I have just been listening to a discussion on Jeremy Vine's show on the sexual bullying of teachers by secondary school pupils. It was actually quite worrying and made me very glad that at the age of 22 I reconsidered my original plans to be a German teacher. But one anecdote from the programme did make me laugh.
A 14 year old boy in a class put something down his trousers and thrust his crotch at his female teacher. She looked up and said: "No thanks, I'll have a cigarette later."
That's the way to deal with it - ridicule. Show any sign of weakness and you're finished.
24 comments:
Don't tell me - it was from Prezza's autobiography.
That boy will no doubt grow up to be Deputy Prime Minister.
My alma mater was blessed with some rather unfortunately named language teachers: Mike Hunt and Master Bates. Yes, really.
Come on, Iain. Your liking for amusing repartie is drawing you away from the crux of the issue here. The whole situation's gone beyond anything acceptable in a civilized society.
Schools must bring back corporal punishment, and so too must the courts be able to award punishments whih instil fear and respect.
Without fear there is no respect.
Politicall, it would have to be as part of a localisation programme. There should not be a national decision to cane children and yobs. Cameron's new British Bill of Rights should though permit locally elected officials to bring in programmes of corporal punishment, but the final decisions must be taken locally.
Keep your sense of humour please. But don't duck the core issue. Human nature has an evil aspect which will grow if left unchecked. The social experiments of the 1960's have gone full circle, and failed. Let's bring back civilized standards of behaviour. And yes that means corporal punishment.
Last hallowe'en, somebody I know was walking home. A kid approached him, sans costume, and said "trick or treat." The guy said, "no way, you've made no effort at all.
The kid replied, "if you don't give me anything, I'll tell people you touched me."
To which he replied, "well, I may as well be hung for a sheep than for a lamb - Come Here!"
The kid scarpered.
By the way, your readers may or may not be interested to hear that further to your list of the top political bloggers, jimjay has now released a list of the top 100 green bloggers. http://jimjay.blogspot.com/2006/11/100-best-green-bloggers-results.html
Number 7 on the list is particularly good ;)
I would like to teach in a secondary girls school where they have traditional uniforms and err "sexual bullying of teachers".
St Trinians, St Trinians...
No doubt these days a humiliating put down like this would be classified as child abuse.
I hope not ross!
... but not very much.
Yes - don't give the little ratbags an inch!
If the NUT hadn't got rid of discipline this problem wouldn't occur
Geman teacher? Did you get so far as the naturalisation process, Iain, before you changed your direction?
Keep your Zunge out!
Tapestry said "Without fear there is no respect.". I disagree; fear is what you use when you can't command respect. Fear replaces respect. Resort to the threat of force and you prove yourself to be a loser.
You and me too. It's not worth getting your life ruined for and the profession will be in trouble until they bring back the cane.
As a teacher, I can tell you that making witty retorts back to a student who is aiming sexual innuendo at you is a not a good thing to do. If the students think that they can get away with doing it and just receive your wit in return, they will do it more. Children live to see how much they can get away with, it is what they are about.
You have to remember that any little gems you throw at them can be recounted back if you have a serious problem with a child in the future. So the girl you have to drag to the Head because she has set fire to a desk will automatically spout forth that you have been making knob gags to the class, in order to divert trouble from herself. It does happen, children can be utterly manipulative if they think they are in trouble, and if on the receiving end of it, you can wave your good name (and probably your job) good-bye. This isn't the 1950s, people won't take your word over that of a child anymore. I am very careful about what I say and do, because whilst I love teaching, I know what certain children are capable of. Especially since it became accepted as a fact that every man is a paedophile. It is very sad.
Yes, bring back the cane. Fear of the cane kept children under control. I believe they seldom had to be actually whacked with it.
Mongchacha - It's "Might as well be hung FOR a sheep as a lamb." Meditate on it and you'll get the joke in Peter's post.
Ah yes, I spent a happy time in Saudi teaching students that the english for the appendage they kept thrusting at me in a display of faux-masculinity was the titch.
verity said...
Yes, bring back the cane. Fear of the cane kept children under control. I believe they seldom had to be actually whacked with it.
4:44 PM
What a load of bollocks. It was constantly used in my secondary modern and always the same kids being beaten. I held the record for a short while at 50 strokes, not all deserved, in one term. I have raised four children and taught hundreds and never found it necessary to hit any of them.
Agree with Anon 4.11
Sarcastic put-downs may work in the office, but they're lost on schoolchildren.
Challenges to teachers occur mostly with newly appointed staff or supply teachers. After a year in the job, the teacher is usually accepted as part of the powerful establishment and not to be messed with.
It goes without saying, that new staff and supply teachers need guideance and support from a designated member of staff.
An incident like the the one described should be calmly and relentlessly pursued through the school's disciplinary proceedure.
Other children would soon get the message.
A friend of mine teaches teenagers in the UK (poor woman) and she's limitlessly amused by what the teenagers think she'll find shocking. She's middle-aged! She can't know anything about sex! Some of the stories are hilarious.
She doesn't live in terror of them telling their parents, because she knows very well that teenagers are not likely to say things like, "So Mum, when I was playing with myself in history class today, the teacher made fun of me..."
You don't engage in friendly sexual repartee if what you're trying to do is re-establish discipline in an overly-sexualized situation. You engage in unfriendly sexual repartee, like the teacher in your example.
My headmaster accused me of letting a teachers's car tyres down.
I didn't.
He called me a liar.
I wasn't, I didn't do it.
He said I was there and knew who else was there.
I wasn't there and didn't know who was.
I refused the six on each hand he was about to give me and backed away frightened.
He lashed at me across my arms and legs and caught my face twice. In total I was hit about 20 times. He smashed every glass trophy case in the room and I cowered on the floor in terror.
I went back to my class and showed my teacher the marks on my body and she left the room and investigated the issue. She came back and asked me to forget it.
As you can see, I have forgot it.
Bring back the cane?
ANIMALS!!
school governor - Sorry about your experience with a psychopath, but the cane was usually a couple of whacks across the palms. Your parents should have reported that sadist to the police.
Even if the cane was brought back into use, do you think any Head would be stupid enough to use it? They would get stabbed!
This incident happened 5 years before some schools chose to abandon physical punishment. It was banned soon after.
The cane is abolished and is illegal. There is no fight to win.
Some people want it back, but think guilt lies with the child in the story that has just been told them.
My school has a prison. No windows and no communication with the outside world until behaviour is restored. Usually one-one teaching and the strange thing is, the child appears to warm to the attention.One-one is expensive but not brutal.
The cane is an abuse and is an abuse of the mind of those that thought up alternatives.
'Beating' schools and 'beating'people have long histories of 'beating'.
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