Pupil Discipline

[Sirbendy]

I agree that parents are getting worse...we see them here saying "just call the police - we can't cope with him/her either"..

 

and so many kids getting kicked out by parents, or (not to put too fine a point on it) being shat on by them...it scares me when I hear what they've had to put up with, and the fact that some love school because it's so much better than home life...we even have some begging to come during the holidays..

 

My new place has a bit of a history by the looks of it..definetly had kids, at least one girl..I reckon 7-13ish. Her room (pinky/purple) had a big lock on the OUTSIDE, and the doors/walls have some holes in that look like they took a beating. Main bedroom had an inside lock to lock people out - nice.

 

Then (and this scared me a bit), I was cleaning out the big under stairs cupboard, and there are times tables, stories, "it wasn't me, it was "x"", and "Our Hidey hole" right at the back...that door had a lock too.

 

Even the landlord was a bit taken aback..

 

IF I ever have kids (and believe me, it IS an "if"), I'd hope that I would be able to raise them as I was raised, and never resort to anything like I see now. Jem's as "old fashioned" as I am, luckily.

[farmerste]

i'm afraid it is probably a chicken and the egg problem, we can blame parents, but we are educating future parents. In my opinion we are just turning out kids who think they can do whatever to whoever, whenever it pleases them, a culture of' you can't touch me'

We have made some good progress in the fact that we have made children more open to saying when they find something is wrong, which is good, but we know this is abused.

i think a happy medium is to be decided by each school, and the parents/ people involved in the school as to the discipline to be enforced, use democracy and ask the people , not decided by europe, and this pathetic 'government'.

Democracy is the way, ask the people what they think , but the government are scared of this, all the do is get elected, and then do what the hell they like!

the fact of the matter is that the old system was working fine, the reason for changing this was to make exams easier, and thus make the government of the time look like it was doing something to improve the country.

i dont think there is an easy answer, but the way i look at it is... if you changed the engine of a car and you found it worse than the old one, you'd put the old one back, or perhaps cover it up and sell it as something else ?

[Dos_Box]

'Square bashing', what a lovely 1950's phrase. I did 13 years in the army and never once 'square bashed'. I did drill and parades, but square bashing is often used to describe a punishment used in the days of national service where recruits-soldiers were drilled as a punishment. Drill is NEVER to be used as a punishment (it's military law y'know).

I was an NCO when I left, and follow events on the Army Rumour Service (ARRSE) closely, and the call for former soldiers to worki in schools was discussed in depth quite recently (http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewtopic/t=89581/highlight=ncos+schools.html)

and the general feeling was that it would be a non-starter. It is also apparent to me that there is a massive disconnect between what many know about the forces and the realities of life as a soldier judging by some of the comments posted here.

There is no such thing a 'discipline sergeant'. You have platoon-troop sergeants who are responsible for the running and administration of 30+ soldiers in their platoon-troop. On operations or at war they take on more combat or organizational based roles defendant on the unit they are at and there are sergeants in technical roles who do what it says in the title. They work on technical equipment or fulfill roles such as intelligence analysis or various medical jobs.

It is dammed good fun though and the forces have the benefit of taking youngsters with zero idea about what they want to do with their lives and give them an education, training and experience that no other organization could ever do. I've seen many who would have been written off as a civilian have successful careers in the army and leave to go onto bigger and better things once they leave. And no. They won't work for peanuts. Most friends of mine who left as senior NCOs (sergeant and above) have got jobs in management-project management and are in much demand as their organizational skills and experience are far in advance of many graduates applying for the same jobs. And their time keeping is better too.

[laserblazer]

It is also apparent to me that there is a massive disconnect between what many know about the DIFFERENT forces and the realities of life as an airman judging by some of the comments posted here.

 

In the RAF we had Discip. NCOs. But then we didn't do a lot of bayonet charging. The Discip NCO was responsible for initial training, which included "square-bashing". In effect it was drill practice but in the RAF it was used as a punishment as well. Either way, we called it square-bashing and great fun it was too. Maybe the Army has become too PC and worried about recruits complaining to the media about rough treatment.

 

From my experience, the Discip. NCOs that I knew were great blokes and capable of mixing discipline with care and understanding and I only wish we had one of them in our school to try and sort out the unruly element and let the teachers do what they are paid to do. Mind you, the Station Warrant Officer at RAF Locking was a right barsteward but his teenage daughters had him wrapped round their little fingers

[bossman]

This subject has been approached by the education committee and they are at this moment effecting a strategy of actively encouraging ex NCOs from the armed forces into teaching and offering cash incentives.

It has been piloted down south somewhere and the short term effect has been quite effective according to the findings.

Even the kids have commented on how good the approach of these new teachers are and they are not using the "stand to attention" approach.

As they have very good skills in managing difficult problems in very trying situations i would personally think that they are absolutely essential for this type of position.

[BeJay]

It appears to me as an outsider, that you must all remember that these difficult pupils only spend five hours of their day in your structured educational environment.

I remember a friend of mine having the board rubber thrown at him, and being held against the wall with his feet off the floor by his hair for being cheeky, but his 19 hours a day outside of the educational environment still influenced him to end up in prison at a later date.

Dont give up, dont dispair, education is a wonderful and inspiring thing, but some problems are the problems of larger society, and cannot be fixed in five hours a day.

[Sirbendy]

Indeed. Which is why I try to find out the kids hobbies and try to encourage that, and why I think it's both hilarious and good that some of our kids are currently pasting the head of IT's arse to the wall out of school on XBOX Live..heh.

 

Quite a few of our "challenging" or "less academic" kids are actually very active outside school with "less usual" activities. You'd expect them to be in and out of trouble based on their behaviour, but..no. One is rebuilding a mini with a Vauxhall XE engine..we can sit and have some good discussion about that. Another is a landy nut, and currently owns 3 in various states of rebuild, plus a baja bug. Some fish, some are on apprenticeships, some work part time..

 

I've got a lot of time for kids like that..they may be a teaching headache, but they're good kids at heart..very level headed, very responsible out of school, and very pleasant to meet outside.

 

Just because kids don't engage with the teachers and the "authority" bit, doesn't mean they're bad..

[Edu-IT]

It's nice to see something positive said sirbendy.

[Sirbendy]

It's something I sit and explain to our new teachers...they often come in and complain about the kids and their behaviour, and only see the kids in lesson, and eventually it really starts to get them down.

 

I point out it's NOT personal with our kids..one second they'll give you hell to find the buttons to push, yet 30 seconds later after the lesson finishes, they hold the doors for you, smile, chat about anything, ask questions, and be totally transformed. They DON'T hate you..they're just not used to the discipline.

 

The other thing teachers lose sight of is that if you give a kid a button to make you go bang, they don't forget it..I get called "Gay", "Weirdo", and I even had one lean over my door and say "I had your mum last night..."..I just smile. I said "Glad she's keeping busy..good lad. ", and he went away utterly confused.

 

They're wind-up merchants, that's all. I came into suite 1 yesterday, and plastered all over the IWB was "Steve and Carl are GAY!" in red text..I just smiled, and corrected my name to a "K".

 

They really have a lot to learn about winding me up..

 

See? Case in point then. Several kids lean over the door and ask the head of IT "Are you playing HALO this weekend Sir? "..."Yep".."Excellent! We'll see you in there."

 

Ian's quite a n00b at it, so the kids were telling us how they defend him and cover him in game to give him a chance. They also suggested on the last day of term we should turn this LAN into a big multiplayer "Staff Vs Kids" showdown..heh. I think that'd work really well..Maybe not HALO..Worms maybe..

 

And now the NM has got kids taunting him with printed screenshots of Level 11 of a flash game that he plays where he can't get above 7..I must say, he's taking that well.."arse" is quite restrained..

Edited February 29, 2008 by Sirbendy