Why Is This? It Never Happened In 'my Day'.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/violent-school-pupils-attack-900-london-teachers-a-year-8440965.html

In Britain we may not have anything like India's brutality to women, thank goodness, but then I don't think India's teachers have to endure the same treatment as our teachers apparently do.

/// One of the most notorious attacks on a teacher happened at Westminster City School in 2004 when a teacher was raped by Dwayne Best, then a 15-year-old pupil, as she was marking books in a classroom. ///

/// In January last year, a boy of 10 was arrested over a vicious attack on two women teachers in Orpington which left one with a broken leg. ///

/// “I was quite scared, especially because of the kind of community I was working in. Outside school the knife culture was happening. We were worried about repercussions when you left the building. Kids used to say, ‘Wait until after school’ and ‘Watch what is going to happen’.” ///

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

Don't try and sweep under the carpet, what are after all very serious problems that are effecting our country today.

You quote only one incident during your school years, just imagine how many incidents some of 'today's' pupils will be able to quote.

You also mentioned Borstals, yes they were full of 'naughty boys', but most of the inhabitants were shop lifters and other thieves, crimes that would only warrant a 'slapped wrist' today (ups sorry, not allowed to smack them today, are we)?

Incidentally this wasn't a Daily Mail (Daily Gloom as you call it) report, it has been a concern extensively reported on in 2012.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18999447

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/primary-school-pupil-behaviour-becomes-more-violent-according-to-new-figures-7976140.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9359601/Violent-young-pupils-unfit-for-school-behaviour-tsar-says.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/dec/31/suspended-violent-primary-school-pupils

[anotheoldgit]

em10

Exactly, just as you portray it em, nice to get the debate back on track after the suggestions of dodging Luftwaffe bombs and bullets, a borstal history lesson, and even Jimmy Saville and Harold Shipman managing to get a mention LOL.

Yes teachers of old certainly knew how to instil discipline in the class room, along with the support of one's parents, And isn't it strange it is those very strict Masters who one can remember with a certain amount of admiration even to this day.

After all it was them, along with one's parents, and the local 'Bobby' that put one firmly on the very straight footpath of life.

[Gromit]

I do not believe your act of naivety.

Borstal was for seriously delinquent young people. Thugs, violent attackers etc. And the borstals were full in your day.

I have no doubt that there has always been a violent youth element. Before your day, during your day and present day. Bad parenting didn't just start in the 1960s. There have always been problem families and their children and then their children turn out the same.

[emmie]

you never cheeked them, nor the bobby on the beat, if you did parents would know about it. I can't say that many of the teachers made that much of an impression in a good way, though not bad, just rather indifferent.
You had to stand when the teacher came into the room, and always addressed them as Miss or Sir, never, ever first names. Assembly was for everyone and all stood for the school song, and prayers, rather dates me i expect. I did like school and did well, and remember one or two of the teachers with affection, but the headmistress was an authoritarian, when she left the school actually improved.

[emmie]

A relative ended up in a borstal for a short time, he was neither rough nor a thug, to suggest that all who ended up there were seems a patent nonsense

[ummmm]

Em, in my experience that's pretty much as it is today. The only difference is the teachers don't hit the kids anymore.

[RATTER15]

I was at school in the 60s and 70s, I never heard of an attack on teachers but then again I dont live in the city, never have and never would.

[anotheoldgit]

ummmm

/// Em, in my experience that's pretty much as it is today. The only difference is the teachers don't hit the kids anymore. ///

No the teachers do not hit the kids, but the kids rape and inflict physical harm on the teachers now.

And if we can stop this by metering out a bit of old fashioned discipline so much the better.

[ummmm]

So you think we shop go back to hitting children to teach them not to hit people?

[emmie]

i only remember one incident in my life of being smacked as a child, and that was in first year of junior school, aged 5, it was humiliating and i remember it to this day.

[emmie]

i do not believe in hitting children, not ever.

[anotheoldgit]

All very commendable this lack of discipline, but the lack of it has created this monster.

All very well to criticise the old methods, but can you come up with a solution to this increasing problem?

If it can be done by inflicting no punishment, then all to the good, but I would be interesting to know how you would go about it.

Answers please.

[RATTER15]

em 10, totally agree, it achieves nothing, you cannot teach a child by using violence! I often hear "I was smacked, it never done me any harm" well it did, because it probably taught you that to discipline children you need to smack them and that pattern of abuse continues through the next generations.

[Zeuhl]

/nice to get the debate back on track after the suggestions of dodging Luftwaffe bombs and bullets, a borstal history lesson, and even Jimmy Saville and Harold Shipman/

aog

you are missing the point.

apart from the fact that there is ample evidence that school pupils did commit acts of violence in the past (though your quoted '15 year old rapist' of today would no doubt in 'your day' have already been taking out his frustrations on a piece of iron or a coal seam not a teacher) you can't take it out of context.

Even if we did accept that a feature of society in 'your day' was no attacks on teachers, then we also have to acknowledge that other things were also features of 'your day'; such as gross abuse perpetrated by people protected by privilege, a blind eye turned to gratuitous domestic violence and the not so minor characteristic of a World War.

If you look at the 'big picture' objectively, you must acknowledge that a society which suffers the occasional stabbing or classroom rape is doing a much better job by its citizens than one which sends off tens of thousands to die on foreign battlefields or suffers its civilians to hide in shelters while their streets and playgrounds become places of mass destruction.

[RATTER15]

AOG, it isnt a lack of discipline, its just a different kind of discipline, I was never smacked as a child, I never smacked my children, and now my children never smack theirs and we are all well balanced law abiding individuals.

[Sqad]

RATTER...that is good, that is commendable, that is your opinion, that is respected........but that is not the opinion of everyone, including many teachers........shouldn't their opinion be respected?

[sherrardk]

As an ex-teacher I wouldn't want to see a return to the times when it was considered appropriate to give a child a smack - there are some power-mad, jumped up little nobodies in teaching who would revel in the ability to scare kids and have the power to hit them. A number of times when I was working I was threatened, intimidated, spat at, etc (I was followed home by an older student who had a car). A primary school pupil tried to stab my husband in the groin with a screwdriver. I would rather stick wasps up my arse than go back into teaching.