The World's Most Popular Education Blog. One million visitors can't be wrong (Sorry, I should say "can't have achieved deferred success")
Read my books to discover the barking madness that goes on in the British State Education System...
Monday, April 23, 2007
Telling Stories
She's in trouble for telling her story. She's £100 000 richer for telling hers.
6 comments:
Anonymous
said...
"She stands accused of bringing the profession into disrepute on the grounds that she recorded children without their parents' permission and failed to promote the education and welfare of the pupils in her charge."
I'm never surprised at the amount of complete b*ll*cks some 'professional' people can come up with when it comes to deliberately avoiding the truth.
What about addressing the issues that the documentary involved? What about congratulating the teacher for having the guts to do such a thing? What about actually dpoing something positive for a change?!
No, let's just (a) avoid the real issue entirely, and (b) go for the easy target - the teacher. After all, the 'human rights' of disruptive children are far more important than the rights of the others to have the conditions in which they can study and develop intellectually.
I often wondered what happened to the Loony Left after Thatcher gave them a good bashing. Now I know for sure where they ended up!
According to The Times' slightly fuller account of the matter,
'Mr Albuery said that teachers and students had reacted with anger to the programme. Pupils from one school were “angry and upset”, he said. Another student, who said he could be identified from the footage, felt “embarrassed and humiliated”, the tribunal heard'. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ news/uk/education/article1695511.ece
Good work, Mrs Mason! Children who behave abominably should be made to feel embarrassed and humiliated. Personally, I feel they should (other sanctions failing) be physically chastised too, but that is another story.
As someone else pointed out in The Times' report, this is yet another case of the establishment shooting the messenger to avoid hearing a distressing message. If it were up to me, I would give Mrs Mason a medal and a sizeable pay rise. Oh, and start work on installing cameras to put all classrooms on TV and the Web (on a random, intermittent basis obviously, as we don't want to swamp the media).
Filming these brats misbehaving and then showing it on TV without their knowledge is effectively Trial by Television. Regardless of whether you believe her actions are a good idea, they're still in violation of the broadcasters code, her contract with her employers and possibly Human Rights legislation, just because you think it's a stupid law doesn't give you the right to break it and go unpunished. If she thinks she's making a stand for what' right and is prepared to take her punishment like a (wo)man good on her but she had no right to complain about it. As for Faye Turney what on earth has her story got to do with this teacher? I think that it's a bit tasteless for servicemen to sell their stories for profit (I'm pleased that neither officer has done so) but the Govt has given them permission to do so and Turney's story is worth £100K if someone is prepared to pay her £100K for it and the press are. The only reason the press will pay money for her story is because people want to read or watch it.
I work with a member of the GTC who sits on the disciplinary hearings. He once told me that a teacher had taken money from the DHSS while working. She was fined by a court and was paying back the sum of money, but the GTC stopped her teaching because 'reading between the lines' of her written submission the GTC decided she wasn't contrite enough. If he is typical, the GTC are smug unwordly bastards.
athemax, you make some good points. To explain, I was taking my fences rather too quickly. I didn't want to write a book, so I failed to mention that I do not usually countenance breaking the law. In fact, I am one of those idiots who get abused every day for driving at the speed limit, even when it is ridiculously low.
I do feel that what Mrs Mason did was, on the whole, vastly beneficial. If you infer from this that I think most (or all) of the laws that make her actions illegal should be repealed, you are right. Any ill effects on the children who were broadcast without their knowledge are hugely outweighed by the public benefit of having millions of people see exactly how they do behave - and, perhaps, concluding that sterner measures are needed to keep them in order.
6 comments:
"She stands accused of bringing the profession into disrepute on the grounds that she recorded children without their parents' permission and failed to promote the education and welfare of the pupils in her charge."
I'm never surprised at the amount of complete b*ll*cks some 'professional' people can come up with when it comes to deliberately avoiding the truth.
What about addressing the issues that the documentary involved? What about congratulating the teacher for having the guts to do such a thing? What about actually dpoing something positive for a change?!
No, let's just (a) avoid the real issue entirely, and (b) go for the easy target - the teacher. After all, the 'human rights' of disruptive children are far more important than the rights of the others to have the conditions in which they can study and develop intellectually.
I often wondered what happened to the Loony Left after Thatcher gave them a good bashing. Now I know for sure where they ended up!
According to The Times' slightly fuller account of the matter,
'Mr Albuery said that teachers and students had reacted with anger to the programme. Pupils from one school were “angry and upset”, he said. Another student, who said he could be identified from the footage, felt “embarrassed and humiliated”, the tribunal heard'.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/
news/uk/education/article1695511.ece
Good work, Mrs Mason! Children who behave abominably should be made to feel embarrassed and humiliated. Personally, I feel they should (other sanctions failing) be physically chastised too, but that is another story.
As someone else pointed out in The Times' report, this is yet another case of the establishment shooting the messenger to avoid hearing a distressing message. If it were up to me, I would give Mrs Mason a medal and a sizeable pay rise. Oh, and start work on installing cameras to put all classrooms on TV and the Web (on a random, intermittent basis obviously, as we don't want to swamp the media).
Filming these brats misbehaving and then showing it on TV without their knowledge is effectively Trial by Television.
Regardless of whether you believe her actions are a good idea, they're still in violation of the broadcasters code, her contract with her employers and possibly Human Rights legislation, just because you think it's a stupid law doesn't give you the right to break it and go unpunished.
If she thinks she's making a stand for what' right and is prepared to take her punishment like a (wo)man good on her but she had no right to complain about it.
As for Faye Turney what on earth has her story got to do with this teacher?
I think that it's a bit tasteless for servicemen to sell their stories for profit (I'm pleased that neither officer has done so) but the Govt has given them permission to do so and Turney's story is worth £100K if someone is prepared to pay her £100K for it and the press are.
The only reason the press will pay money for her story is because people want to read or watch it.
I work with a member of the GTC who sits on the disciplinary hearings. He once told me that a teacher had taken money from the DHSS while working. She was fined by a court and was paying back the sum of money, but the GTC stopped her teaching because 'reading between the lines' of her written submission the GTC decided she wasn't contrite enough.
If he is typical, the GTC are smug unwordly bastards.
athemax, you make some good points. To explain, I was taking my fences rather too quickly. I didn't want to write a book, so I failed to mention that I do not usually countenance breaking the law. In fact, I am one of those idiots who get abused every day for driving at the speed limit, even when it is ridiculously low.
I do feel that what Mrs Mason did was, on the whole, vastly beneficial. If you infer from this that I think most (or all) of the laws that make her actions illegal should be repealed, you are right. Any ill effects on the children who were broadcast without their knowledge are hugely outweighed by the public benefit of having millions of people see exactly how they do behave - and, perhaps, concluding that sterner measures are needed to keep them in order.
Does that apply to CCTV then, or has every parent in the country given permission for their child to be filmed walking down the street etc
Post a Comment