Oh yes! It's that time again. Brace yourselves for the million kids who will shortly be roaming the streets and shopping centres looking for trouble.
Why are they bored? I reckon there are two simple reasons.
If you are over 35, go for a walk around the area you grew up in. Visit the fields and woods that you played in as a kid.
Oh dear, they have all been built over and are now housing estates, car parks or shopping centres.
The second problem is that kids have been spoonfed passive entertainment all their lives in the form of non stop TV, computers and video games, so they have never learnt how to amuse themselves. Therefore the Underclass kids hang round in gangs, setting fire to your garden fence and the Middle Class ones aren't allowed out at all by their over protective parents who firmly believe that a paedophile lurks around every corner.
No wonder the kids are bored. After school activities, 'Yoof Centres' and School Holiday Clubs are all very worthy but most are Dullsville Tennessee. I'd put a shedload of money into activities where kids can actually do things, such as coaching in a wide variety of sports (not just football, let's introduce them to something new) along with organisations which enable them to have a bit of rough and tumble, and get involved in organised chaos. ie Scouts, Guides, Air, Sea and Army Cadet Forces.
Unfortunately none of those organisations will be considered pc enough so I can only advise you to lock your door and keep an eye on that fence.
22 comments:
"...keep an eye on that fence".
Why? What would you do if you actually spotted a bunch of kids setting fire to it?
1. Call the police. Who will tell you (more or less politely) to get knotted.
2. Approach the kids (No! No!! Anything but that!) Either they will give you an earful and carry on, or there will be physical contact. Either way, you will be lucky to get off with a fine after the constabulary come round and arrest you.
Interesting post Frank but I don't quite agree with everything you say. I once attended a Town Hall meeting where our beloved, (yeah right)Chief Constable was hosting an open forum. I distinctly remember an Area Beat Officer talking about this very subject. He said that his team regularly talks to the local gangs of kids and they try to find out what they want in order to channel their attention into constructive and peaceful activities. So the kids say they really want a skate park so the ABO Team will facilitate meetings with the local authorities and will persuade, push, pull, cajool, the council into building a skate park. The trouble the ABOs then find is that by the time the skate park has been built the teenagers who demanded it have grown up and are now young adults and the current group of kids aren't interested in skate boarding but instead want a basketball court so the problem of bored teenagers persists. However, I do agree that kids these days have lost a lot of social skills because of an endless diet of quick fixes such as, McDonald's replacing decent homecooked food, Playstation replacing quality family time and mobile phone text messages replacing the formal written word.
c7542 building a skate park often just provides a handy place for troublemakers to loiter around, vandalise and annoy the minority who genuinely want to skateboard.
I think Frank was suggesting spending money on people and groups who can give time and effort to help kids find new interests (often they have to be dragged kicking and screaming into these things before discoveing that they really enjoy them.) The CCF is a good example of this but it is concentrated in the Private Schools.
Hey Mr chalk i just came across this blog and think you will find it interesting. Its by a teacher at an inner city school. Below is one of her posts in full. The horrifying thing is that i think she considers her school to be one of the good inner city ones.
http://tomisswithlove.blogspot.com/2007/06/snuffys-choice.html
Yesterday, four of our Year 10 boys were searched. Three were found to have knives, and the fourth had a hammer. Weapons were brought into school: a water-tight case for permanent exclusion. Of course we know permanent exclusion means no future school will take the child. This leaves the child with the option of the PRU (Pupil Referral Unit), where nothing is learnt, few GCSEs are gained, and which is seen as a stepping stone to prison. Kick them out of school, and you essentially hand them a 'Go straight to Jail' card.
'Lock'em up' is what I'd say. But exclusion is more complicated. Schools are judged by Ofsted, by the media, by the world, on their number and type of exclusions. Of our 47 Year 7 students (11/12 year olds) who have received short-term exclusions this year (some several times), 36 of them are black. These Year 10 boys are black. What will Ofsted say? We need a good Ofsted report or we'll be ruined. Our reputation hangs in the wind. Even if we ignore race, one can only permanently exclude a small number of students per year if one wants to be judged favourably by Ofsted. In any given year, 3 or 4 permanent exclusions would be considered enormous. So how can we exclude 4 students in one go? Especially when we have a list of potential contenders as long as my arm? Exclude these, and other terrors in the school must stay.
These black boys are all bright and capable and aren't as seriously disruptive as are others on that list. And we have to choose. Choose to exclude and take a stand on weapons: show the other children that weapons will not be tolerated and discourage others from similar paths. Or, choose to ignore the crime, and use the 'exclusion space' for someone more deserving and put a smile on the faces of many teachers and students. Choose. And in doing so, choose who should get a chance at life, and who should go to prison.
Get them Border Morris Dancing, Mr Chalk. It's great fun, they get to wield big sticks and paint their faces.
They call it "Curriculum enhancement week" when, during the las tweek of the school year, the kids have "citizenship days" and watch DVD's and go litter picking and sit through hours of boring assemblies. My daughter's form had decided to work in the school garden. They were denied this for (guess what??)Health and Safety reasons: someone might kill someone else with a spade. Can't take that risk! Now they will spend two hours litter picking. Curriculum enhancement, indeed..... AND they must bring their own black dustbin liners and rubber gloves, how MEAN is that? In the future, I shall have no second thoughts about bunking off a week early to go on cheaper holidays!
City streets are unsatisfactory playgrounds for children because of the danger, because most good games are against the law, because they are too hot in summer, and because in crowded sections of the city they are apt to be schools of crime. Neither do small back yards nor ornamental grass plots meet the needs of any but the very small children. Older children who would play vigorous games must have places especially set aside for them; and, since play is a fundamental need, playgrounds should be provided for every child as much as schools. This means that they must be distributed over the cities in such a way as to be within walking distance of every boy and girl, as most children can not afford to pay carfare.
Theodore Roosevelt.
"Either way, you will be lucky to get off with a fine after the constabulary come round and arrest you"
This is what I really don't understand - the government's happy enough to video everyone from afar and make us carry ID cards, but actually letting us (if we were brave enough) tackle the yobs directly is going to land us in trouble. What a totally stupid system.
And here's another article on schoolchildren, this time written by Paul Weston but it could have been done by Mr Chalk himself, complete with Shazza Dwayne and Wayne.
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/01/britains-dystopian-school-children.html
Britain’s Dystopian School Children
by Paul Weston
Imagine the scene. You are sitting on a bus with nineteen fellow adults at 4pm during school term time. Your journey is suddenly interrupted by the noisy arrival of nine teenage products of our utopian/dystopian comprehensive schooling system. They shriek, they swear and they spit. They eat crisps and throw the empty packets to the floor, drink coke and allow the subsequently discarded cans to roll up and down the aisle and between your feet. One of them, a fifteen year old called Wayne turns up his ghetto blaster as a girl, covered in cheap gold jewellery, her hair scraped back, decorative rings adorning various parts of her overweight, multi-pierced anatomy grinds herself into his lap, her lipsticked mouth a knowing grin, her mascara’d eyes aflutter. She is fourteen years old. She knows all about sex; thrice hetero, bi and gay varieties, she learned that at primary school. She goes by the name of Shazza and lost her virginity to Wayne’s brother Dwayne at the age of twelve.
Shazza also knows about abortions, at least she knows they are her right in the event that Wayne, the Epsilon-Semi-Moron she is presently gyrating upon, fails to use the state-subsidised condoms handed out in assembly and “Knock Her Up”. Should the wayward Wayne impregnate her, and should she not take up her inalienable right to abort Wayne’s epsilon offspring she also knows her right to a free council flat as yet another ruined single mum teenager. Shazza, Wayne and their gang all know about these things, and others, such as how evil the British Empire was and how we perpetrated and condoned the evils of slavery. Sadly though, the name Wilberforce will only elicit a vacant, bovine look or a glottal-stopped enquiry into which club he plays for.
- - - - - - - - - -
There are some things however that she does not know. She has no concept of the notions of honour, patriotism, duty, obligation, deference and civility. She can barely read, spell, add up or multiply in her head. She has no knowledge of her culture, the history of her country or the history of the institutions that make up and form the community she grew up in. No knowledge of music, art, language or literature. She is the same as the rest of her friends. Today, on-board the number twelve bus they are simply representing their school (motto: Striving For Excellence In The Community). In later years they will represent Britain as her tattooed, alcohol-fuelled ambassadors in the Dantesque clubs and bars of Ibiza, Faliraki and Torremolinos.
They are the sub-race; their future lives will consist of eking out a low wage, semi-criminal, state-subsidised existence on the periphery of civilisation. They are the death rattle in the dying convulsions of a once proud educational system in a once proud nation. Obscene as they are, the truly ultimate obscenity is that they are the cold-blooded, calculated, consciously planned end product of the liberal/left’s tightly controlled forty-five year experiment in Socialist Social Engineering. The British comprehensive inner-city school version of “Give me the boy and I will give you the Wayne”.
There is of course one other thing that Shazza, Wayne and their friends know. They know that you and the other nineteen adults on the bus are frightened of them. They know this because nobody has asked them to turn down the music, stop swearing, or pick up their litter. Would you?
I went through the comprehensive system in the 70s, BNP person. Didn't turn out like the beings you describe. This sort of behaviour is the responsibility of the parents, not the school.
Views like yours are welcomed by such parents as evidence that NOTHING IS THEIR FAULT.
I'd say it was ironic but in my experience fascists don't get irony.
The 70's was a long time ago in regards to policy (Think 'life on mars'), and if any parent thinks their children acting like scum somehow abdicates them of responsibility then they were already woeful parents - and what your comment says about your judgement of character i do not know, but thanks anyway.
"....along with organisations which enable them to have a bit of rough and tumble, and get involved in organised chaos. ie Scouts, Guides, Air, Sea and Army Cadet Forces."
Ah yes, that'll solve the problems, what? Put 'em in uniform, bit of drill don't you know, double time! Sort the wheat from the chaff .. etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
For Christ's sake Mr. Chalk, you aren't my dad, are you? I do hope that you aren't allowed anywhere near a classroom.
If he was the norm I would plan for my child to be in school and demand for private education wouldn't be as ridiculously high as it is now.
Its dripping wet teachers who have turned it into lord of the flies. What kids need is discipline!
British National Party member said...
Its dripping wet teachers who have turned it into lord of the flies. What kids need is discipline!
21:31
Dear BNP Member
It is what it is now because of the changes in society post WW2. Schools merely reflect other norms; they do not create them. We no longer live in a world of battleships, spitfires or hurricanes, or Lord Kitchener telling us what to do.
I know the merits of discipline, having served, and then I turned to teaching. Few teachers are dripping wet, although many, if not most, are female, but classes are over large in state education and full of children whose parents see no value in education.
Perhaps when the BNP achieve power we can hope for a thorough cleaning out of the stables. First the wet teachers, then the intellectuals, the trade unionists, the difficult priests, the socialists ... well, I am sure that you know the pattern. Nationalism has served other countries so very well.
Nationalism served *Britain* until after the second world war.
Nationalism was always an ingredient of our island since our Kings sorted out their land squabbles with France.
Then we became a contiguous nation. Of course it was a story of progression, with magna carter and then the bill of rights.
I just checked that out;
http://www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk/sebc/play/history.cfm
"King John (1199-1216) succeeded his brother Richard I. He lacked his brother’s military prowess and he spent much of his reign attempting to recover lost English possessions in France. To finance his military campaigns, he resorted to harsh taxation of his subjects, which provoked growing unrest. While there was some hope of military success abroad, the discontent was contained, but defeat at the Battle of Bouvines in July 1214 marked the end of English hopes of regaining Normandy. Opposition to King John intensified, and he was no longer able to resist the barons’ demand that their liberties be confirmed."
Why do you talk as if nationalism - the government operating for the benefit of the people that elected it - is somehow a German ideal? Because lets be clear. I know *your* argument back to front but I don't see it reflected in our ideals. Some people then go on to say things like "oh well its just hidden but that's what you really mean."
Well of course that's just supposition planted by the people are who already in power. But what you need to look at is the actions of those in power. Blogs such as this only exist because of the failures of this new type of government. Universally they bemoan the new fangled methods which are proven not to work but are politically expedient (Your own curriculum, your own area of expertise is being butchered for the sake of politicians and their dystopian ideals; Damn the children and full speed ahead?) and wish for a return to what we know works and works well, making men out of boys who then go on to regulate the society from within without the need for the intrusive, hated 'nanny state' - or centralisation of power as its known to politicians.
Why don't you try this; "First, they came for the BNP, but i was not in the BNP so i said nothing. . ."
Two errors.
a) The woods in which I played as a teeenager are still woods.
b) My son and his friend were still doing the practical biological experiments of feeding flies to wasps (pretty futile if you ask me) earlier today.
Yes the civil service/government are bonkers. But not everything is a mess.
I will accept the argument that the parts of Childrens Services in local authorities (that have them) that used to be Social Services have massive problems.
British National Party member said...
with magna carter and then the bill of rights.
I just checked that out;
http://www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk/sebc/play/history.cfm
"King John (1199-1216) succeeded his brother Richard I. He lacked his brother’s military prowess and he spent much of his reign attempting to recover lost English possessions in France. To finance his military campaigns, he resorted to harsh taxation of his subjects, which provoked growing unrest. While there was some hope of military success abroad, the discontent was contained, but defeat at the Battle of Bouvines in July 1214 marked the end of English hopes of regaining Normandy. Opposition to King John intensified, and he was no longer able to resist the barons’ demand that their liberties be confirmed."
Why do you talk as if nationalism - the government operating for the benefit of the people that elected it - is somehow a German ideal? Because lets be clear. I know *your* argument back to front but I don't see it reflected in our ideals. Why don't you try this; "First, they came for the BNP, but i was not in the BNP so i said nothing. . ."
10:41
Magna Carta , we have no Bill of Rights, reaffirmed the rights of the Barons not those of the common man.
I never mentioned Germany.
Your final sentence reads well but is it wise to quote a priest imprisoned by nationalists in defence of a Nationalist argument?
Sure there's an English bill of rights;
"The English Bill of Rights 1689 is an Act of the Parliament of England (1 Will. & Mar. sess. 2 c. 2) with the long title An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown and also known by its short title, the Bill of Rights. It is one of the basic documents of English constitutional law, alongside Magna Carta, the Act of Settlement and the Parliament Acts. It also forms part of the law of some other Commonwealth nations, such as New Zealand and Canada. A separate but similar document applies in Scotland: the Claim of Right.
The Bill of Rights 1689 is largely a statement of certain positive rights that its authors considered that citizens and/or residents of a constitutional monarchy ought to have. It asserts the Subject's right to petition the Monarch and the Subject's right to bear arms for defence. It also sets out (or in the view of its writers, restates) certain constitutional requirements where the actions of the Crown require the consent of the governed as represented in Parliament. In this respect, it differs from other "bills of rights," including the United States Bill of Rights, though many elements of the first eight amendments to the U.S. Constitution echo its contents. This is in part due to the uncodified constitutional traditions of the UK, whereby the English Bill of Rights forms a list of rights in respect of the people as represented in Parliament, in addition to those rights already provided for individuals as set out in Magna Carta."
From wiki;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689
I included the bill of rights with magna carta to show how liberty was fought for over time and went down from king to baron and then eventually to subject. What we are witnessing now is it going back up the scale again. Its probable that you don't hear of the bill of rights because all the 'controversial' (not controversial to ME) rights it granted us have been taken away unconstitutionally, and then blair repealed the treason laws. The BNP is the only party that will return all our rights to us.
http://bnpandme.blogspot.com/2007/06/i-knew-blair-repealed-treason-laws-but.html
You might not have known you referenced Germany but you did. What you did is you did the progression like "sure, you will put discipline in the schools then you will take care of the socialists and then the priests" and so on, which is an approximation of the poem i quoted back at you. Thats why i quoted it back at you, but pretty much word for word so you can see what he was really saying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...
Best,
G.
"Your final sentence reads well but is it wise to quote a priest imprisoned by nationalists in defence of a Nationalist argument?" As if the Nazis were the only nationalists ever...how one-track minded can you get?
Buster, what would you propose if you don't agree with Chalk's proposals?
Summer Schools? Extra tuition? Or just do nothing and let them drift aimlessly around the streets?
Mr Chalk, But isn't the real problem that any organisation which could look after these kids will not have the required level of staff to take on any more children because :-
1/ Married people don't have any time
2/ Single people are put off by the suspicion that their motives are unsavoury
3/ Both categories would require huge bureaucracy in CRB checks and the like, whose time investment would put anyone off.
I approve of the gist, but not the substanec, of Frank's arguments. I abhore the Scouts, Guides, and Boys' Brigade because they all discriminate against the children of atheist parents.
Secondly, my friend and I once tried to set up activities for kids during the summer holidays, at the behest of our local sports centre. When we discovered that we required police background checks, fingerprinting, and to portray ourselves as paragons of political correctness (Racism bad! Diversity good! Baa!), we concluded that it wasn't wrothwhile jumping through all these hoops, and our plans were scrapped.
All youth workers are closet paedophiles, don'tcha know?
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