Friday, February 15, 2008
We Need More Role Models
The Centre for Policy Studies is firing on all cylinders at the moment. Its report today urging former servicemen to be trained as teachers is a brilliant idea and looks set to be adopted by the Conservatives. Too many young people in Britain today male lack role models. I'm not talking about sportsmen or celebrities, but people they come into contact with in their everyday life. I suspect most people who read this blog all had an individual - in all probability a teacher - who had a great influence on their future life. There are too few people who nowadays go into teaching later in life. I'd like to see the proposed scheme opened up to people from all sorts of backgrounds - not just ex-servicemen.
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18 comments:
hear, hear,
at least an ex-serviceman would know how to properly deal with a young thug who pulled a knife on them.
Yes, I stumbled across this story and have already mailed it to a couple of people. Why haven't we thought of this before ? It is already operating in America.
The problem is the idea would be strangled at birth if LEA type controls meant that proper regimented discipline couldn't be enforced, or that inability to eject disruptive pupils tied their hands.
But I agree with you Iain, this is a bloody brilliant idea, and the main stream media need to pick up the ball and get people lobbying for Government to run with it.
The attraction of service people is that they understand what discipline is.
The absence of discipline means that learning is almost impossible. One pupil can destroy the education of the rest of their class and human rights legislation and the soft left educational establishment has made it impossible to stop this happening.
Many people consider teaching as a career change but then think about the restrictions, the accusations, the powerlessness of teachers in state schools and realise they are better of out of it.
The first step has to be to provide children and teacher the right of a properly disciplined environment. Of all the things government could do that would be the most important. But its now impossible as we don't write our own laws any more, the EU does.
Has the CPS actually sought the views of serving or ex servicemen on this?
It's touching to think that the CPS feels that ex-servicemen have something to offer the educational system. I'd just counsel a little caution.
One of my teachers had had a distinguished career in the Army before turning to teaching. Stunning though he may have been as a battlefield leader, he found it impossible to control a classroom full of disrespectful boys who spent much of their time winding him up. The problem was that he could not legitimately inflict major physical violence upon the opposition, so that reduced his effectiveness to almost zero. My Geography has never improved.
PS Has anyone told you how long your blog now takes to load ? Is there an IainDale Lite site ?
Not a bad idea at all. Many servicemen already have teaching experience. When you get to Senior NCO level you quite often find yourself teaching recruits. I have spent time teaching young engineering recruits electrical theory at the Royal Naval School of Engineering, whilst at the same time looking after their welfare. If you teach in the forces you are generally sent on an instructors course to ensure you have a decent teaching technique.
Tory in unsubstantiated claims SHOCKAA!
Unsworth - "The problem was that he could not legitimately inflict major physical violence upon the opposition, so that reduced his effectiveness to almost zero."
But isn't that the problem ? It could be solved by ARMING THE TEACHERS !!
The little shits know that WHATEVER they do, the teacher can't touch them. I'm no big fan of corporal punishment, but as a 'nuclear option' to deter them, it has to be available. Once kids twig that all the threats available to a teacher are just bluffing, it is very very difficult to discipline them fully.
Oh, some very good teachers can discipline them adequately. But the rules of engagement need to be changed fundamentally. '3 strikes and you are out' [of school].
Teachers should be allowed to check and search kids' bags. And teachers should not be frightened of being disciplined by the authorities for breaking up kids who are fighting.
Check out the book by 'Frank Chalk' - 'It's your time you're wasting'.
But until then, check out this YouTube video for an alternative view of child discipline..
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9GgWrV8TcUc
Don't try this at home...
Unsworth. My thoughts exactly. And our current treatment of them is shameful) Service personnel are used to discipline with in a very clearly defined hierarchy, where detractors are severely punished. Assertion of leadership requires discipline, the respect. You cannot have one without the other and in state schooling discipline is rare or non-existent. It will not work until discipline is restored.
MiaS:
Are you using Firefox? Do you have Adblock and NoScript? It helps.
Would us ex-servicemen receive the same level of top cover and support from the Government/LEA as we did in Iraq/Afghanistan? Ah thought not. This is a dreadful idea. Just imagine the huddle of jobsworths and liberals in the corner of the Staff Room agreeing to send all of the troublemakers to the only Member of Staff with the balls to take on the hopeless and the nasty. Ex-servicemen should not be teaching our feral youth; they should be staffing proper Borstal type institutions and methodically indoctrinating the scum who have made ordinary law abiding people afraid to walk our streets. Oh dear how un-PC. The poor little loves have had a hard upbringing. Answer, bring the feral parents along for the ride too.
the system works in America because they have a culture of voluntary public service. It is about as relevant as saying we should remove majority public funding from the Arts and get private individuals to take up the slack. I approve in principal but it aint gonna be easy.
And despite over 20 years of "Teach for America" the relevant educational training of many American kids still involves no more than being able to ask "do you want fries with that?"
Man in a shed said
"Has anyone told you how long your blog now takes to load ? Is there an IainDale Lite site ?"
Dont know if you noticed but the whole site is "lite" these days.
perhaps if the state stopped undermining the family it wouldn't need to provide male role models..
The kind of person you're looking for was exorcised out of public life in the past 20 years.
The few that still exists do so because they are far to smart to get involved in anything like you're proposing.
Hmm... maybe but I hope there's some decent screening as the remembering the people who went into the armed forces from my school, they were the last people I'd want anywhere near education.
They spent their school careers dishing out casual violence, flushing first years, and failing miserably to scrape together anything resembling a decent qualification. It was a choice of life as a grunt, a crook, or, of course, as a PE teacher.
I'm an ex-Regular soldier with 22 years' service and a couple of degree-level qualifications and a herd of wild elephants couldn't get me through a PGCE, never mind into a classroom. Culturally and politically entirely incompatible with the teacher training ethos, I'm afraid, plus I tend to laugh at things normal people dpon't find amusing.
I'm ex Regular (23 years infantry) currently an English teacher in Scotland fater a four year degree course which included Education. Been doing it for two years now. I love the job, I have no problems with the kids and they think I'm cool 'because you teach us the way we want to be taught'. How? By treating them like human beings and also making damm sure they know that (a) I've been there, done that, got the T Shirt so nothing they say or do will shock me (b) they will not get away with anything serious BUT they WILL be treated fairly. ie they make a mistake or cause problems then it is dealt with severely but not slung back in their faces weeks later. We move on not back.
In fact there are 7 ex Forces at my secondary school, 1 is a muppet who is hated by all the kids because he patronises them the other 6 are all popular, hard working, get good results and if I say so myself, are all damm good looking and efficient!
More Ghurkas, Less Burqas - Neat name!
Since they feminised the teaching profession and turned classrooms from "the authoritarian" rows of desks and seats facing front into girly commune circles, the male presence in schools has - with malice aforethought - been diminished.
We know that both boys and girls need male authority figures while they are growing up. This would be even more critical in areas full of "single parent families", as that single parent is going to be the woman. And possibly her mother or sister. Most of the men in those flats are itinerant guests to put it at its most subtle.
Children in these areas are almost criminally deprived of a male presence, male thinking and male role models.
Just as depressing, there aren't any real male figures on the public scene. Blair was such a poncy nancy and Cameron, with his soft, unlined face and inclusive, sewing circle manner isn't the business, either. And we won't mention Gordon Brown.
There has been a deliberate intention to downgrade maleness in Britain over these last 10 or 12 years, and I can only conclude that it was to soften up Britain for the big EUSSR One-Worlder big bite.
Men are confrontational. An undesirable quality in the passive brave new world.
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