A playground enactment

There's a fascinating concept in psychoanalysis called 'acting out'.

Freud suggested that we all find certain aspects of our experience so difficult or intolerable that we repress or 'forget' them. However, these 'unthought knowns' may be acted out in our every day lives as part of a complex process of unconscious communication. If this happens in a therapeutic setting with an observant therapist, it will be understood as such, and the enactment - rage, shame or over-dependence, for example - will be viewed as a proxy for what cannot be said.

In my coaching and consultancy work - which is based on an approach informed by psychodynamic theory and practice - these enactments can provide incredibly rich information about the context my clients work in, and provide clues about what’s driving their most intractable challenges. By inviting my client to think about these otherwise unthinkable experiences and voice them instead of enacting them, it's possible to learn important things and find more constructive ways forward.

Of course, when I'm not coaching, consulting or doing leadership developmenty things, I am observing; gaining insights into the nature of the school system and its dynamics through news, books, research, conversations with young people, teachers and other parents, and - inevitably - from social media.

Now it seems Twitter was designed specifically to enable - even encourage - acting out. Indeed, I’ve become caught up in it myself at times. So it was already of interest to me that the platform has become so popular for teachers and school leaders. Indeed, many talk about their conflicted relationship with it, and particularly the toxic and polarised nature of much of what passes for debate. But - like me - they remain, as if fixated or entranced by what happens there.

A recent example of enactment on the platform has certainly entranced me, and surprised me.

It's a badly mannered and undignified spat between two highly experienced professionals - a former teacher and now school improvement consultant (tweeting as Sir Talk for Teaching @PaulGarvey4) and the CEO of Trinity MAT and director of the White Rose Education maths product (tweeting as Michael Gosling @_MGosling) - which has seen them bickering and teasing one another, name-calling, flinging accusations of hypocrisy and double-standards, and seeking to undermine one another's professional credibility. I'll not re-present the posts here (mainly as there are so many of them!), but search Twitter for [@_MGosling + @PaulGarvey4] if you’re interested and you'll get a flavour.

The causes of their spat - Ofsted and financial probity - are emotive and important, but have been obscured by the rude and disrespectful nature of their behaviour to one another. It's not unique, of course. Twitter is full of such debased debate. But the fact that this is going on unapologetically and in public between two senior educators - both of whom will have spent a large part of their career telling children off for doing the same in playgrounds - is what's so intrigued me.

Because that's the point. They're behaving like they're in a playground. These senior educators with years of experience and (one would have thought) reputations to protect, are acting like naughty children, defending their corners of Twitter without a thought for what onlookers think. There was even the beginnings of a chant, with one actually typing "give me a 'H'. Give me a 'Y'. Give me a 'P'" into his keypad to encourage his gang to shout 'hypocrite'!

But of course they're not naughty children. They're well paid and well trained professional adults with the capacity for sophisticated forms of emotional regulation, so what's going on? How have they got caught up in this sort of enactment? How do others get caught up in it too, particularly - most ironically - when the debate is about children’s behaviour! And why? What are they representing? What's going on in the school system at the moment that's so difficult for us to talk about that it gets played out like this, in an undignified and infantile fracas? They're even calling in their mates to egg them on for god's sake! It's quite something.

Maybe there's an opportunity for reparation here. I don't know either of the two people mentioned above but my fantasy is that they might read this, shake hands and make up. Or at least disagree in a more dignified manner. But then what does this fantasy (and its enactment through this post) say about me and my urge to reconcile conflict?

In any event, I'll bet that - if one or other of them reads this - their first thought is "but he started it, sir!"