I was about to write a post on the recent attack on two teachers at Burwood School in Orpington by a 10 year old boy.
Unfortunately for me however, the Autonomous News website has already done an excellent job, noting that as usual, the stories in the media are all copied and pasted mindlessly from the same source without any background research and how the BBC and the teachers' union rep tried to use the bogeyman of 'the cuts' to excuse it all. I'm amazed that nobody blamed the teachers for not entertaining the poor child sufficiently.
Here's a link to their article
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/another-example-of-lazy-journalism-failing-the-public/
Strangely, the website of Burwood School (whose motto ironically is "Where everyone matters") makes no mention of the incident at all in its 'Latest News' section. http://www.burwood.bromley.sch.uk/p_Home.ikml
5 comments:
I read the initial report of this, where the school wasn't named, and it simply came across as a disturbing account of a primary-school age child putting two of his teachers in hospital in Orpington of all places - not your sterotypical rough inner-city area.
The identification of the school and its background adds important contextual significance to the story while not diminshing the seriousness of the situation, nor the fact that it shouldn't really have been allowed to happen.
I was once pulled into my supervisor's office because one of our darling students (a Gulf Arab) had complained that she was bored in my classes. He sharply asked me what I was planning to do about it.
I pointed out that many of us teachers felt bored in the supervisor's meetings, and what was he planning to do about that?
The confusing of education with entertainment is an issue that needs to be addressed, before students seriously expect us teachers to be like Harry Hill or some such similar idiot.
My initial reaction on hearing the story was to look across at my slightly-built, five-foot two inch tall partner, then at her ten year old son, and ponder which of them I would back in a fight. I'd back the adult. I find it very difficult to imagine how a ten year old - any ten year old - could prevail in a physical confrontation with even one adult, let alone two.
Finding out that the child was in a special school merely makes it more surprising - I previously made allowances thinking that, on the assumption it was a normal school, teachers might be more vulnerable because they were not expecting explosions of violence from such a young child and were therefore unprepared to defend themselves and restrain him properly. Finding that they had a reasonable expectation of violence from the child only makes his success in injuring them harder to explain.
Many thanks for your link, Frank. There is an update to the story now which can be seen on my blog if you are interested.
I have just left a primary school where I didn't feel safe as a teacher. Fortunately they were slow in sending me a contract - so I walked away intact professionally and physically - lucky escape!
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