No its not an invitation to my dungeon
I was watching the box yesterday and there was an interview with a male teacher who was about 30+.
The gist of the thing was that in his opinion ALL pupils wether at home or at school are now totally out of control.
He said the only thing they could do was suspend or exclude which in essence meant a free holiday.
Lines and detention was a waste of time as they just wont do them.
Of course no mention of good old CP.
He said the SATs tests were a dead loss, the results tables were a nonsence and the education standards were the worse ever.
He also said that the head etc had no teaching experience in the classrpom and no idea of anything.
I was watching techers TV on the old satellite and the programme consisted of a female teacher, about 40 being assesed by the head.
She had a mixed class of 14 year olds who were totally disruptive and also had the help of an assistant who went from table to table helping the brats understand the lesson.
The girls were constantly looking away from the board and every time she told them to look at the board they said " I am miss" giggle and look away.
The head asked he her opinion on the lesson and she said about 80/90%. only to be told that it should be 100% and that she should be directing the asistant not letting the assistant go where she wanted.
What chance for her and others like her.
It is a fact that good old CP as a threat ( rather promise)in required doses is the only thing that would work.
What a 20 year legacy of government and EU rubish has been left to destroy Britain.
Minor rant over.

Great post Mimi! An absolutely accurate account of the situation. Children are our future, but we are letting them down dreadfully by allowing schools to degenerate to this state. Your analysis of the reponsibility for this is spot on. The EU is the most dangerous and implacable foe this country has ever faced. Already it has crippled large sections of our national life and it is set to totally eliminate the best of what remains if our useless politicians stand by and let it - which left to themselves they will!

I'd bet the teacher in the TV programme you describe wasn't teaching (or, at least, trying to teach) more than about 20 children. I was taught in classes of sometimes 50+ children, by teachers who didn't have the benefit of teaching aids like electronic whiteboards and computers - just blackboards, chalk and exercise books. In those days virtually nobody left school unable to read and write properly and do simple maths. Thousands of children leave school every year now without those essential skills.

Education requires a disciplined environment, which the teacher and the children in your programme clearly didn't have, and will never have in State schools under the present system. In private fee-paying schools the situation is far better because parents have to dig deep into their bank balances and therefore bring pressure to bear on their children to behave and benefit from the education on offer, an influence often sadly lacking in State schools!

I wouldn't advocate that children should ever be subject to the climate of fear my generation faced, when corporal punishment was universal and overused in both school and home. However I have no doubt that properly regulated (which it certainly wasn't before) corporal punishment would curb those children who act disruptively and infect others with their behaviour.

Corporal punishment would consume a lot less resources than detentions, served or unserved, and would certainly be more effective than unwritten lines! It would be far less disruptive to children and their parents than the suspensions and expulsions now used on a massive scale. It would be completely fair - it would only happen to those who misbehaved! At present well-behaved children are often penalised along with the naughty, since the chaos in the classroom precludes discriminating between them. I doubt it would be necessary to extend any corporal punishment regime much beyond the ages of 12 or 13, since by then a 'critical mass' of well behaved children would impose their own discipline on classroom proceedings, neutralising any remaining trouble makers.

Thanks AL
I have always thought that children and adults learn by pushing the limits until they come unstuck and reap the rewards of their errors.
I gave up on Britain and spend most of my time in the ROI.
Children here are very polite and try to achieve, both in acedemia and sport. There is little physical punishment! perhaps because of the influence of the church and the patience/ attention of their parents.
The population is largely indigenous and traditional. Sure there is modern influence such as drink and drugs but by and large children are encouraged to succeed in watever way they can.
I am sure that the EU has f**ked up everything. Here we have said NO to the Lisbon surrender, basically because we have been invaded by Eastern Europeans and have seen our freeedom threatened. Having got rid of the Brits ( apart from 120K happy escapees) we are not going to surrender our freedom to a EU police force or take part in invading foreign countries ( against our constitution)withour dfence force becoming part of a EU army.
The good news is that it is crumbling at the seams and perhaps if miracles still happen Britain may become free again.
I firmly believe that a shillings worth of rattan can save thousands

Sounds as if you made the right choice of where to spend your time, Mimi. Everyone I know who has visited the ROI speaks very highly of it, especially the rural areas.

If our craven government hadn't reneged on their promise to let the UK electorate vote on the Lisbon shambles I'm certain it would have been rejected here as well, despite the fact that we've got far too many people entitled to vote who don't give a monkey's about the future of the UK.

Sadly, it might cost a bit more than a shilling for an adequate supply of rattan. The experts say the good stuff is scarce and getting scarcer. However, the cost would be a drop in the ocean compared to what we are presently tipping pointlessly into the bottomless pit of the educational budget.

I'm ashamed to say the Ed Balls-up the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families attended my old school, as did that noted pro-European former Chancellor Ken Clarke, who was contemporary with me for a few years. You can doubtless see why I don't boast about the place!

The secret to discipline in schools to day is as it has always been good teachers who make the lessons interesting.

The problem is with all the rules and regulations about what should be taught and how plus inspections and targets you have to be really good to do that.

OK in some cases a dose of CP might help getting back to basics without all the complicated rules would be more effective

Mimi

I agree with you that standards of education and behaviour in the young today give cause for alarm. Whether or not a return to the use of corporal punishment in schools would improve things is irrelevant at the present time as there is no chance of that happening while headteachers are too scared of a knife in the ribs if they even mention its reintroduction.

I wouldn't say that teenagers today are less educated than when you and I left school but the point is, they should be far better educated than we! Just having the WWW alone means that the hours we spent looking up facts in the local library now takes m/secs to achieve far more information! Then there are far smaller class sizes and 'teacher's assistant's to boot!

There has been comment in the press about GCSEs and Alevels gradually becoming easier simply because more kids are passing them with A and A*s. The truth is that with the facilities now open to them they should all be at that level not just 2/3% more!

Kids in China and India are easily outstripping ours and that is a warning we should heed before it's too late! For a couple of hundred years we have lived off the wealth of those and other nations but that is rapidly drawing to a close. If nothing is done about it, in 30 years time, we in the UK will be left in a nation with an under-educated, under-skilled population in a country with hardly any natural resources, while those in the Far East thrive.

The question is how can this situation be turned around? Like a giant oil-tanker, it can't be done quickly. Attitudes have got to change. Parents have got to realise that giving little Tommy everything he asks for and being too frightened of the law to give his bottom a smack when he disobeys his mother is simply not going to equip him for a world where nothing is going to be given to him on a plate! A world that will not buy the things he's producing at grossly inflated prices! A world where the winners are those Asians who were smacked - and a good deal more - during their upbringing.
The government has got to stop making it harder and harder to bring up children. The 'ban smacking' brigade have got to be shown that it's going to be a lose-lose situation for the little darlings in years to come.

If British parents could get back to taking control of their homes and families with more discipline (not only CP but having rules and enforcing them) then schools will find it easier to do the same. It doesn't have to return to the bad old days where we were frightened to breathe in the grammar school I was at in the late 40s early 50s, but governments have got to think again about their policies regarding the younger generation and think of the 2030s and not just the next general election!

The problem is, we want the world & we want it NOW was sung by the Doors back in 1969 & was popularised in politics in 1984-87 by Mrs Thatcher.

That means 1 or 2 generations have grown up with what DH Lawrence called the masturbating conciousness, or F Scott Fitzgerald called the winking orgiastic green light of the future as their assumed birthright.

In a world-wide web situation, your chances of doing much about that are next to nil, though Mimi has picked one of the likelier places where a more tranquil pace of life is still to be found.

Now, sociology lesson over, do any of us have first-hand experience of current classroom discipline & learning? Or are we all conditioned by the scum-sucking filth of the 5th estate into believing the **** they pour out at us about it? They were at it about kids in MY youth, too, and I don't think we did too bad, even if it did take 6 years to get America out of Vietnam!

I personally think today's kids are a bloody site more forward and in your face than we were allowed to be. But they also ask WHY-and that may be no bad thing.

I agree with Danny, though, that our education system needs to stop settling for 2nd best, but it may just be that Ed Balls & co have forgotten the words of George Bernard Shaw-those who can, do;those who cannot, teach.


Steve M

What excellent postings (I hope it goes without saying that I exclude my own) there have been in this thread, which deserves far more traffic than it has generated. I don't think I've crossed paths with you before Danny, but simply on the basis of your posting above I'd like join in with everyone who has expressed pleasure at your return.

Steve, you ask:

"Do any of us have first-hand experience of current classroom discipline & learning?"

I don't sadly, although I did briefly train as a teacher before fate led me in other directions. This was the very early 60's when the stupid politically correct nonsense which has subsequently crippled schools was beginning to be discussed, and the principal of my college was one of its leading advocates. We had a blazing row, and I departed for what in retrospect have almost certainly been happier and more lucrative climes.

I do however have a close friend whom I've known for well over half a century now. His entire career has been in education, first as a classroom teacher in secondary schools, then as headmaster of residential schools for 'special needs' children. After his 'retirement' 10 years ago he took a job teaching abroad for a few years. Then, on returning to the UK, he decided to do some supply teaching.

By this time he had been out of what Alistair Campbell termed 'bog standard comprehensives' in the UK for about 30 years, and he was horrified and disgusted at what he found. Basically there was no discipline whatsoever in any of the schools he worked at. They weren't in inner city areas either, but in a relatively prosperous largely rural area. His job as a supply teacher was simply to ensure the kids stayed where they were supposed to be and didn't escape and create havoc in the rest of the school. Often, despite the considerable fees the schools were paying for his services he wasn't even told what subjects he was supposed to be teaching!

My friend is a very large man, with a personality to match, and maintaining discipline was no problem for him. He said the only time he had any real concern was when he found himself telling a rather aggressive and disruptive lad that if he didn't shut up and sit down he'd throw him out of the classroom and he wouldn't bother opening the door first. The lad shut up and sat down - possibly the first time he'd ever encountered a determined adult in his life!

Eventually my friend decided that supply teaching, however lucrative, was a waste of his talents, and took a job as a teaching assistant at his local non-sixth form comprehensive. Here, despite the fact that teaching assistants are not supposed to teach, he frequently found himself teaching maths and science that he and I had done at junior school, or in the first year of secondary school, to 15 year olds, many of whom were completely unable to grasp it because they'd never been taught the foundations on which it was based properly.

My friend finally retired from teaching for good last year. He maintains that the current problems are not due to the children. He blames the parents, school administration, both central and local, and the fact that in many cases teachers are there not because they love teaching but because they can't find a better paid job with a good pension. He goes so far as to say that a lot of the teachers he encountered latterly actually hated teaching, which must be highly detrimental to their pupils! He disagrees with me on corporal punishment and says he never need to use it when it was available as a sanction. But then, as I said, he is a very large man with a personality to match!

In the ROI teachers have fantastic salaries and beyond your dreams final salary index linked pensions (circa £50K).
They have huge houses, rarely more than I year old expensive cars and at least 4 holidays abroad a year. Many have holiday homes.
They never stop moaning about money. They imagine they are hard done by compared to commerce and industry.
The average skilled wage here is £600 per week.The average low skilled job pays about £300 a week. A qualified teacher with about 5 years experience gets about £850 per week.
They also get tax free private tuition fees ( called grinds) of about £20+ per hour if they want to.
The holidays are longer than even Blighty.
The kids are generally well behaved and there is high acedemic achievment.
Before you ask I know lots of em personally.
This in the state sector.
Nuns and priests that teach receive nothing! The state pays their salaries ( on same scale) to the Church. They get their expenses and all found from the church.
In other words, degree, teaching cert and one is made for life, cradle to grave with no concept of the real world.

Hi Mimi,

Is it your impression that in the ROI the kids are generally well behaved and there is high academic achievment because:

(a)   The great majority of teachers, despite their moans about their pay, are actually happy in their work (and who wouldn't be on £850 per week and a £50k pension!), do a good job, and thus inspire the kids to benefit from and enjoy their education?

or

(b)   As in the UK, a significant proportion of the teachers don't do a very good job, but the children are inherently well behaved and intelligent, compensating for any deficiencies in their education?

Regards,

A_L

Although I am against punishments with an instrument,like caning,there must be some form of discipline in schools. And I favour slapping on the thighs or spanking on bare buttocks which is less painful and not cruel.
And if we don't want to use any CP at all I recommend a humiliation punishment like making a misbehaving boy stand naked in corner or front of class,and in the case of girls in their knickers.
It ia laws like this which Parliament should pass to say the least.
In fact several states in the USA are bringing back CP in schools by new laws.
At least we could be more humane by introducing the measures I have suggested.

Steve

I agree with you that the vast majority of today's generation are great kids and far more streetwise and knowledgeble than any one of us were in my day. I have never blamed the kids for the way they behave in schools these days - we are the adults and, if we allow it, children will do what kids are programmed to do ... make life hell for anyone over the age of 20!
I know I would have been exactly the same when I was at school but discipline, especially self-discipline, is needed more and more as one grows older but it has to be taught when young.

Needed until you get to my age, of course! ...

A L I cannot talk for everyone but the impression I get is that teaching in the ROI gives those who are acedemic minded a means to earn money doing something they enjoy.
Most teaching here appears to be non technical, ie lots of languages etc.
The majority of teachers I come across do not appear to be capable of living in the real world. They earn lots and do nowt else but teach. You won't see them painting the house or mowing the lawn.
The education is good because to get your leaving cert at 18 you have to score an amount of points out of 600 across the spectrum of subjets. Therefore someone who excells in French but is weak in maths can still score well.
Its like Proportional representation.
There are nasty kids in the inner cities and they go to special schools. They are treated well from what I can gather by the mainly nun/priest teachers who are devoted to doing their best.
Hope this helps.
Danny, as usual words of simple wisdom from someone who has observed life.

Thanks Mimi, that's great. You've painted such a glowing picture of life in the ROI that I'd quite fancy relocating there myself - if it wasn't for the £/€ exchange rate!

Forget the exchange rate, what is the price of living life as it should be lead?
The streets, unlike London, are not paved with gold.
'owever zee ladies ave generous backsides and enjoy beaucoup la fesse rouge.
Do moi eccote Bozo booking a Ryanair to Corcaigh?

After reading this thread I was thinking of booking a flight to Dublin. But on second thought I've decided to emigrate to somewhere in Africa or Far East where I can start teaching to my heart's delight and use the cane freely on every naughty student.
I'll send you a postcard from there and hopefully a few photos of boys(maybe girls)being caned.
See You!

Happy Spanking Holiday Mr.Kane.
I might join you in a few weeks' time.
Enjoy yourself!

In some countries it's the teachers who are getting beaten up by pupils.
Where CP has been outlawed in schools the teachers are so afraid that they might go to prison that they daren't even defend themselves against some pupil aggression.
In fact in one EU country(Malta) the situation is so serious that the teachers have gone out on strike,because they can't stand it any longer.