The Rhythm for Reading blog
Tolerance and Respect in Britain
2 December 2019
Inclusivity in a Welcoming Britain
We are almost at the middle of this decade I couldn’t be more hopeful that we are about to see a huge wave of open-heartedness and humanity. As we welcome children back into schools after the break, we can reassure them that their school is a school where they know they can thrive and enjoy learning and growing within a loving and inclusive community.
What really matters? It’s the small gestures of reassurance, of kindness, of gratitude. It’s the ethos of caring and listening. It’s the supportive atmosphere that encourages everyone to try something new, even when that might feel daunting.
I once interviewed a headteacher just before his retirement. His school had been rated ‘Outstanding’ and I asked him whether he thought he’d done something differently. I knew that there had been changes to the curriculum and that his leadership was so strong that the whole community knew him. I was very moved when he told me, that the whole school had been transformed by one thing - as a school, they had looked after the most vulnerable children far more than ever before. The result had been that everyone felt the benefit. Every child knew and appreciated that this was indeed a safe and caring environment. the conversation was so special. I will never forget it and it took place in perhaps the most socially disadvantaged community in England.
in the Rhythm for Reading Programme, a safe and caring environment lies at the heart of what we do. We know that when the learning is paced so that everyone is on board that the group response remains strong. When the group response is stronger, the learning is faster, deeper and more confident. So yes, I agree with this Headteacher’s point of view.
We can apply this more broadly: by standing together with the most disadvantaged and supporting them, we are stronger and more confident as a community and everyone prospers.
Stereotypes
Stereotypes are meaningless and belong in the past. They are old and outdated. Now that we are moving into a new era of health, strength and optimism, we can move forwards and leave the polarity and division of the past eight years where they belong -in the past.
Diversity
On the other hand, whenever there’s a healthy balanced range of opinions, of voices, of faces on mainstream media I inwardly cheer in celebration of our country’s rich and beautiful diversity, because, deep down all is well. With so much at stake, we must work together to resist discrimination of all kinds and call out any stereotypes as soon as we can. Harmonious sweetness is the prize and it belongs to us all. For this reason, we can thrive in healthy debate. We can enjoy differences of opinion. We can rejoice in multiplicity of perspectives and broaden and build our way into the future.
Groupthink
‘Groupthink’ (a term coined by Irvin Janis) is an unremarkable ability. Groupthink involves ‘people pleasing’ and staying quiet when you should speak up. When most people in a group are in agreement, it takes courage to be that person of integrity, who cannot follow the others. Groupthink shuts such voices of dissent down, silencing people so that what remains is an unhealthy inbreeding of ideas that from time to time, arises in politics in particular (Janis, 1972).
Research done in the 1970s showed that in roles where one group of people dominated another group, the behaviour of both groups needed to be carefully monitored. The notorious Stanford Prison Experiments explored human behaviour in role-play. Undergraduate psychology students from ‘normal’, mainly middle class families volunteered as participants and were randomly assigned to roles either as prison guards, or as inmates in a specially constructed jail in the university campus. After only six days the treatment of the prisoners became so abusive that the project, which should have run for fourteen days had to be abandoned. In this experiment, Zimbado showed that undergraduate students with no previous history of cruelty (ie they were educated, reasonable people) had the capacity to treat prisoners sadistically, particularly when following orders.
Clearly, in our social groups, we humans have a dark side - a capacity to behave together in ways that would be unthinkable at an individual level.
This matters in everyday life, but particularly in leadership. We must engage in and celebrate opportunities healthy debate, and cultivate communities that prioritise care for the most socially disadvantaged. We must all take responsibility to truly honour each other. We need to call out stereotypes for everyone’s sake so that together we cultivate an atmosphere of happiness, balance and peace in our society.
References
Janis, I (1972) Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascos (2nd Edition) Boston, MA. Houghton Mifflin.
Zimbado, P.G. (1999) Stanford Prison Experiment: A Stimulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment Conducted at Stanford University http://www.prisonexp.org [accessed 1/12/19]