Adebayor's started so well for Man City
Teacher and student bullying at school
Georgie is blogging for us all week about life as a teenager.
Listening to Victoria this morning got me thinking of my school days. I only left school less than two years ago but it seems things have got worse since I left. Never in my life have i heard of a teenager threatening a teacher, especially not threatening a pregant teacher to cut her baby out. Its sick.
My school was supposed to be the most disciplined in my area but even so there was alot of pupils who caused trouble, usually those in the lower set (the ones who hadn't a hope of passing their GCSE's) but even in my class at the top end of the year (basically those predicted to get the highest GCSE's) could be trouble makers. They weren't too bad, just chatted while the teacher was talking or refused to work or had the odd fight. It sometimes ticked me off when i was trying to learn and the teacher gave all the attention to the ones that played up. In my fourth year my school sent all of the trouble makers in the lower sets to local colleges which to me was a good idea, It certainly meant seeing alot less of the one's who bullied me in my first years.
I was no angel in school I admit. I was suspended once or twice for fighting but really I wasn't fighting I was just getting the poop kicked out of me and that i thought was unfair but hey I got days off school and days away from bullies. I Also got suspended for high-lighting my hair which would have been fine had a couple of the schools football team not did the same and got away with it. I also used to smoke in the toilets and come into school drunk BUT I was still known as a teacher's pet because when in class I worked hard and stayed in some lunchtimes or after school. I also always passed exams.
I think back to the teachers that were bullied and i know it happened. There was this maths teacher, not mine but i had to sit in a class of his once. He couldn't handle the class. Pupils were throwing paper at him, they were jumping from table to table and one girl was on her mobile phone to which he tried to take off her but she grabbed it back off him and he walked out of the class. The teachers that had it easy were teachers like my history teacher who were very good looking and you could tell wouldn't take nothing lying down. She was also a lovely woman who praised the good and guilt-tripped the ones who weren't doing so well. I liked this because most of my other teachers focussed on the misbehaving/failing students and left the behaving ones to their own devices.
Then again some teachers I really strongly feel stooped down to the level of those misbehaving. And one of the teachers in my sixth form caused uproar for insinuating Gay pride should be called 'The mutant march'...Alot of normally well behaved students lost their temper with him and played up in his classes ever since. I'm not sure if anybody reported him but as far as I am aware nobody did because nothing was done. There was another teacher who sat on Msn messenger and made the class copy out of text books every lesson making my favourite subject my least favourite lesson. So many people got kicked out of her class and then told off by the head of sixth form. If only that head of sixth form had sat in her class and seen she was neglecting us....
I do feel that too much attention is being dealt on the teens who don't deserve it. It's what they want. Teens like me get very bitter when they are neglected or ignored. We're expected to be good all of the time so are rarely praised and those that are normally bad, when they finally do good they are praised beyond belief. And i think the rising troubles in school have something to deal with more attention being given to those trouble makers. I also feel that alot of trouble makers don't want to be in school so why should we pay taxes for them to go, they should be kicked out as at the end of the day I think that's what they want. My school did it in the end, they kicked them over to college and my last two years (fourth and fifth year) were my best years without them. My school should be an example in that sense.
Georgie
Hi Victoria, How things have changed since I went to school. In those days every teacher had a cane and used it regularly. Today there is no respect or discipline, and its a wonder to me how anyone learns anything.
Schools/education is not valued, perhaps if it were not free it would be more valued.
Parents should be made to sign a contract stating that they will see to it that their children abide by the school rules, on the understanding that if they break them they will be liable to be expelled. The onus should always be on the parents to control their children not the teacher.
The problem in UK is the laws of this country has taken away all the "human rights" from the public and given them all to yobs!!!!
all our social problems Schools,Drinking,Knives,Vandalism,Roadrage,lack of courtesy and manners etc,etc are all because the youth and yobs are better protected by the Law than the VICTIMS AND PARENTS,TEACHERS,POLICE, AND ALL OTHER AUTHORITIES.
We say Saudi Arabian law is Barbarick but I tell what I would love to live like that again as i worked in Saudi for 5 years and there was none of these problems there because they really do not tolerate yob culture.my wife could walk alone at 2am at night without any thought or worry!!
here your cars are not even safe without them being damaged or scratched,the sad thing is many times these attacks have no motive at all.
the murders etc
Here in the UK we have lost the PLOT,given power to the wrong people the power should be with parents,teachers,police and authority courts are too stupid too.
a man does £30,000 FRAUD gets 10 years jail and a man kills an innocent woman/child gets 4 years!!!!its laughable dont you think then we wonder WHY????
ALL this week we have had debates about how to control yobs and social problems the solution is simple CHANGE THE LAWS AND GIVE THE PARENTS,TEACHERS, POLICE ETC TO PUNISH THOSE WHO BREAK THE LAW.
In the 50s/60s the worst thing a Pupil could do was to bring the School into disrepute and we got the Cane for that.
Constantly disruptive Pupils were sent to special 'Approved Schools' where they were under an almost Military Regime...
We had very few of these problems in those days - but then - Parents were shamed by their Neighbours if they had Bad Children.
Bad Children should be expelled until he/she has improved and the Parents could be shamed in the Local Newspaper.
In the 50s/60s the worst thing a Pupil could do was to bring the School into disrepute and we got the Cane for that.
Constantly disruptive Pupils were sent to special 'Approved Schools' where they were under an almost Military Regime...
We had very few of these problems in those days - but then - Parents were shamed by their Neighbours if they had Bad Children.
Bad Children should be expelled until he/she has improved and the Parents could be shamed in the Local Newspaper.
Victoria,
last year, whilst holidaying in Greece, I spent a few days in a small inland village on the island of Corfu. In the evenings the adults sat around the square drinking coffee and chatting, and the kids played knockabout football in the street. The occasional car or scooter would interupt their game, but they picked up their ball and moved out the way till the road was clear again. At one point a local woman disrupted their game struggling to park her pickup at the side of the road. The kids waited patiently. Eventually they realised she was not going to park without help, so a number of the boys walked over and man-handled a scooter a few yards, to make room for her. Then they guided her into the parking slot, before continuing with their footie game. No agro, no abuse, they didn't humiliate her in front of the whole village because she couldn't park. They were happy to wait, or even help her if required. And without needing to be asked.
I sat with beer and watched all this and it made me feel sad - back home in England we have lost that innocence, common curtesy has gone. And what me sadder was the knowledge that we have probably lost it for good - we are unlikely to get it back again.
Regards, grudfuttle.
The bleeding heart liberals will hate me saying it and will dismiss it i'm sure but there is no doubt that things have gone from bad to worse from the day that the threat of getting the cane was removed from the armoury of Teachers.
I was born in 1962 and was Schooled through the late 60s to the late 70s when the cane was in daily use and without being a goody goody i managed to get through my entire school life without getting caned once.
I pushed my Teachers but i knew if i was disrespectful or if i was too disruptive the cane was waiting in the head of years office, so i kept it to what must have been acceptable levels.
Kids today all seem to know their rights or the kind of threat that will make the most trouble for teachers, i can't recall how many times i've been told by my niece that kids do what they like because the "Teachers can't touch them"
Hey,
Being a teenager of the 21st century ( Im 16), Ive found Georgie's posts this week remarkabl.e Youve been through so much and I really do take my hat off to you mate. I see the sort of stuff you've gone through over the last few years every day, and its helped me realise, and i suppose accept it on a higher level.
Regarding education, I completely agree. Your last paragraph is spot on - the bad disruptive kids get all the attention, and praise for when they do the most minimal thing, where as we ( I class myself amongst the few who actually do work) are just told to get on with it. It really does piss me off, and the worst thing is that the teachers are fully aware, and do nothing about it! Theyre happy having an easy life dumbing things down for the interlectually challenged, while us few who finish the work they set us, and have such enquiring minds might as well go and bang our heads against a brick wall!
I also agree with the fact that it is the rise in yob culture which has seen a decrease in education standards. Mr Brown, our brilliant prime minister informs us all that exam results are getting better - hooorrayy! Alas, poor Gordy doesn't realise that we all know he's spinning words. Results aren't getting better, exams are gettinf easier. Kids just aren't put under enough pressure these days, they are all getting spoon-fed. The teachers might as well do the exams for them. Which is awful really, because it means the kids then can't explore their own ideas, or ask their own questions related to a topic - whether its poetry, or physics, or whatever.
I think something has to be done, but the question is What?
Thanks for the week in your life Georgie, It's been awesome.
Best wishes,
Amy :) x.
p.s. sorry about the rant everyone!!!!