she felt about my questions.

Again she was aware that she was feeling defensive and she explained why. She said that it felt threatening to think of her parents not being good. She said that if someone gave her convincing evidence that her parents were not "good," then she would have to face the possibility that there was something wrong with her. She said this is what frightened her when I asked my question.

To break up the intensity of our talks we took a long bike ride into the woods at the end of the road, and at night we sat around the campfire and relaxed. We didn't do much "work," but still I felt satisfied it was a good start to the program!