Under Deadman's Skin: Discovering the Meaning of Children's Violent Play - Softcover

Katch, Jane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807031291 ISBN 13: 9780807031292

Publisher: Beacon Press, 2002

Synopsis

The five-and six-year-olds in my class have invented a new game they call suicide. I have never seen a game I hate so much in which all the children involved are so happy.

So begins Under Deadman's Skin, a deceptively simple-and compellingly readable-teachers' tale. Jane Katch, in the tradition of Vivian Paley and Jonathan Kozol, uses her student's own vocabulary and storytelling to set the scene: a class of five-and six-year-olds obsessed with what is to their teacher hatefully violent fantasy play. Katch asks, 'Can I make a place in school for understanding these fantasies, instead of shutting them out?'

Over the course of the year she holds group discussions to determine what kind of play creates or calms turmoil; she illustrates (or rather the children illustrate) the phenomenon of very young children needing to make sense of exceptionally violent imagery; and she consults with older grade-school boys who remember what it was like to be obsessed by violence and tell Katch what she can do to help. Katch's classroom journey-one that leads her to rules and limits that keep children secure-is an enabling blueprint for any teacher or parent disturbed by violent children's play.

About this title

About the Author

Jane Katch is the author of Under Deadman's Skin: Discovering the Meaning of Children's Violent Play and and They Don't Like Me: Lessons on Bullying and Teasing from a Preschool Classroom. She is a regular contributor to Educational Leadership magazine. A veteran teacher, she counseled emotionally disturbed children with Bruno Bettelheim at the Orthogenic School and taught kindergarten with Vivian Paley at the University of Chicago Lab School. She now teaches young children at the Touchstone Community School in Grafton, Massachusetts, and lives in Connecticut with her family. Find her online at www.janekatch.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Under Deadman's Skin

Discovering the Meaning of Children's Violent PlayBy Jane Katch

Beacon Press

Copyright © 2002 Jane Katch
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780807031292

Chapter One

The Suicide Game

The five- and six-year-olds in my class have invented a new gamecalled Suicide. They play it in the room when they've finishedtheir work, and outdoors at recess. I have never seen a game I hateso much in which all the children involved are so happy. It followsour three classroom rules for violence in play, rules the childrenand I have made and refined together, and to which they carefullyadhere: no excessive blood, no cutting off of body parts, and noguts spilled. It also follows our rule about what the children havelabeled "mushy stuff": the people in their stories cannot take offtheir clothes. Animals can. But the suicide game does get verynoisy, so when I look for an excuse to stop it, that is the only one Ican find.

    "This game is too loud!" I tell the four players one morning."I'm trying to have a reading group, and we can't hear each other.You'll have to stop, clean up the mess, and make a different choice.You can play this game later, outside."

    "But we like this!" Seth argues. One of the tallest children inthe class, he stands straight and looks me in the eye. His recentshort haircut accentuates his new older-boy look.

    "Can we stay in the drama area but play a different game?"Seth's best friend, Daniel, asks.

    "You can try that, but if it's still too loud, you'll have to chooseone of the table activities, like art of small blocks," I relent a bit.

    "Let's play Suicide," I hear Seth say as I walk away.

    "That's what we were playing," Gregory answers.

    Where did they learn about suicide, these six-year-olds? I lookaround the room. At the art table, children make clothes and bedsfor their Beanie Babies. In the block area, the kittens are buildingtraps for the mice. Why does a group of apparently normal, happychildren choose to play Suicide?

    "Let's make Bernie come to outer space," Seth suggests. Bernieis Gregory's imaginary friend and the main character in mostof his stories. I wonder if Gregory will object to this treatment.

    "Yeah!" Daniel says enthusiastically. "Me and Seth ate spacealiens!"

    "Bernie commits suicide." Gregory gives his approval.

    "There's two Bernies and two aliens," Daniel says, clarifyingthe structure of the game.

    Nina joins the plans. "I'll be a Bernie, I guess." She sounds a bitreluctant, but she is Gregory's best friend and wants to be his ally.

    "I can take on Gregory," Seth says to Daniel. "You take onNina."

    I know they haven't really changed the game as they promised.They've just moved into outer space, further away from criticalteachers. But they are, for the moment, quiet, and the children inmy reading group are doing well on their own, so I continue toeavesdrop, hoping no parents enter the room. I don't think they'dapprove of the suicide game.

    "We have special seats that you guys go in, and we make youcommit suicide," Daniel explains.

    "Now, sit on that chair" Seth commands to Gregory. "We canblow you up! S-s-s-s-s-s-s! Now! Commit suicide!"

    "You have to be funny, like, so silly." Daniel adds a newdimension.

    Gregory understands immediately, and starts talking babytalk.

    "Okay, Bernie." Seth takes over. "Here's an apple."

    "An apple!" gurgles Gregory happily, taking the plastic food."Goo, goo!" he adds, taking a pretend bite. They all laugh loudly.

    "It's really a hand grenade. Do you know you're gonna explode,Gregory? It's gonna kill you!" Their laughter contrastssharply with their words, making the scene even more macabreand disturbing to me, but Gregory appears unconcerned. "I'mgonna commit suicide to myself," he chortles. "Eeee!" He explodeshappily onto the floor.

    "That was fun," Seth reports. "We're the masters. If you killedyour master, you would die anyway," he tells Gregory, who is gettingup for another round. "Want a ball?"

    Will Gregory, a highly competitive boy who always must beon the winning team, continue to accept the slave role?

    "Yeah!" he says enthusiastically.

    Seth hands Gregory a plastic plate. "I didn't say, `Ball.' I said,`Bomb!'" They all laugh. He looks at me. "Can we put on a playof this, for the whole class?"

    "No," I say without explanation.

    "Aw," Seth complains. He scribbles on a piece of paper andturns back to Gregory. "Now this note says if you don't commitsuicide, you'll be dead for a whole year!" He folds the paper andhands it over. "Follow me of I'll shoot you!"

    Why do Gregory and Nina, usually such imaginative, constructiveleaders in the class, want to be helpless victims in the gripof this alien sadistic force? Is the thrill of Seth's latest violent fantasytoo exciting to resist? I must stop this game. I can, at least, banishit to the playground, where I don't have to hear it or give it myseal of approval by allowing it.

    At our next class meeting, I announce an abrupt change ofrules to the children. "When you play games that are violent," Itell them, "it's too hard for you to settle down. Since math alwaysbegins right after recess, on some days it is hard for you to concentrateon your work."

    "That's just because we haven't finished our game," Seth explains.

    "I understand. But from now on, when you play pretend indoors,I want you to play games that are not violent and have noshooting or killing in them."

    "Can't we have no blood, just shooting?" Seth asks, remindingme of our class agreement.

    "No."

    "Can't you go, `Ch ch ch'? Quietly?" asks Nina.

    "No."

    Seth shoots at Daniel across the rug. "Ch-ch-ch."

    "I'm going to close the drama area if you do that," I say firmly.The space for dramatic play, including dress-ups and the housearea, is one of the most popular choices in the room, and the childrensit up straighter, realizing how serious I am. They all starttalking at once, surprised at my abrupt change of rules.

    "Can we play a game with wild animals in the jungle?" Ninaasks.

    "If it's not too wild," I answer.

    "Can we hunt with bows and arrows?"

    "We can try hunting," I relent.

    "How 'bout animals tear up people?" Daniel asks.

    "No," I say firmly.

    "We'll cut them up," Seth whispers to him.

    "No," I say. "You won't."

The discussion over, I am relieved. For once, I will act the wayother teachers do and just prohibit the awful stuff.

    After school, I complain to the principal, telling her aboutthe new game and my authoritarian response to it. She listensthoughtfully. "You must have worked with violent children whenyou worked at Bruno Bettelheim's school," she says. "What wouldhe have said about this?"

    I am taken by surprise. She is right, of course. Working withemotionally disturbed children for eight years, I must havelearned something that could be useful to me now. Yet I've separatedthat experience into a special compartment, not to beopened.

    "I don't know what you learned from him," she goes on, "butwhatever it is, it makes your work different."

    "How?" I ask, startled.

    "It has to do with empathy," she says.

    It seems so clear, once she's said it, like something I've alwaysknown but didn't want to remember. Why didn't I think aboutthis before, while I was wondering about the violent fantasies ofthese children?

    I know the answer as soon as I hear the question. If I look atthose memories, I'll have to see the pain that was there as well asthe knowledge I gained. Bettelheim demanded that we learn tounderstand the children by first looking at our own feelings.

Continues...

Excerpted from Under Deadman's Skinby Jane Katch Copyright © 2002 by Jane Katch. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807031291
• ISBN 13: 9780807031292
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144