Pathologizing Anger in Schools
pa·thol·o·gize
/pəˈTHäləˌjīz/
verb
past tense: pathologized; past participle: pathologized
regard or treat (someone or something) as psychologically abnormal or unhealthy.
In my years working in public schools, one of the many constant practices that created and continues to create unease for me was/is witnessing and hearing the myriad ways the anger of students was pathologized (this is especially true for Black students and disabled students and disabled Black students).
There is one story in particular that happened fairly early in my career that still haunts me. There was a student (1st or 2nd grade) who was followed by a 1:1 throughout their entire school day. The adult carried a clipboard and made notes and tallied different observations of the student.
One day, the student had enough. They told the adult to stop following them and to stop writing about them. The 1:1 had been directed by their supervisors to tell the student they weren’t writing about them. To lie to a child. This was and is absolutely a form of gaslighting: intentionally warping reality.
On this particular day, the student had no interest in playing along with the “adults know everything and should just be trusted”. After clearly being lied to, her frustration increased. Her voice got louder, her movements got bigger and she repeated herself. She told the adult to stop following her and to stop writing about her. She said she knew they were lying to her.
The behavior plan in place had a protocol that if the student became “escalated” they were to be escorted to a seclusion room to protect the other students. Because the student was angry at the adults for monitoring her and for lying about it, the adults brought this student to a windowless room and stood outside the door. I happened to be “on call” for the crisis team, so I was called to support.
I broke protocol by going into the room. The student was pacing and repeating the same messages she had been trying to communicate to the other adults. She said “I know they’re lying to me” and “why are they lying to me”. She was furious and rightly so.
I sat cross-legged in a corner of the room and listened to her. I finally said “you’re right” after listening for a few minutes. She stopped and looked at me. It took her another minute and then she sat down.
I didn’t tell her that “I would talk to her when she was calm” and I didn’t lie to her; both of which were part of the behavior plan. I instead co-regulated and validated her story. (watch this video of the cat and the kitten showing the power of co-regulation).
I was eventually asked to leave the room by another adult because I broke protocol not just by going into the room but because I talked to her.
Watch this clip from the Karamo show (it is emotionally intense). This doesn’t just happen between parents and children. It happens between adults and students and it happens between adults. We live in a society that glorifies control and pseudo-calmness even when that false calm contains lies, partial truths, passive aggression, and detours around addressing the very real issues being brought up (aka defensiveness & denial).
The child/the person who loudly expresses their very real hurt is then pathologized, labeled, and deemed “a problem”. Doing this without examining the entire system, all of the players and their moves, will perpetually overburden those being harmed in societally “normed” ways and pathologize their very valid anger. Requiring “rationality” amidst irrational treatment is unjust.
We need to do better. The righteous indignation, the calling out of unfair and unjust treatment, and the fury of being harmed all deserve our care, attention and respect. At minimum, those moments require our curiosity.
What is their anger telling us? What are we missing from this picture? What in this environment is creating conditions that cause a young person to have to rage at us in order to be heard? Rather than sending them and their anger away, what can we do within our own nervous systems so we can fully hear and witness their rage?
We are far too quick to place blame and to pathologize expressions anger that are deemed untidy.
Recommended Reads:
Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School by Carla Shalaby
Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues: Education for the Liberation of Black and Brown Girls by Dr. Monique Couvson (formerly Dr. Morris)