Read on!
Just, just when you think that teachers are about to take a stand on the PC brigade - albeit they are some of the biggest proponents of the dreaded political correct, wishy-washy defunct doctrine, they shoot themselves in the foot - with a Howitzer!
How?
You have to look at this story first - I read it with consummate glee that finally, finally teachers were siding with parents and backing them so they can parent and discipline children at home. How radical is that!?
Most people KNOW that the government intervention in bringing up baby has been a mishandled farce - governments can’t do these things you see - they rely too much on 25/30 year old women who are never going to have kids because their career means too much to them, and their boyfriend is probably called Geoffrey, Bartholomew or Craig. He will always back her because “It’s the thing to do for an oppressed gender”. But this is the focus group that details policy and the PC government agrees - so you can’t discipline a brat because the social services will get involved and the fear of losing your child become apparent. Then this happens:
It cited examples of children who stayed up to the early hours and played on violent computer games.
It described a mother who celebrated the fact she had been able to get her five-year-old to bed at 1am instead of his previous bedtime of 3am.
But this doesn’t affect Ms Whomever and Geoffrey. They don’t have kids and it gives them something to complain about on the BBC or in The Guardian. What joy!
Mr Sinnott said the problem lay with parents who were struggling with little or no help to bring up their children in a heavily commercialised world.
Erm..no it isn’t - it is PC government sticking their noses into things that they shouldn’t. You and government allow business to do just about what they please and then blame them for doing it later on - isn’t it about time the government took some responsibility for their actions? See teachers later in this blogpost.
But all that aside - I agree that parents should be allowed to be parents so I applaud the teachers for saying so.
And then…
This story. I did, really, really did shake my head at the futility of it all.
Teachers criticising the government and parents they then are going to deprive kids from days of education - because they are having a temper tantrum about pay.
Ian Murch, from the NUT’s ruling executive, said: “If I were you Mr Brown I would be doing my sums again.”
He added: “You wouldn’t like us when we are angry - and we are getting a bit angry now.”
Ye gods - he uses a tag line from The Hulk!? How childish is that!?
Delegates have now endorsed a motion which will enable the executive to call further strikes if a 10% pay rise is not agreed.
10% Yes - 10%!
Whenever there had been an increase in teachers’ pay, inflation always caught up with that rise, he said.
Welcome to the world of those parents you have been dissing!
But still - rewarding good behaviour is what is said will bring the brats into line and make them nice kids again - I wonder what will bring teachers into line with the real world?
Certainly not Ms Whomever and Geoffrey - they are the teachers who advocate going on strike.
All Images designed by Alison Rhodes (LastingExpressions)
12 responses so far ↓
garymurning // March 22, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I must admit, my first reaction to this — and many education-related topics — was, “Well, yet another reason not be a teacher.” Not usually the most sympathetic person where teachers are concerned (my current novel-in-progress is a semi-autobiographical piece about my school years… say no more
), I can’t help but feel that they get shit fired at them from too many sides whilst doing a job that at times can be soul-destroying. My friend taught in Birmingham for a while, for example. She loved her prostitute pupils and her mouthy Twockers, but the stress nigh-on killed her. She ultimately left teaching… for nursing. That bad.
I agree that government needs to keep out of the family, where possible, but what do we do when bad parenting impacts on the lives of others? Exclude? I don’t like that idea. It can only ever make things worse for the unruly child (who is blameless, after all). Struggle on and let the class suffer? I like this less.
Of course, this is symptomatic of a larger problem. The larger problem will take time to correct. Cycles need to be broken. Values adjusted. But the symptoms still have to be addressed now.
How would you define “discipline”, incidentally, Will?
thebeadden // March 22, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I can’t believe what schools are like now. It’s become a babysitting supplement instead of somewhere to learn. There are so many problems in this system, where do they begin to fix it?
Problem children. Label them with ADD or ADHD. Fill them with pills. But that does little to correct the problem. It is an issue with upbringing. The lack of being able to do anything about behavior. Parents with blindfolds. Teachers who are stressed.
They can’t force parents who do have time, to raise them properly. They can’t give time to parents who just really don’t have time.
Drugs and alcohol is found on a daily basis. It’s a sad state. Many people live beyond their means both parents are working to survive and maintain the lifestyle.
I know many people who came here from other Countries that send their children back home to be educated because they say our system is so far behind. We are dumbing down our children.
I had a conversation with a teacher on a job site. It really opened my eyes. She told me was going to retire early, that she just could not do it anymore. They actually allow cell-phones at school! She said everything is instant gratification. There is no respect. That everything so technical and at their finger tips, they don’t use their brains anymore.
I shook my head and said how shocked are they going to be when they get out into the real world. How would they be able to handle the stress, competition and not getting what they want when they want it? Not to mention there will be a lot of depressed people (just what we need a larger Prozac nation) when the realization sets in just how hard life is.
She said I didn’t get it. That it will be us in for the shock. We’ll be retired, we won’t be running the show. They will. And they will run it the way they see fit.
Oh crap!
I really hate to say it. Society is failing our children because many women can’t stay home to raise their own children. (Oh, I can hear the uproar) OK I’ll PC it, men or women. It was the first step in this downward spiral.
I wouldn’t want to be a teacher right now. I applaud them for sticking it out as long as they have. (The ones that actually are there to teach because they want to make a difference)
Will Rhodes // March 22, 2008 at 8:03 pm
The former point is correct - it is endemic of a larger problem, Gary. Values need to be taught, and that cannot be done by teachers alone. They have lost the respect of parents because of the way they went about following the government line. That has changed and now they are accountable - that was the obvious part that they didn’t see coming. So in one respect I have no sympathy for them.
You can discipline a child in many different ways - but you also have to show that you care for them and can speak to them as they understand, not as an adult.
If mine step out of line they know that there is consequences to their actions. This can range from a simple telling off to losing the PC, Playstation and anything else that I deem fit. The punishment will fit the crime so to speak.
They understand that they are children and are on a learning curve to becoming an adult - and there is a demarcation of parent/child. The wonder of all that is when other people tell me and my wife that our children are some of the best behaved children they have met - “They say please and thank you!” as if that is something that is shocking.
Simply put - they have boundaries and they test them - but they don’t go too far.
Will Rhodes // March 22, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Couldn’t agree more.
garymurning // March 23, 2008 at 5:55 am
Thought so. You are clearly a “good parent”, Will. But are the kids that are causing problems in our classrooms the offspring of parents like you or, on the whole, of (for whatever reason) less able parents?
Values have indeed gone askew and I’m just not sure that some parents (the minority — which nonetheless has a hugely disproportionate impact) can be trusted to correct it.
What to do?
Will Rhodes // March 23, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Less able parents, certainly not. They have the same, if not more, ability as us to be parents.
What I do see is that some, not all, parents will ‘give in’ to their children because it is hard work to say no. But, whenever I have been in a conversation with these parents - one said conversation took place after we had looked after their children, it always come down to the basics. They saw baby as baby and never realised that baby was growing up.
If you insist on treating a child as ‘Your Babyeeeeee’ until they are 15 - how on this God’s earth is that child supposed to act? Exactly - like a baby.
Childhood is a way forward to adulthood, and children should be treat as so - they have to learn life’s greatest lesson - adulthood is hard, very hard indeed. You have, eventually, to guide a child on the same journey.
steve // March 23, 2008 at 5:12 pm
I’m ashamed to admit this, but was flipping through the TV earlier today and an episode of Full House was on, and whichever Olson twin’s character when she was like 3-4 years old would say “I’m a princess”.. And many girls are raised thinking this, though they tend to turn out to be spoiled brats with entitlement mentalities, I doubt they are class disrupters, but it’s basically a related issue. Even back when I was in high school, over 15 years ago, kids would abuse substitute teachers. It was so bad that we had a teacher get fired for having sex with a female student, and he was replaced with a substitute, and I was the only student in the class that treated her with respect and at the end of the semester she actually called up my parents to say they raised a polite son.
garymurning // March 24, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Less able in the sense of needing to acquire the necessary skills to be in a position to make the right choices etc for their kids, Will — to be able to say “no” when “no” needs to be said. I’m certainly not doubting an individual parent’s potential for change. My point is, I suppose, how can we influence such a change without some kind of… I don’t want to use the term “intervention”, but that’s ultimately what it comes down to.
It’s cultural, though, isn’t it? Expectations are cock-eyed from the point of view of parent and child (by no means all, of course!) As Steve points out, there are a lot of culturally-fostered “entitlement mentalities” out there. The big question is what the response should be. If there can ever be one.
Will Rhodes // March 24, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Intervention from whom though, Gary?
There was a time when we, as parents, could bring our children up as we saw fit. OK - there were, and still is, bad parents with the skills from a neolithic age. Yet we have to ask, is that such a bad thing? You have those who believe smacking is an option - are they wrong? From certain stand points yes they are from others who agree with them, no. But what is the main factor in all that? Simply put - it was the parents choice and as their choice people supported them. No longer.
What you have now is a set guideline where you cannot cross - or it is off with your head. In the UK you have a problem with unruly children and it is a matter now that no one seems to know which way to turn. But this was obvious years ago.
You have parents who will come into school and smack the teachers face in for taking action against their child. That child will be the one who never does anything wrong according to its parents. That is a parental fault - and one that needs to be discussed - but, and this is the big but - the child concerned is a manipulative little bastard - but none will say this for fear of hurting the poor little darlings feelings.
There isn’t a book that give simple parenting skills - at one time you didn’t need that, you had the support of grand parents, aunties, uncles and the wider community. You didn’t need a book.
You had coppers who you used to know in school walking the beat - and they were respected. All this is where we must aim for and then the parenting will, once again, fall back into place - but it will take longer to do that then listening to PC affiliates spouting their abundant bile.
garymurning // March 25, 2008 at 7:13 am
Oh, yes, I know, Will… I dislike the prospect of yet more governmental interference etc, too, but, in extreme cases, what alternative have we left ourselves with?
Agreed.
Very true. Now we are all afraid to “interfere”.
Yes — you know my thoughts on the “bobby on the beat”. It’s simple and it works. Probably even cost-effective in the long-run.
virgomonkey // June 13, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Here. I agree again. But I just don’t like discipline to be done in a physical way with my children. In the ideal world, yeah… it would be nice to ban corporal punishment. That’s where we have to agree to disagree, and all my reasons for this are stated in my blog post on this topic.
Just like you, I loathe spoiled brats because spoiled brats become spoiled adults, and from having worked in the customer service industry throughout most my life, I’ve dealt with enough of them to fully understand.
I want to raise my kids the way that I was raised (leaving the violence out) in that if I wanted something, I had to work hard for it. I started working at 15 years old. Naturally, during x-mas and birthday, we’d get gifts. But we never had much money and learned to appreciate what was given to us. As a teen, if I wanted a $50 pair of jeans, I had to earn that money myself. I also used to wear hand-me-downs as well - thanks to my mom’s friend’s daughter.
And it’s the same spoiled brats that grow up to be incessant whiners too. The same people blame everything and everybody but themselves for their own problems. I hate this.
You and I actually have more in common than you think. I’d like to see your political profile if you have one. I’ll look around more on your blog.
Will Rhodes // June 14, 2008 at 10:52 am
It’s right at the top called “Political Ethos”, Virgo.
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