Next time you're thinking of applying for a job in Glasgow, former City of Culture:
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_headline=text-row-pupil-puts-teacher-in-hospital-&method=full&objectid=18451533&siteid=66633-name_page.html
Meanwhile in pleasant Wiltshire:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6339030,00.html
However to cheer us up, here's a heartwarming tale from the US where punctuality is still seen as important. This mother did not want her daughter to be late for an important fight, so she drove her to the venue and stayed to provide moral and physical support.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=176585
7 comments:
Mr. Chalk, have you seen the latest "great idea" by Alan Johnston to raise the school leaving age to 18? Having just left teaching (I worked in the F.E sector, but walked out when all I ended up "teaching" was Key Skills) I can honestly say that keeping the kids, that I would term as "thickos". until they reach 18 is a huge mistake.
I'm sorry but regardless of what some experts say some people will only ever be fit for unskilled graft work such as working down a pit or in a factory. I'm afraid that it is a fact some students do not have the brains they tragically weren't born with, and will never be able to master anything. Therefore, to keep them in schools until they reach 18 is a huge waste of time and tax payers money.
These so called experts need to realise that with a certain proportion of pupils it is a case of square pegs and round holes. At least 30, 40 or even 50 years ago these pupils would have been able to find some sort of work down the pit or in a factory, where skill and educational ability weren't required. It's all well and good saying that the times have moved on, but unfortunately people don't move with the times; certain types of people canot be modernised or retrained and will only ever be able to do non skilled mannual jobs...Or as it used to be called "hard graft"
Failing that let's keep the unemployment figures down by giving these little toe rags EMA's and sending them to F.E colleges; where the lecturers have to do the work for them in order to make sure the students pass so we can continue to get the funding.
Our education system is a joke. it's about bloody time these assholes in government woke up and let real teachers and individual schools decide what their students need.
Sadly the first article is for Perth and not Glasgow. A fact that saddens me as I was born in Perth. In fact the very hospital the teacher went too.
As far as the US one goes I was trying to thing +ve. You don't see many parents supporting the kids activities. Best i could come up with.
What chance do we have if this is the next generation and the ones who will be supplying our next generation of politicians and thinkers?
As far as the Scottish story goes, the man's orobably lucky the rest of the class didn't decide to give him a right kicking.
Anonymous said...
"Our education system is a joke. it's about bloody time these assholes in government woke up and let real teachers and individual schools decide what their students need."
No, they won't do that. If they did, then the working clases might become too well educated, just like they were getting before the Thatcher government started sabotaging their chances.
Bag said...
"What chance do we have if this is the next generation and the ones who will be supplying our next generation of politicians and thinkers?"
That's the point: the working classes are not supposed to supply the pool of politicians and when they start becoming thinkers, that's when the ruling elite really starts to panic.
AS I've said before, the British (or maybe now, just English?) state education system exists in its present form in order to prevent the lower classes getting a good education while appearing to the public to be striving towards ever improving standards.
As I mentioned above, until recently having worked in F.E we tended to get the students that didn't perform well in school and weren't suitable for sixth form (in non P.C terms the crap that was left.)In practical terms this means that colleges are often the last chance saloon for many of these young people who have limited academic ability. It is therefore left to us to try and equip them with the basic skills needed to find some form of employment in a service style ecconomy.
The problem is that by the time they reach 16 plus if the basics have not been put into them - aside from being able to read, write and do simple maths - basics such as sitting still, listening and being quiet when the teacher is talking, then you may as well forget it. These things need to be instilled into them from the age of toddlers, at the very least pre-school or primary school.
I do genuinely feel sorry for some of the students I tried to teach because without these very fundemental and basic codes of accepted societal behaviour, they wont have a hope in hell in the work place.
Personally to be honest, and I'm sorry for using a cliche, but I do blame the parents. It should be them that teach their children the absolute basics of reading and writing and good manners, not the schools.
From being babies me and my brother were read to every night and from the age of 3 we were gently taught how to read and write and given a good grounding. Granted we didn't have playstations back in the early 80's, but my parents would only let us watch a small amount of T.V at the weekend and never during the week. Instead we were encouraged to draw and paint and make things, to use our imaginations and be creative.
I wonder how many of the students, who can't even pass a seriously dumbed down G.C.S.E syllabus, were encouraged to do things like that? It may be a stereotype but I suspect that the majority of them did not have bedtime stories,and were probably not encouraged to do anything other than sit infront of the idiot box or their playstations. Good God if you want to have kids then bloody well raise them properly, take an interest in them, encourage them and teach them the fundementals before they get to school! It's a real shame and it makes me so angry that children do not always get the support they deserve and then the teachers are expected to pick up the pieces.
The Rhode Island Mummy looks like a nice girl.
Said assault actually took place in Perth, a wee village full of soft shites compared to Glasgow, where the lad would have pulled a baseball bat out from his other pocket in order to remonstrate with the teacher about the injustice of losing his phone call ! Trust me, I've been there a few times
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