Overview

Atrocious behaviour tells the story of a girl's boarding school in the 1970s, where manners and obedience were core curriculum. A British Boarding school in the 1970s was a world of dormitory games, hidden contraband, and secret friends. It was also the story of their resultant punishments, school rituals and many small humiliations. While many have begun to write from the perspective of both examining the system and relating experience, this story also leads up to the drama of being expelled aged 10, the impact of the theatrical way this was handled, and learning to live with that experience in adult life After decades of sharing outrageous episodes of pint-sized rebellion, I gradually re framed the stories with new understanding both through a long career in teaching and raising two children myself. It begins with returning to the school (now long since reclaimed as a country house) 30 years later, with my husband and children, which turned out to be the beginning of new understanding of the impact of school culture on a child.

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9781036926434

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Atrocious Behaviour Atrocious Behaviour is a vivid memoire of Karen Wilson's childhood and a searing indictment of the British boarding school system. The book documents Wilson's mistreatment in a girls' boarding school from the ages of 7 to 10.Very young and energetic she was literally, unable to comply with the rules of the institution and so, misunderstood, she suffered daily, and nightly, punishments. This is a heart-breaking account of child abuse and torture, perpetrated by sadistic adults entrusted with her care. However, this is more far-reaching than the personal story. Wilson is an experienced teacher and mentor of children and so, despite the harrowing stories of her own childhood, she draws from it a positive, upbeat message for teachers and anyone with responsibility for the welfare and imaginative life of children today. It is an impassioned plea for understanding children: their energy, innate desire to learn, be understood and most of all to embrace life. 25th September 2022 Professor Joy Schaverien PhD, Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Boarding School Syndrome: The Psychological Trauma of the ""Privileged"" Child. (Routledge 2015)

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