In far less than one lifetime, opinion on CP in schools has performed a dramatic reversal that could be described as a "pendulum swing".

As a schoolboy I would daily watch a TV program called Children's Channel Seven in which host Caroline Noble would walk amongst the live audience of schoolies wearing her Mouseketeer ears and engage with the kids. One of her oft used questions to boys, spoken with a smile, was: "did you get the cuts today?", a reference to handcaning, the common practice in WA government schools.

The fact that a locally produced children's program could talk about school CP as though it were a daily occurrence and do so with a smile is testament to the widespread acceptance of its place in education.

I could go on to mention the English program WHACKO, aired on our TV about the same time and a number of comics and books that deployed CP references - all aimed at a children's audience or readership.

In a relatively short period some social engineering occurred that made it politically correct to turn right around and steam in the other direction. Having, as they do, a great capacity to follow populist views, people obliged by complying. I heard it expressed by one ordinary citizen (a woman) like this:

"I tell my daughter it was right for then, but its not right for now" No further analysis was offered.

One could well argue that following norms is just what people had done previously. True..except that the use of CP in pedagogy goes back thousands of years and for one generation to totally dismiss it in a few years - and with reasoning that, logically followed, made all their forbears (living and dead) into damaged people and child abusers - could be seen as arrogance.

The question is: Is a pendulum swing a sound way to change policy or does it by definition result in an extreme? Put another way...could the pendulum swing so hard it comes off its hinge and flies into the crowd?

A lot of fascinating points raised here about changes in law and public opinion.

Here's a particular aspect which might be worth thinking about. In the UK, a lot of campaigning against corporal punishment was carried out by "The Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment" (STOPP). Ultimately their campaign was successful in that, legally, no school in the UK is now permitted to use corporal punishment. The change came about gradually, starting in schools in particular areas, then being enforced in all state schools, and finally being enforced generally. I guess the majority of public opinion is against the reintroduction, but there's a significant minority who would be happy to see it return.

Now compare this with two other social changes which have taken place over a similar timespan. These concern drink-driving, and smoking in an indoor public place. Essentially, the former became illegal in the 1960s, and the latter became illegal a couple of years ago. (One might quibble with the details of the last sentence, but it's more-or-less true.) I don't think there's a significant minority of public opinion which would want to see either of these changes reversed. The change for drink-driving has taken place gradually over the years, whereas the change for indoor smoking has been remarkably rapid.

I don't really have the expertise to offer a view on why there's this difference.

I do, however, have the expertise to offer a view on the pendulum analogy, which seems to me pretty feeble: the whole point of a pendulum is that it keeps swinging backwards and forwards, thus allowing you to keep track of the time .....

RYAN

How much is this social engineering, or is it in fact the world becoming a little more civilised?

After all, burning witches at the stake was probably thought to be right for the times once, but we've moved on since.

I've yet to meet one person who became a better human being after receiving CP, or one person who didn't demean him or herself in administering it in schools.

Perhaps more tellingly, I've also yet to live through a decade after mine at school (and I'm 8 years into the fourth one) where lazy tabloid editors aren't dragging up violence etc in schools on a regular basis.

As that's occured

A) in a decade where the evidence begins to suggest CP was almost as heavily employed as in the 1950's,

B) in a decade roughly 3/4th's of the way into which it was abolished over here,

C) and in a decade where it ain't existed, at least in State schools,

then it's about time people realised if there IS any problem with school discipline, it starts and ends with the parents.

The other thing is that it just doesn't deter, as my own experiences and what we've started to uncover re Bacons confirm. As Madness sang in Baggy Trousers(1981):

The Headmaster sits alone and bends his cane

Same old Backsides again!


Steve M

Steve (or is it also Mimi?)

I'm having a bit of trouble catching the point you're making about violence in schools, so excuse me if I seem to have missed it in my response.

What I'm hearing from your side of the pond is that you have a major problem with youth violence in general, aswell as with student violence in schools. A correspondent (not from this site) told me that your government has recently offered an extra 10,000 pounds salary to teachers willing to take postions in England's worst 50 schools.

I daresay the older members would bear me out when I say that such a state of affairs was virtually unknown in their day. This is significant because one of the arguments against CP in schools is the belief that "violence" breeds violence. In fact we see violence escalating in those that have never known CP.

Now I am not silly enough to say that the cane is a magic wand that when waved will dismiss all social ills. What I am saying is that the removal of CP accompanied the death of respect for authority and institutions. The cane was in some respects symbolic of an order and a way of life.

Its gone, and educators seem to be floundering in their attempts to restore some semblance of control. Teachers are leaving the profession, sometimes disillusioned and sometimes damaged.

The profession's status in society has fallen so others are not attracted to it. Here in WA hundreds of classrooms will open in February supervised by administrative staff and temps because teachers cannot be found for them.

As a child of the 50's I blame the boomers who challenged everything society represented. It was they who decided no-one was going to touch their kid and it was they who started the culture of interfering daily in school affairs. The result? Kids who have no respect for teachers and who abuse them verbally and sometimes physically.

Could this situation be turned around by re-introducing CP? Nothing is that simple. The horse has already bolted. But I certainly wouldn't be making life difficult for the few private schools in Aus that preserve a more tradtional culture.

You mentioned the role of parents. It is a much overworked notion that if a kid gets into trouble the parents are to blame, particularly in a society like ours that has removed controls from the hands of parents.

Recently a female police officer was arrested for attempting to retrieve her daughter from a place where she should not have been. In another case a man was arrested for getting his boy back from a nightclub. Kids choose to leave home and live off the State coffers and parents are not supported in their attempts to restore them to the family home. Single mothers report their inability to control their teenage boy and plead for help - instead they find themselves charged and fined.

On the other hand, it is worthy of note that those schools that still deploy CP are doing so with the full support of parents and are in some cases parent controlled schools (at Board level). These are parents who care enough to pay the costs of a private education and who support the school with voluntary labour and donations.

One judges the outcomes of policies by their fruits - not in the odd disaffected person, but overall. Many are comparing the apparant fruits of the CP and non CP eras and deciding something went wrong. I guess the speed of the change allows them to do that, as it is all within living memory.

Ryan1 writes a lot of good sense. I was brought up at a time when there seemed to be some quite strong common, shared values about what UK society anyway expected of its youngsters, reinforced by corporal punishment in school and at home. Maybe I was particularly lucky to attend schools where the staff had integrity and knew their pupils well. There was something of that 19th century concept The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number about. Then along came what has become known as Political Correctness. Often PC determines that if one member of a highlighted group suffers, then the practice must stop whatever the benefits to the many others.

This seems particularly true of corporal punishment in school and the home. Rather than address the control of corporal punishment to reduce the chance of obvious excesses and brutality and yet still benefit from the outcome of well disciplined and socialised youngsters, they threw out the bathwater! Will the pendulum swing back again? If parents were given real Parental Choice, rather than pc, then in some schools perhaps Yes: and if those schools produced, as some expect they might, successful pupils - then others would follow. But what chance real Parental Choice?

At the end of the day, no parent can be allowed the choice of subjecting their child to a potential cold-blooded assault for some idiotic infraction of banal rules. That is what it amounts to, legalised assault and child abuse, at least once children are past 7 or 8.

It never worked, it never will. If there is a problem with youth violence, and I'm NOT convinced there is, parents need to be the starting point for education.

And as we've had 20 years of the philosophy of the pig-trough rules OK, you are welcome to try it!

I was born in 1952, so I know well the old myth of everyone conforming to the rules. It didn't happen anywhere I went, lived etc, and I came from a very impoverished working-class background to a classic middle-class grammar school education living in a very suburban house.

We were just more subtle at breaking the rules than today's lot!

Sometimes!



Steve M

My schooldays were spoilt by vicious violent out of control teachers.
I only remember one teacher with affection. She taught me in Infants school. A disabled lady who was always surrounded by happy children. She never ever struck anyone.
Her classes were a delight of information and she gave books as prizes for good behaviour.
The rest were just sadists who should never have been in charge of children.
I was born the same year as Steve, we had similar schooling apart from the fact that he was the wrong side of the River .
We were better behaved than todays youth and as Steve says a lot more subtle. Our "misbehaviour" was generally just escapist fun rather than evil.
I remember that we had respect for just about every kind of adult especially the police. All I remember of teachers was fear.
I think they were covering up their inadequecies. Some of course were just perverted.

The other point-look beyond these shores.

Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, French, Portugese children for a start-all acknowledged to be rather better behaved in adolesence than British Kids. I'd dispute that, but........

ALL countries where CP was abolished in schools YEARS ago. Hasn't exactly led to anarchy, has it?


Steve M

MIMI

Part of the reason we looked up to police was that the minimum height requirement for the Met Police(That's London, Ryan, by the way) was 5 feet 9 inches in stockinged(NOT literally!!!) feet.

Nowadays, even Charlie Drake could get in-even if he's dead! We obviously need bigger coppers!


Steve M

Mimi and Steve. Blimey, you Southerners had it soft regarding coppers! When I was a lad it was 6 foot minimum for the police up here, and they had one in Nottingham who was six foot eight inches! PC 'Tug' Wilson, usually on prominent patrol in the Old Market Square. Not many fights there in those days.

What's more, policemen were everywhere. Walking from where I lived to the centre of the town, about a mile, night or day, you'd see at least two, and sometimes more. Now you could tramp the streets of the same town all day and all night and never see one.

This is absolutely true story and maybe illustrates why, as Steve and Mimi say above, youngsters once used to respect the police. I'd be about 8, probably 1950/1951 or thereabouts. I was a very well behaved little lad and I certainly hadn't had any trouble with the police.

Walking along a footpath near home for some reason I took it into my head to throw a stone into the disused allotment gardens I was passing, the sort of thing little lads do. I hurled the stone, it crashed into a large bush the other side of the allotments and out from behind the bush leapt a very angry policeman taking rapid strides in my direction and shouting 'hey, you'!

I ran for home as fast as my legs would carry me, not daring to look back. I doubt now that he even bothered to climb the fence onto the footpath to chase me, but he'd given me the fright of my life. My parents had always told me that if I was naughty out of doors the policeman would get me, and there was living proof! I've no idea what he was doing there. Possibly watching allotments futher down the hill that were still in use for thieves, possibly just attending to a call of nature, who knows. What mattered was that policemen were indeed everywhere!

And the CP bit, not quite on topic 'cos it's not school CP. If my policeman had caught me he wouldn't have even bothered writing my name in his book. He probably wouldn't have bothered taking me home to talk to my parents. He'd simply have given me a few very painful slaps round the ears with the folded leather gloves they all carried and told me that if he caught me misbehaving again I'd get more and worse. I knew that at the time, because a few of my more adventurous friends had had just that happen to them.

Sadly, like the schoolteachers I had, those policemen are a thing of the past. No 8 year old would bother to run away from a policeman now. He'd simply say 'get lost, you can't touch me' and he'd be right. He'd say exactly the same thing to his schoolteacher and he'd be right there too. He'll still be saying it as a teenager to his 'Youth Offending Team Worker' or whatever they're called, and when he makes it in front of the magistrates for theft or violence or whatever he'll say it again. He'll still be right, they can't, or at least not until he's done it more times than the court clerk has fingers!

I was always told they would " lock you up " I did not know what this mean't but it sounded a bad thing.
Nowadays more likey to " fit you up "
Had a brief look at the old knife crime thingy on trap 2, sorry BBC2. All the brave lads showing their wounds and one twat putting in the fact that he had been inside, to make up for not being stabbed.
I have seen a stabbing, very fast, very nasty. It was attaempted murder but plod took it as racially aggravated assault. In favour of the young not white who did it!

I note that Steve/Mimi did not refer to my question as to whether they were one and the same. Instead, both appear here in support of one another. As their views and style are similar I'll refer to them both as one.

I'll then hazard an educated guess and say that if they're this mischievous now they must have been a "damned nuisance" to their school teachers and undoubtedly copped an above average dose of CP. This may well explain their jaundiced view of this remedy.

There has ever been a percentage of barely conrollable kids in the school populations, but CP gave teachers a means of preventing them from disrupting other students. No, it may not have reformed them, but it kept a lid on them and that was good for the rest of us.

Now that remedy is removed and bad behaviour earns a holiday (euphemistically called a suspension), this type of kid is running riot in the system. Here in WA we have a politically correct term for them. They're called "disengaged youth".

RYAN

Doc's disciple or not, you do need to start reading posts.

I don't think Mimi & I are terribly similar in our language, punctuation or spelling.

Just for the record, he & I have met and we have in common:

1) Born in the same year

2) We are both bearded

3) We both have a similar enjoyment beyond the confines of these paras.


Mimi is North London, I'm South, he has been retired from work a matter of years, I'm only just past a month.

At school, Mimi was fairly well-behaved. I was well-behaved for 2.33 years at MGS(and that's Maidstone, not Melbourne) until a new authoritarian Headmaster took over.

The simple facts are in my case until the advent of Bernie, I was so well-behaved I was even class prefect AND reminded two teachers they'd forgotten to set us homework in that position. Both let us off it for my honesty.

I'm afraid any turn I took for the worse was down to the evil influence of my Headmaster. Had he showed the slightest sign of understanding any of his charges as human beings, he might have been a success. The only surprise was he lasted just under 5 years before they blew him out.

I also NEVER disrupted lessons, simply because I NEVER wanted to screw things up for my fellow students nor the teachers, most of whom hated Bernie with a passion as well.

It comes down to the fact that kids who do screw it up for the rest of us can now, as then, be suspended & eventually expelled. There is no place nor need for CP-sorry, violence doesn't cure violence, something it took me until about 35 to discover.


Steve M

Ryan1, you are getting far too paranoid about multiple identities on this estimable Forum. If Mimi and Steve are the same person then I'm Eric! You won't remember Eric, but some people here will! I have to say that like Steve and Mimi I too have a beard, but as I am sure they will confirm, in addition to not being Eric I am also neither of them!

As you've possibly gathered from other posts I'm in full agreement with you regarding the breakdown of discipline in schools since CP ceased to be an option. But a lot of people here have made the point in the past that it is much more complicated than just the lack of CP in schools. Indeed, I think you've touched on this yourself.

Society (in the UK at least) has altered out of all recognition since CP was in general use in schools. Most parents will now always support their child against any form of authority even if the child is in the wrong. Not so in the past. Teachers in most state schools have little if any status in society and often are not happy in their jobs. Not so in the past. Society has very little in the way of sanctions against those who break its laws unless they commit serious crimes or commit minor crimes many times. Not so in the past. Even when criminals do eventually get held to account we can't afford enough prisons (unless we're dealing with a poverty stricken OAPs who've got behind with their council tax) so the baddies get released almost as soon as they step into prison. Not so in the past.

All these things mean that, diehard school CP supporter that I am, even I have to say that there's no easy way to go back. And if we could go back it shouldn't be to schools like Bacon's (featured in another thread) or the school Mimi attended and there would need to be rock solid safeguards to prevent that sort of thing happening.

BTW, children over here don't just get a holiday when they're suspended from school. They get expensive sports and leisure activities organised for them free of charge. It's often impossible to get on routes at the climbing wall I use for parties of such children. Still, it keeps the Instructors there in a job, and being retired I can afford to hang around until the youngsters have finished and left to go kyaking or 10 pin bowling or whatever's next in the day's activities! I can even just about afford to live on what's left of my pension when the tax necessary to pay for the kids' activities has been deducted. So mustn't grumble!

I don't have a beard.

Hi Alan Turing. I didn't think that you would have. Mathematicians are always extremely neat and clean-shaven, and normally they don't have to work two or three days at a stretch without the chance to get home to shave like wot we computer persons had to sometimes.

Mind you, beards have their uses. They are extremely good for keeping your face warm on mountains in winter. So much so that the second person to complete all the Munros (Scottish mountains over 3000 feet) claimed in jest that really he should be counted as the first to complete, because his predecessor had a beard which was an unfair advantage.

OK, so if I've got this straight, Mimi is a man using a woman's name, Steve was a good lad in school and the Headmaster done it. Right, then....

Since the topic is "the pendulum swing" I'd like to say the the weakness of 50's 60's CP, about which Steve and Mimi complain, was its arbitrary nature. You could never be sure when it was coming. In the hands of the wrong person it could be capricious or unnecessary. I don't believe I saw that extreme but I can accept the potential for it to exist.

Some private schools have since instituted procedures to prevent this, including the demerit system that gives the student the opportunity to shape up before the cane/paddle falls. When it does its not associated with anger or revenge or just plain nastiness and, as seen in the US, can even be preferable to the student.

In these schools the pendulum has swung too, but not as far.

How long the dual system here will survive remains to be seen, as people in democracies have a remarkable tendency to impose their views on others "because its good for them".

RYAN

I have to say the CP system at MGS was anything but arbitary. You knew damn well what the offences were-there were other institutions, Bacons included, where it wasn't quite so rigid.

I do think, though, the less rigid ones tended towards caning for anything or everything, which is continuity of a sort, it just means the bastards will get you for ANYTHING, so you may as well do something really vile just to make it worth their while.

From my 3rd year at MGS & the arrival of Bernie the Bastard, until the end of the 5th, I reckon there were around 25 people caned, me included. Three later got expelled, one who got caught smoking a second time, one who simply carried on being the biggest nuisance out of 900 boys(no mean feat, I can tell you) after being caned for smoking, and one caned for extreme vandalism, dismantling a desk, just walked out rather than hit the Head when he came back late from a lunch-time drinking session-the pupil drinking, by the way.

However, it was a further three of our 25 who would go to prison in later life, even if for non-violent offences, 2 different types of fraud & 1 drink-driver.

A fourth of our 25 should have gone down for armed robbery, if his fellow robber(who happened to be one of the three BEFORE he fell foul of Lily law) hadn't been so well-regarded in the community that the police believed the abili he gave them both. The truth was both were pointing sawn-off shotguns at night workers in a local supermarket distribution warehouse the night before & not drinking all hours nearby.

Believe me, that's not a bad selection of rotten apples, is it? I can see them all now, 40 years on, and names are etched in my brain. The biggest irony being that the 2 armed robbers achieved something later on in life, one becoming a distinguished teacher, as did one of our fraudsters!

Still think today's youth are so bad? Or that CP did any earthly good in most of those 25 cases?


Steve M

The subs manager can confirm that mimi and Steve post from two different countries.
Its nothing to do with SCP but I have found that bearded men tend to attract a certain type of female . Something to do with the rugged but soft and warm texture of facial hair perhaps?
The one thing that people like mimi and Steve have in common is that their sexual preferences concern adult females rather than underage children. Unlike some people in the world.
Being a nice chap I have sympathy for nonces. They should be given help. To the scaffold or a solitary cell.

On the other hand, both mimi and I were educated in North London. We always thought that "sarf of the rivver" was a faraway place of which we knew little!

>>>Believe me, that's not a bad selection of rotten apples, is it? I can see them all now, 40 years on, and names are etched in my brain.

Well then, Steve, we've come full circle back to the point I was saying that "rotten apples" have to be contained for the good of the others. As I said before, the cane didn't reform this type but helped keep a lid on them.

And if they were punished only for breaking clear rules...well that seems fair. No one likes being caught and punished but most of us get over it when we mature. Let's not keep going in circles, eh?

I don't think anyone likes being caught or punished.
People don't do wrong on the assumption of being caught.
I honestly cannot remember anyone being fairly punished by the use of CP at school.
I cannot recall anyone ( including females ) telling me that they were fairly punished by CP at school either. When they told me of their punishment and how it occured it was always asumption of fault rather than a premeditated act.
IE female caned for smoking, smoking bulies made her hold the fags when they saw a prefect coming. She did not smoke. She got caned they didn't
Female caned with whole class for noisy behaviour when teacher out of the room. Three or four were talking the rest were silent.
Simple incorrect behaviour such as talking, lateness et al does not warrant caning.
Heres an example of blatant an inapropriate responce which was just plain sadism . Anyone at my schools caught fighting got caned. If one was weak and beaten up by a bully you were both caned because it was called fighting.
How absurd can it get.
Truth is that teachers did not exercise any duty of care to their charges. They did not protect the innocent.
Just like dopey teachers that cane children and think that an apology is sufficient, personally I would resign. But then again I would make damn sure of guilt before acting.

SPANKING TEACHES SHORT-TERM LESSON, BUT LONG-TERM VIOLENCE
By Murray Straus, Ph.D.
July 24, 1999

The writer is the Co-Director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire and a former president of the National Council on Family Relations. He is the author of Beating The Devil Out of Them: Corporal Punishment In American Families.

I disagree with Dr Strauss and believe the writer below makes a reasonable surmise with his graphs. Most parents and teachers should know how to punish their child. If parents can't correct their child at home because spanking is against the law and the teacher can't administer corporal punishment because it's banned, then the judge who sanctions the parents and teachers for correcting that child has to deal with the miscreant himself. It may be too late and it's a hard way for the juvenile to learn respect for authority.

http://storytribe.com/2008/07/23/georgia-county-schools-reinstitute-paddling-authority/

AMERICAN-WAY

That's actually quite interesting. thanks for the link.

But I'm a bit more interested in your teaching children respect for authority statement.

Why?

Could you point out any authority body over there with any more conviction than I could over here and say-you can trust in them-to a child?

My parents used to do that with the Met Police, but subsequent developments have shown them to be racist, homophobe and utterly corrupt.

Maybe that's the whole problem-we can't trust any institution, so why is any internet-wise kid going to, or trust us as parents?


Steve M

We have two graphs covering much the same time period. One graph goes up, and the other goes down. So can we say, from these graphs, that one change causes the other?

No we can't. The graphs are evidence of a correlation. But they are not evidence of causation. One change might, or might not, have caused the other. Or both changes might have been been the result of a change in some third factor. Without further evidence, the claim of a causal relationship is not substantiated.

(I want to make it clear that I'm not saying that such further evidence doesn't exist. I'm simply saying that these graphs, on their own, don't really tell you anything at all.)

Both points well taken. All institutions require a measure of freedom and a measure of restraint and neither can survive without acountability. What we need are laws enforced by a judge who can temper justice with mercy. Some put there hands together and look to the sky while others just throw their hands up. What may seem reasonable to you may seem unreasonable to others. That's the nature of surmises and the point of contention between the professor and the writer. I find the writer more unbiased than the professor and that's also bolstered by my experience.

Has the pendulum swung too far? Popular opinion seems to becoming more understanding of teachers plight and now it has been brought to a whole new level. In France the education minister in the first link and the prime minister in the second link have weighed in on the matter, maybe if people had to walk a mile another ones moccasins they would see both sides of the issue. Here is a copy paste quick summation.
A teacher from France, accused (an unproven allegation) of hitting one of his pupils, committed suicide. A police investigation that involved the questioning of that 38 year old science teacher of hitting a 15 year old boy was one of those he said/he said situations. The man had a lot more on his plate that would have likely been the cause of his action but the teachers union expressed concern that it might have put him over the edge. This was subject of interest in one of the most watched programs on French television at the moment is the US import "Cold Case". It caused the education minister, Xavier Darcos, to step in remarking that the boy had not been suitably punished. "Without defending the teacher's actions," he said "in a great majority of cases it's often the teachers who are the victims."

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/not-quite-french-cold-case-almost

The second link is about an incident that has become a tempest of mammoth proportion in France. Jose Laboureur, 49, a school teacher in northern France is at the centre of a national storm over respect in the classroom after police detained him for 24 hours for slapping the 11-year-old son of a gendarme who had sworn at him. The case of José Laboureur, 49, a technology teacher at a secondary school in the town of Maubeuge, near the Belgian border, has prompted the wrath of teachers and many parents, who say that it exemplifies the breakdown of discipline and values. François Fillon, the Prime Minister, voiced sympathy for Mr Laboureur.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3331477.ece

There is nothing CP about slapping a child in anger. Sanctions need to be in place other than something as draconian as incarceration and I think the French are up in arms because, with the growing level of student misbehavior, they feel an entitled child has become a teacher's nightmare. They can say: "Don't touch me or you're going to jail", and they could be right and that's sad, sadder still is, they can say that to their own mothers soon! That mentality has worked its way all the way into the home and is almost becoming law (albeit fiercely debated) in some northern states. When corporal punishment, like any punishment, is administered judiciously, moderately and sparingly in the home or the school, it's a win/win situation. Children have their inherent sense of what is right and wrong and deep down I believe many desire structure and admire a teacher or a parent who punishes in that manner, bodily or otherwise. A spanking at home or a paddling at school still falls within the cultural mores of many southern states. A lot depends on structure so it's not surprising that houses and schools are structures, I had a sixth grade teacher who said that anything that happens under her roof was her law and anything that happened under your parents' roof were their laws and when you grow up you'll better understand that we all have a roof over our heads and that's God's law or the Ten Commandments. Talk about being politically incorrect! We went a year (50 to a classroom)and it was the best behaved year and no one merited more than a reprimand. The option was there and teachers weren't considered monsters if they used it; it still is in the politically incorrect southern states.

It starts with Kun and ends with tz.......

Point and counterpoint in Memphis TN. The city is the 18th largest city in the States and may reinstitute school corporal punishment in all its schools. There is growing support from former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, a former educator, to a young teacher featured from a previous link, Kelia Foster who is currently teaching in Memphis, TN, where there is no corporal-punishment policy; she doesn't mind saying that maybe there should be. There isnt CP in the non charter schools but by the slimmest vote from the School Board. FYI Charter schools are publicly funded alternatives to the neighborhood schools.

http://www.teachercomplaints.com/complaints/Public-Beatings-Corporal-Punishment_52.0.15.html

http://www.mahsmiddleandhigh.com/ourpages/auto/2009/3/26/37876275/Letter%20to%20MAHS%20parents%20and%20supporters%20about%20corporal%20punishment%20issue.pdf

http://www.explorehoward.com/news/9061/teacher-tells-dr-phil-corporal-punishment-works/

As loathe as I am to criticize a fellow citizen and honorary member of this esteem Forum, I wasnt surprised that Paula Flowes efforts amounted to nothing more than a one woman crusade. So much for blocking the entrance, second link, I guess she believes in civil disobedience only if the camera is running as seen in the second link. She doesnt spare the dramatics when it comes to the target of CP intentions as in it should be noted that the human buttock area is an erogenous zone and the high risk to the delicate anatomy of the hand cannot be over-stated.

http://thehittingstopshere.com/hsh-tn.htm

http://www.susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.html?id=8505

The Principals response to Paulas group was taken from the middle link of my June 8th posting.

While we recognize that there are those who disagree with our use of corporal punishment, we are
clearly within our rights, legally and otherwise, to do so. We made what we think was a good decision
for our school and while some may disagree, they do not have the right to undermine our efforts to
conduct school business. The California-based organization, The Hitting Stops Here, has recently vowed
to completely destroy our school simply because we choose to discipline our children in a manner they
find unacceptable. We take serious offense to their intent and will not tolerate such interference in our
school.

Judging by the Principal's letter he has an exaggerated sense of entitlement and a disproportionate sense of self importance. What privately funded schools do is on their dime not mine. The Principal is being advised by an attorney so he might think he has his ducks all lined up. A better recourse is to find out what the state considers reasonable corporal punishment and why no other public school handbook in Tennessee reflect their policy. Paula Flowe, have you tried the governor's office? Stop chasing windmills or like George Wallace blocking doors.

Tennessee State Law

TCA 49-6-4103
Corporal punishment. -- Any teacher or school principal may use corporal punishment in a reasonable manner against any pupil for good cause in order to maintain discipline and order within the public school.

TCA 49-6-4104 Rules and regulations. -- Each local board of education shall adopt such rules and regulations as it deems necessary to implement and control any form of corporal punishment in the schools in its district.

So far as England is concerned , it seems the laws of physics , have been suspended, and pendulums stay put! ( not surprising when you see how few students study it these days!)At least in the States you have local control of eductaion , here State Education is centralised.

However, every now and then in life something hits you smack bang head on ,and makes you face up to an unpleasant reality you known existed for some considerable time ,but have been quietly trying to deny.' That's part of education you say! '

It happened to me yesterday, and even today I still want to rationalize it away.

Many years ago I taught as my first university class, as a ' double headed' final year undergraduate option on 'Sociology of Education' (Yes in those days we could resource two staff with ten students!).. The colleague with whom I shared that class, invited me yesterday to sit in on a postgraduate seminar, 'for old times sake'. A student gave a very interesting (and actually first rate) paper on research in socio linguistics. A side issue from the paper dominated the discussion , a discussion that nearly made me give up the will to live!

The paper ,which was looking at the UK state sector (secondary ), had suggested amongst other things, that the 'moral framework' and therefore the language of discipline had altered over the last 20 years. This was due to the 'discarding' traditional notions of punishment and replacing them with 'positive' reward based culture and ' flexible group normative values' which meant that school codes of conduct no longer revolved around clearly articulated 'right' or 'wrong' . We have 'gone beyond' the simple appeal to our largely Judeo-Christian history, and so issues that used to be 'clear' , linguistically ' unambiguous' , and reflected a universalistic moral code ( cheating; lying; stealing, deceiving; owning up; taking one's punishment bravely ; not allowing others to be punished for your wrongdoing) no longer attract the universal support of the student community These actions, it was argued, and it was suggested could be demonstrated empirically ( although I am strongly anti empiricism in social theory but that;' s a different story!) are no longer 'universal givens' agreed as being 'wrong'. Hence students engaging in them may well feel no sense of guilt or shame.

In simple English if I had lied at school to cover up a wrongdoing, I would have say , been caned for the wrongdoing, and got extra strokes for lying. No explanation was necessary ; we all knew lying was wrong and would be severely dealt with. Today that action would require explanation, and would be a breach of the common moral code, because it would be no longer universally accepted.

I was interested in the contrast between the paper and the comment made a few months ago by American Way :


'I had a sixth grade teacher who said that anything that happens under her roof was her law and anything that happened under your parents' roof were their laws'


Now this I could relate to , perhaps partly because my Deputy Head had taught in the Southern USA and used similar metaphors..

But the laws were clear and fair. Every possible care was used to ensure no-one was wrongly punished, In the case of the cane, no one would be given it whom it was felt for some reason could be harmed physically or psychologically. It would not be given for certain offences including deficient work ( Much to my chagrin. When I failed to achieve my 'personal score'(18/20) one week for a history test only scoring 14 I was given a 3 hour detention which I detested, even the cane was, to me , preferable. . I pleaded to get detention substituted with a caning but was told by her 'Sorry ! I agree it would be OK and do the job in your case , you were just lazy (!) but in general terms it is an unsuitable punishment for that type of offence! So I'm not setting a bad precedent.' )




Contrast that with Mimi's recollection :


'I honestly cannot remember anyone being fairly punished by the use of CP at school.
I cannot recall anyone ( including females ) telling me that they were fairly punished by CP at school either. When they told me of their punishment and how it occurred it was always assumption of fault rather than a premeditated act.
IE female caned for smoking, smoking bullies made her hold the fags when they saw a prefect coming. She did not smoke. She got caned they didn't '


Which implies a disciplinary regime gone completely wrong, indeed a regime operating within an amoral framework, keep control by fear , and random acts of violence. A completely inadequate, counterproductive and unacceptable approach which does not teach anything except that might is right, and which may well have severely damaged those who went through it.

That quote made me recall the two weeks I spent 'covering' for a sick friend in an inner city comprehensive, where the only piece of equipment they felt I would need was a cane.... I wrote elsewhere:


'I left  after the two weeks feeling pretty demoralised. One bright spot, on my last day a fifteen year old girl at the bottom of the 'sink' stream came up to me and said she was sorry I was going. I asked her why , as I knew I hadn't exactly excelled in the education stakes.

' Well sir', she said,' you've taught our class for about six hours, and we've noticed you  never hit  anyone. What's more   there haven't been any  fights in class. For once  I didn't feel frightened'

This, it appears was some kind of record.'


The school closed not long after...correctly in my view. It lacked leadership, direction, aims, targets, but most of all a vision and framework for improving and helping the children in its ( laughable) care.

If , however , the paper I heard is even part right , it implies that the framework for discipline in many schools is unfit for purpose. If so what say the schools inspectorate? Without a clear universal moral code how can leadership be given to young people.? Moreover, as I have said before corporal punishment would, in such a system , be unsuitable because of the lack of clear boundaries, the danger of its use without moral authority , as a pure deterrent , the danger of replicating too many of Mimi's type school systems.

But what sort of schooling is left? One friend of mine runs a lunchtime detention class in her comprehensive. they have a queue of 'non offenders' every day wanting to 'sit in ' and do their homework there for safety.She won't refuse them ,(provided they agree to her rules, which they are happy to do!), but it has come to something when to be safe you have to voluntarily submit to 'punishment' And if so many do, it probably doesn't say much for the effectivity of the punishment!( The school is rated good to excellent!!).

How can you teach if lying, cheating and stealing is ' arguable' and ' relative' where there are no red lines ( lines too definite : red too aggressive) just , presumably, polka dot 'indicative spaces' about which we can have a rational multi headed discussion?? .

Of course many of these schools will point to lengthy mission and vision statements as to the worthy aims and desirable objectives. The paper started to expose this worrying mismatch between theory and reality . Now I don't want to tar everyone with the same brush ..but I believe it is food for thought.


The terms of debate have changed so greatly , and I'm ashamed to say , have done so on my watch.

But whilst politicians may rule have they got public support? Is it support or sullen acceptance? Can we be surprised at the greed and deceit of our political representatives in the house of Commons ? Forty odd years ago a cabinet minister resigned for accepting a coffee pot......today you push the boundaries (£ thousands of them !) and get off free...When you pushed boundaries at my school at my school, you didn't rejoice at not having technically broken the rules...If you were like me you got caned for your 'general attitude!'

By default have we let the lunatics take over the asylum? In the UK I fear the answer may be yes, and by so doing we let down millions of kids . And THAT is immoral.............

Teachera are employed to educate. They are not employed to bully children.
It would be so nice if caning made children behave, it does not!
There is so much more to it than that.
The reality of a beaten crying child in a classromm is that the rest of the class are terrified and in a fearful state.
The teacher acts in a draconian way and gives a prime example to all and sundry of violence.
If an adult can not control by means of skill and ability then they should not be there.
The use of CP meant that a teacher that did not use it could be reduced to a nervous wreck because kids who were used to it saw them as weak rather yhan decent.
The writer, like most here, has been there and seen it day after day.
Sadistic regimes bread sadistic people.
One final thought, why does possesion of a degree mean one is able to teach?
Don't mention the Teaching cert. as a monkey could get one.

Teachera are employed to educate. They are not employed to bully children.

Correct, but they are also not employed to coddle them. There's a great deal of middle ground between these two extremes.

Relatively rare, normative corporal punishment, delivered in a reasonable, fair, and just manner, is not bullying by any sensible definition.

Yes, some teachers did bully children in a way that involved the use of corporal punishment, but plenty of teachers bullied children (and for that matter, some continue to do so) without using corporal punishment. Bullying by teachers is completely unacceptable, whatever form it takes - and focusing on methods as primary rather than intent and approach makes the problem worse not better.

It would be so nice if caning made children behave, it does not!

For some children - not all - a certain degree of corporal punishment does serve a useful purpose in terms of overall behaviour management.

No, it doesn't magically make children behave - but very few teachers who've used it or use it have ever claimed it does. This is a straw man argument made up by opponents of corporal punishment as if it is something supporters widely believe - when for the most part it isn't.

(I don't mind being challenged on beliefs I hold - I think it's a bit ridiculous when we find ourselves being challenged on beliefs we don't hold) .

There is so much more to it than that.

Yes, of course there is.

There's also much more to cricket than being able to catch a ball.

There's also much more to mathematics than being able to count to ten.

There's also much more to medical science that being able to stitch a wound.

There's much more to cooking than being able to boil water.

Nobody however would attempt to use those facts to suggest that there's nothing at all significant about those things - just because they're not everything, doesn't make them nothing.

Very few supporters of corporal punishment - in fact, I really can't think of any but I'm willing to contemplate the possibility that there are some of them out there - believe corporal punishment is all that's needed to manage behaviour in schools. I certainly don't believe that. I do however, believe there are circumstances where it is one useful tool among a great many others which I also use.

The reality of a beaten crying child in a classromm is that the rest of the class are terrified and in a fearful state.

Only if the children are very young, or unusually sensitive. But besides - why does this reality need to be part of corporal punishment in a school?

If you really believe that a child crying in a classroom as a result of corporal punishment is a problem (and, yes, I would certainly say that it's, at least, generally not desirable even if I don't think the problem is anywhere near as extreme as you paint it) then that can quite simply be solved by not using corporal punishment in a classroom and not sending children back to class after it while they are still in a state of distress. I would expect only a minority of schools in the modern world that still use corporal punishment, still use it within the classroom itself. My school doesn't. It did use to happen sometimes, but it's been outside of normal practice for at least twenty years, if not longer (I can't say exactly how long because it's not something I really did myself - even when it was considered acceptable at my school, I didn't feel it was appropriate in a science lab). Corporal punishment is reasonably common in my school, but even so, I doubt most boys ever see another boy crying as a result of it, unless they are actually present when he's caned. We don't normally send a boy back to class in a distressed state (it's not an absolute rule, but it is rare).

Are boys meant to be fearful of the cane? Yes, to an extent. But they are also meant to be fearful of detention. Fearful of a verbal reprimand. Fearful of suspension. Fearful of expulsion. If you want to argue against the use of fear as a disciplinary technique, fine - I would disagree with you on the point, but I can understand the position - but if so, you need to be arguing against a lot more than corporal punishment. You need to be arguing against all punishment.

I have had boys in my classes cry because they've been given a detention in the past. It's not a common reaction, but it's not an unheard of one. I've had boys cry because I've told them off (and while sometimes I do hand out severe lectures, some boys cry quite easily even in response to a fairly mild reprimand). I'm not happy about that happening - it makes me feel pretty mean in the same way that giving a caning does - but if it happens, it happens. And it's going to happen in classrooms whether corporal punishment happens in a school or not.

The teacher acts in a draconian way and gives a prime example to all and sundry of violence.

A teacher can be draconian without corporal punishment and I know a number who have told me that since it ceased to be an option in their schools, they've found themselves having to take a harsher and harsher approach. They have to come down harder than ever before, earlier than ever before, because they no longer have recourse to a sanction that they find more reliable in extremis.

If an adult can not control by means of skill and ability then they should not be there.

Sensible controlled use of corporal punishment can be part of controlling by skill and ability. I can control a classroom without the cane - and 99.99% of the time I do. Taking away a tool I find essential in a small number of cases doesn't help the students who don't need it - it just harms the ones who do.

I don't use it only in those extreme cases - because often even when I can maintain control without it, the methods I find myself using are ones that I believe are less effective than the cane and more likely to have negative side effects - remember, any method of classroom control carries some element of risk. Some people act as if corporal punishment is the only disciplinary method that has potential side effects. It isn't. Reprimands do. Detentions do. Suspensions definitely do. Token economy methods do. Positive reinforcement does. There's always side effects. The key is balancing likely positive effects with likely side effects and sometimes when you do that, the balance does come down in favour of corporal punishment over other options. Not always. Not even often. But sometimes.

The use of CP meant that a teacher that did not use it could be reduced to a nervous wreck because kids who were used to it saw them as weak rather yhan decent.

I've never seen that happen except in a case where the teacher is weak.

Until quite recently (right through the 1990s) we authorised most teachers to use the cane. From at least the early 1980s most of them either never used it, or only used it extremely rarely. Most of them weren't see as weak because of that choice - because most of them weren't. And some who used it quite a bit were seen as weak - because some of them were.

There might be a small number of cases where a teacher can't control a class effectively without a cane - but can with a cane. In those cases, better they have one than that they don't. But it's extremely rare that it's the cane that makes a difference.

And, once again, this is an argument that, whatever kernel of truth it might have, applies in the case of other punishments too. In a school where detention is the standard sanction, you could just as easily argue that a teacher who didn't use that could be reduced to a nervous wreck because they were seen as weak.

Students can tell if a teacher is a decent person or not. But they don't base that perception on whether the teacher punishes them, or how the teacher punishes them. They might base it on why the teacher punishes them, but that's the only time it becomes part of that equation.

On my office wall, I have a copy of a speech written by a former Captain of this school and published in the school magazine.

The reason I have it there is one statement in it I am proud of.

"I knew that Sir would cane me. But I also knew he'd help me. And I knew he'd do the former only because I deserved it - but he'd do the latter no matter how much I didn't."

I hope my pupils see me as decent. I hope they are right. If they do and if they are and if I am, this is why.

The writer, like most here, has been there and seen it day after day.

Yes, and that's part of the problem - from what you've said, what you saw was wrong. It doesn't mean it worked that way everywhere. You saw corporal punishment being misused. It doesn't tell you much about where it's been used appropriately.

Sadistic regimes bread sadistic people.

Yes - and so many schools today, free of corporal punishment, are sadistic regimes. The sadists are, unfortunately, the children. The bullies. The thugs. And nobody is controlling them in way too many cases. That's got little to do with corporal punishment - schools should be able to find a way without the cane, and thankfully, many do. But if you think it's the presence of the cane that makes a school sadistic, and it's absence somehow stops it being that way, then I don't think you're paying attention to what is happening in schools all over your country.

One final thought, why does possesion of a degree mean one is able to teach?
Don't mention the Teaching cert. as a monkey could get one.

Well, it doesn't. I've known some very good teachers who wouldn't be allowed to teach today, because they don't have the paper qualifications. I also see some every time we interview for a new position who have the paper qualifications and don't have a clue.

But our society has become a credentialed one in a wide range of areas, and schools are no different from plenty of other roles. And while a degree isn't everything, once again, it's also not nothing. As one piece of information among many others about a person, it has some value.

I've got paper qualifications coming out of my ears. Am I a better teacher than I was before I got them? Well, any difference mostly comes from more experience over time, rather than the degree. The degrees make some people pay more attention to me, so they can find out if I know what I'm talking about or not - that's their value, if any. They also make it easier for me to argue with people who do value them.

Mimi makes an interesting point about teaching certificates....but it needs exploring further .I might not want to call anyone a monkey, but let me say that the vitriol of the statement may be slightly wrongly directed. Let me explain....

I started University teaching without a T.C. Of any sort. I learned the trade, to the extent you did by being thrown in at the deep end , luckily I swam not sank. In addition I picked up valuable experience of both how to and how not to , due to a contract for two years to teach 'S; level Economics at a private girls school ( hasten to say no cp whatsoever). Indeed I never gave a detention or lines, or a serious reprimand ,but the classes mustn't have been that bad as most of the girls voluntarily enrolled in my A level class at the local FE adult education except they weren't adults , but as they all paid full fees the principal didn't care!) . Anyway my results were two Oxbridge scholarships and five places, plus nine 'A'; grades ( in the day when A grades represented about the top 10% of the total grades at A level). so my contract was renewed!

In my second full time University post I was offered the 'opportunity' to obtain a TC by inservice work. I accepted. Bad move. Very bad move! I found out later the only reason for offering the course was to keep two Senior lecturers with a timetable ( of sorts!). , and to increase student numbers in a failing teacher education faculty.

For the next two years two half days a week I was taught how (not) to teach by staff who patently couldn't control a class for love or money. My first teaching practice was a disaster. In a lecture class of about thirty students I made. the following errors ( please remember voluntary University 3rd year students, who had chosen to attend!


1.Sat on the table at the front of the class not standing at the lectern. Too informal, allowed the class to interact with me ( horror!).
2.There was only one 'problem' student- instead of making my disapproval clear,and telling him off ( at 21) I used sarcasm to get him to make a positive contribution to the class. It worked , he actually apologised afterwards for 'acting stupid' . ( Could have undermined my authority!).
3.I didn't 'read' out a lecture...I ad libbed it from memory .and ( horror) asked the students questions in the middle!! And answered their questions too! Covered the material , and did the maths on the board. From memory ( sin). ....(see how long ago..no interactive white board! Or even powerpoint!!!). Again not wrong just dangerous. I told them if I couldn't do a lecture from my head without notes I shouldn't be teaching!.
.
Things got worse in the 'compulsory' classroom sessions. I had three social science degrees , but they taught ( well attempted to teach ) me sociology and psychology from the 40's .and it was the 80's!.One lecturer couldn't even spell Piaget let alone epistemology. I complained in class and was told not to be disruptive! I complained to the Dean of Faculty. He consulted with my Professor, agreed for me to skip the classes. I got a distinction!?!

I've said elsewhere the regime at school as you describe it , was somewhere between grossly unacceptable and scandalous. . Assuming this was in the 60's/70's someone had their eye seriously off the ball. That's why I find your comments difficult to compute as they are so foreign to me. We had five staff ( think I'm right) head, deputy, and three senior duty masters who could cane.. You had to sign the book that you agreed and accepted the punishment as fair , or it would not happen ( but you would be suspended). In the sixth form as I have posted elsewhere the default position was that you could not be caned without your explicit voluntary agreement And the cane was always given in private , and only after a full explanation/discussion. The differences couldn't be starker.


So Mimi don't just blame the poor sods who were taught to be monkeys...They were just a bit higher up the food chain than you!.Think of those instructing them, the Head, governors, the funding authorities, and inspectorates who passed by with a blind eye also the politicians - a veritable planet of the apes!

It is a fact that the majority of teachers have been in an acedemic environment all there lives.
They merely carry on in a manner that repeats their experiences.
They have never left school and know little of the real world.
This is so painfully obvious when you meet them.
They have perhaps the best and most easily attainable working conditions in the world, cradle to grave.

Mimi,

I having great difficulty in seeing what you demand of the educational system. All your recent posts seem to me to imply that you are implacably opposed to corporal punishment : that you think the vast majority of teachers you ever met were either incapable of doing a decent job , or preferred to pander to primeval urges rather than teach effectively.

Are you therefore arguing that the kit is 'broken' and can't be repaired? Or are you saying that current educational system is more effective than in the days when corporal punishment existed ? I note on 18th July last year under 'discipline now !' thread which you initiated , whilst praising the ROI for their approach to children/education (which I would agree is completely true , but, with the significant caveat that it is relatively recent following significant educational trauma), -( I did a lot of research there in the 80's) you then write :-:


I firmly believe that a shillings worth of rattan can save thousands

 




So do you feel that there could have been some value in retaining the cane, if only it had been properly controlled and managed. ?

One of the conundrums of education from primary school to university is that promotion means moving to management. I wanted to teach because I enjoyed helping students become excited about knowledge, critical of, and ready to change the world around them for the better. ..

Once in University to 'get on' in career terms , research, administration and management are the pre-requisites. In the end I fought tooth and nail to continue teaching, even a minimal three hours per week. My fellow senior managers thought I was mad. But in my view how else can you lead in education except from the front? That means showing you can succeed in teaching, as well as managing change, balancing the books, pressing the flesh and keeping up external relations ..... and all the rest of the 'worldly ' platitudes. of management technique, without replicating its worst features.

So much of your argument seems to come down to the fact that the education you experienced was badly managed. Many of the unacceptable incidents you recount boil down to staff seemingly without a clear set of objectives or priorities.....If someone uses a punishment technique without being able to explain its purpose , then they shouldn't be using it FULL STOP.. If the only purpose is to deter others, ( and have no aim or intent of achieving anything positive for you), then it should be rejected a priori, as a return to pre enlightenment thinking........witch burning and public executions are long gone......Similarly, if it is an intervention which stops deviant behaviour, but only at an unacceptable psychological price ( a la A Clockwork Orange) . it must be rejected. .Don't put all the hurt and anger you feel down to the actions , however cruel, of individual footsoldiers alone , a great deal is the system and the (in)action of Heads, faceless lea managers, inspectors and others who failed you. .

It seems you and your comrades were punished without any thought of what role the punishment played, except to make sure it hurt, because hurt is unpleasant....but then all punishment is intended to be unpleasant,..... The other raison d'etre for the cane in your school appeared to be also to frighten 'les autres' and terrify the wimps- something I agree was and is completely unacceptable , indeed the very concept militates against the central rule of teaching under no circumstances to do harm to anyone..

At the risk of repeating myself, most social scientists believe in some form of punishment....those who believe in entirely positive 'reward based strategies are to my mind , hopelessly idealist So if you agree with that where do we go ? Negativity is fine, you've told us what teachers shouldn't be, and shouldn't do.

But what would you see as the way forward.? We all want one !

I have stated an attitude based on my observations.
I believe them to be reasonable.
There is no way forward, like politics, education has run its course.
It is an industry that is beyond its sell by date, it exists on retro plagurisation.
It produces a lot of no hopers, is expensive, and is quite ineficient.
The worse thing that happened was taking the school leaving age beyond 15, the lack of vocational training ( apprenticeships etc ) and virtual death of vocational night school.
Half of the population goes to Uni or college for qualifications that they will never be able to use because there is no comparable amount of careers for them after.
My ideas about rattan have changed due to the information that I have become aware of since via the media etc.

Anna/jay/mimi writes:

"There is no way forward, like politics, education has run its course.
It is an industry that is beyond its sell by date, it exists on retro plagurisation. (sic)
It produces a lot of no hopers, is expensive, and is quite ineficient." (sic)

He, himself, is living proof that the above is true.

He continues:

"My ideas about rattan have changed due to the information that I have become aware of since via the media etc."

Yes, it is amazing how a well-thumbed collection of Janus magazines can change one's ideas.

Mimi

Many thanks for taking the trouble to reply.

Obviously I don't agree with the first part of what you say, you wouldn't expect that ! But I do agree with much of the second half of your reply. On the one hand our government and society in general undervalues vocational and applied educational achievement, and thus denigrates and de skills the routes that are available. We are competing against societies in the Middle and Far East who see the value in colleges of higher technology and the like providing the engineers, technicians and middle mangers which we need. Whilst we use the University system as an expensive and inefficient substitute for unemployment., opening institution after institution without a national vision, mission or objective , except to garner votes, and cheat the affluent middle classes out of hard earned cash, and leave their alumnae drowning in debt .

On the other hand,simultaneously I myself might shout ( at the risk of being called that most unfit for purpose Darwinian throw back to the last ice age, an elitist dinosaur )' better fewer but better' ! Even that is self defeating, as underfunded , overmanged state schools struggle to compete with well resourced excellence in the independent sector in the scramble for the same few places at adimishing number first class universities.

What we should be doing in the universities is teaching the philosophies and sciences of man , so that we have the logical skills to think our way out of the box in which we are currently nesting.

To paraphrase a well known Italian political thinker, 'students will never liberate themselves with applied technologies, first they need the clear vision of logical deductive thought , such as classics, pure sciences, mathematics, subjects which teach you to think,and operate with self discipline , but not to learn how to 'know your place''


But if , as you suggest, we've already failed, where next ?

ps Thanks for clarifying about 'rattan' !