Reflections 6th August.

On Infantilisation, Authority, and Feeling like a Citizen.

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

I have long had an issue with how our education and training industry (and it is an industry), from our earliest years all the way through to employment, is geared more toward identifying what we’re weak at than what we’re good at. The technical term for this is “learned helplessness”, a phenomenon that occurs when a series of negative outcomes or stressors causes someone to believe that the outcomes of life are out of one’s control. It creates dependency, promotes compliance and tolerance of toxic management, and reduces the risk-taking on which our personal growth depends.

Like most issues, we are aware of them, and they sit there in the background until something pulls them into the foreground and makes us look at them. The “something” this week was a conversation in which the word “infantilisation” was used. It is such a sharp, emotionally aggressive word. So, as with anything of that nature, an examination of it is a better response than an unth…