| Author | Message | ||
     Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.129.110 |
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100429/tuk-teacher-cleared-of-attempting-to-mur-dba 1618.html I know I should have been anxious about the kid, but I wasn't; I've been in the teacher's shoes more than his. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I fear my reaction was that the little shit probably got just about what he deserved. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Yes, I too am relieved he wasn't convicted of this. I've had first hand experience (and second hand experience too) which I'll explain. We had an English teacher at school who had been off sick with stress. I remember vividly one class I was in where the kids deliberately tried to wind her up with chanting, name calling and general bad behaviour. Now, this is going back quite a few years - it was a good school (back in the days of the old grammar schools) and I'd never witnessed anything like this before. It wasn't the 'norm' in those days. My mother had suffered from stress/mental health problems and I really felt for this teacher because of that. In fact, I was absolutely mortified when it was happening and only wish, with hindsight, I'd had the guts to stand up to the rest of the class more than I did. I did actually try shouting at them to stop, but my pleas probably just sounded like further taunting of the teacher. Anyway, the outcome of the incident was that she ran out of the classroom screaming and crying and we never saw her again. I guess she had to give up teaching - heaven knows what happened to her health-wise after that incident. I can still recall the deathly silence which came over the class when she ran out of the room and the kids realised exactly what they'd done. It probably doesn't sound as bad when I describe it here, but it really does still make me sudder to think about the whole incident. My second-hand experience was much later when my then partner took a temporary teaching post at a local comprehensive school. We should have realised there was something wrong when he applied for the post, and the headteacher actually came to our house to "sign him up" to it. I guess most people knew that that particular school had a horrendous reputation, and no-one else had applied for it. But we didn't realise as we'd not been in the area long. Anyway, my then partner had mental health problems too (I do pick 'em - he had bipolar disorder). I only have second-hand reports of what happened in his class, but I know there was very little teaching. Mostly, the kids did things like piling furniture against the door to prevent him getting into the class, and things like that. He tried to cope with it, but it sparked off another bout of illness for him too. So, I really felt for this poor teacher when I heard the news about what had happened. My initial reaction was that this must have been a similar situation to that experienced by my English teacher many years ago, and by my ex-partner more recently. Thank heaven the court realised the pressure teachers are put under. I hope this incident means that schools will review their policies towards teachers' mental (and physical) wellbeing in the classroom. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Quite a few of Jenny's colleagues in teaching have had nervous breakdowns. Her retirement came as a great boon. All this said, I wouldn't want to return to the system that gave sadists absolute power - at any rate, it might as well have been - over their pupils. One of the masters at my old grammar school in the early sixties was possibly the most loathsome human being I've ever met, and shouldn't have been in charge of animals, let alone boys. The class I was in had him for just one lesson. It was enough. He figures briefly in my autobiography. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
That's a good point, Ramsey. There's a need for a balance, isn't there? We need a kind of mutual respect; teachers respecting pupils and pupils respecting teachers. For the most part, we had that at my old school, which was a really good one. I guess that's why I found the incident with my English teacher so shocking when it happened as it broke all the informal "rules" which seemed to be in place at the time. Mind you, some of the pupils at my old school didn't have much respect for their fellow pupils, as bullying was rife in certain quarters. It's human nature, I guess, for the strongest to pick on the weakest, whether those are pupils or teachers. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Thank God! Sanity and compassion prevails - I am so relieved to hear this and hope the poor man can get on with the rest of his life now.  | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
It's a strange thing - I've often referred in my work to the severe canings (and other draconian punishments) I both witnessed and received during my school years. But, though it's a cliche, I look back on all that with an "it never did me any harm" attitude. There's no doubt that a much firmer level of discipline is required in schools than currently exists. Teachers are wasting their time, and the majority of pupils are not being educated, if disruptive elements are constantly allowed to have their day. I was amazed when a row kicked off in my home town of Wigan after a fourth year girl walked out of high school because her teacher shouted at her for not completing a homework assignment, and then stayed away until she received an apology, seemingly with the full support of parents, etc. It made the local press, but the way the 'offended parties' were carrying on, they clearly regarded this dispute - between their 14-year-old daughter and her teacher - as an argument between equals. Totally unbelievable. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
"I fear my reaction was that the little shit probably got just about what he deserved." Really? A fractured skull? Good God. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
He was the ringleader who deliberately coordinated the abuse which pushed a teacher into a full blown nervous breakdown. What had the teacher done to deserve that? I think a fractured skull maaayyyyyyyyy be a little severe but he sure as hell will have learnt not to push his teachers like that again | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
It's the fight/flight reaction to stress, isn't it? In the case of my English teacher, she took flight - running away from the situation. She could just have easily have grabbed hold of the nearest kid and beaten the living daylights out of them, which would have been the 'fight' reaction (in fact, I'm rather glad she didn't at that would have been me. I always sat at the front of the class, being the little swot that I was  ). In the case of the teacher this news item is about, he took the 'fight' option. It's instinctive. He won't have chosen that option deliberately. He will have had no control over his reaction to extreme stress. It's exactly the same reaction we have if, say, confronted by a mugger in the street or a burglar in our homes. Do we run like hell or stay and fight? | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Oh bugger - that should read "She could just as easily .." My brain's not working very well today after a rough evening of teaching with a rather awkward class yesterday!  | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
"He was the ringleader who deliberately coordinated the abuse which pushed a teacher into a full blown nervous breakdown. What had the teacher done to deserve that?" I don't know, probably nothing. But do we know that student behaviour caused a breakdown? If so, than attempted murder is a ridiculous and cruel thing to charge the man with. But the tone of some of the previous posts seem to relish the most undeniable fact in this case: a 14-year-old boy had his skull fractured by a fully-grown adult. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
The jury certainly believed it was the student's behaviour that caused it. The children were deliberately trying to provoke a reaction so one of the girls in the class could record it on her phone to pass round the school. These are indisputable facts which emerged during the case. The teacher gave them a reaction all right. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
The fear of corporal punishment (too much of it arbitrary or for ridiculously trivial pecadilloes) at my grammar school did me and my education a great deal of harm - I became afraid to volunteer answers and even, I honestly believe, to risk thinking too much. In my last year there (when I was coming up to sixteen) corporal punishment was very largely abandoned for that age group and above, and I did spectacularly better (having failed miserably in the previous year's GCEs). | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
An afterthought - there were certainly occasions in my experience where a teacher used corporal punishment simply because he was incompetent. One drunken Irishman (a lay teacher) was especially blameworthy, and more than one Christian Brother was. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
While not of sound mind due to extreme provocation. I regret what happened but can't feel an ounce of sympathy for the little shit - I think we all know his type too well. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Here's a more detailed report, and I stand by what I said. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article7111814.ece | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Whilst I might not be convinced that it's "What he deserved", I don't have an ounce of sympathy for the little shit and I believe it's quite clear that he brought the beating on himself by provoking a man who'd only just returned to school after having to take time off through stress. | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.146.249.100 |
"He brought the beating on himself..." Would that be the same way women bring rapes on themselves by deliberately wearing provocative clothing around men, whose lusts are well-known and who can't be expected to go around not raping people all the time? Presumably it's all right to go around murdering people who draw cartoons of Mohammed, then, because they brought it on themselves... To clarify: your argument is that if you tell someone to 'fuck off' you have no one but yourself to blame if that person beats you with a weight until they fracture your skull and cause bleeding to your brain? Especially if you're a young person, because you're obviously, then, a little shit, rather than a kindly psychotic who bangs his head against walls and was clearly in no state to be in a classroom. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
If you deliberately try to provoke a reaction from someone who's just returned to work after six months off with stress... you're lucky if you don't get a reaction. I have no sympathy for the boy. I have full sympathy for the man with a long teaching career who they managed to push into a full mental breakdown. What exactly had the teacher done to deserve the treatment he was getting from the kids with that boy as the ringleader. If I collared you in a situation where you had no escape route (such as a teacher in front of his class) and deliberately provoked you, you would react - and I would have brought that reaction on myself. You cannot dismiss the fact that these kids were deliberately trying to make him snap. They got their wish. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
If all the boy had done was tell him to fuck off you would have a point. But there's a huge difference between saying that a class of children deliberately goading a teacher to make him snap - so they can film it and send it round the school to humiliate him - is provoking violence if the man has just returned from sick leave for stress, and saying that women provoke rape with the way they dress. Like I said, I don't think the attack was "what he deserved" but I do think if he hadn't been deliberately trying to provoke a response, he wouldn't have provoked one. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.249.144 |
(aside, weirdly coincidental: I just read a superb Stanley Ellin horror story that dealt with this exact theme, "Robert" (1958)... packs a wallop... okay, continue....) | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Craig, couldn't Highsmith's 'The Terrapin' be the same theme reversed... out of the classroom, obviously? The human mind is highly fragile and this poor man cannot be described as psychotic (that's something entirely different) but suffering a temporary mental illness due to unbearable levels of stress in his personal and professional life. He deserves nothing but sympathy and help to get his life back on track. The boy concerned, and all the other little pricks, who egged him on or joined in will hopefully have learnt a very important and humbling life lesson from this... | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.146.249.100 |
If his response to provocation is to beat someone until he thinks he has killed them, he should never have been put in a classroom situation. There's something adults are meant to understand: proportionality of response. They are meant to understand that sticks and stones can break their bones... They are, in short, meant to behave like adults. Because they are adults. Children behave like children because they are children. The fact that children misbehave does not excuse adult misbehaviour in response. Beating someone with a weight until you think they are dead is unacceptable under any circumstances (except, perhaps, a physical and potentially deadly assault). That shouldn't need saying, really. Mentally unbalanced people should not be in classroom situations about which they have expressed concerns in the past. Is it wrong to expect teachers to behave like adults? Are we really in a state where teachers cannot control classrooms without hitting children? I'm glad he wasn't convicted of something that patently wasn't the case, and it's sad that our current culture is at a point where sensitive people find it difficult to teach, but let's not pretend he's suitable to be left in loco parentis in future. (If this boy's friends tease him when he gets back to school: "Ha ha, blood brain, your skull isn't even whole any more, idiot..." he's perfectly justified in killing one with a half-brick, then, is he? Or beating them to the point he thinks he has killed them?) | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
So the children were justified in trying to make the teacher snap "because they're children"???? The poor sod had a nervous breakdown because of the behaviour of those kids. Proportionality of response is not something that would be at the front of your mind when you've just had a nervous breakdown. The kids have to take responsibility for their own behaviour. these weren't 5 year olds, they were 14 and 15. They should have been treating the teacher with respect and trying to learn, which is what they were there for, not behaving like evil little shits. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
"If this boy's friends tease him when he gets back to school: "Ha ha, blood brain, your skull isn't even whole any more, idiot..." he's perfectly justified in killing one with a half-brick, then, is he? Or beating them to the point he thinks he has killed them?" If they do it to the point it's a mental torture and he has a mental breakdown as a result, possibly. Like I said, I don't think it's "what the boy deserved", but I do think it was as close to self-inflicted as if he'd picked up the weight and clubbed himself with it and as much as i probably should, I can't bring myself to feel any sympathy for him. Are you really saying that you think the boy has no responsibility whatsoever for what happened to him? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
This is a complex and difficult case. I agree that the court's verdict appears fair under the circumstances. I can't agree that the boy 'deserved' to be nearly killed, but that wasn't what the court had to decide. The law has to steer a rational course that recognises proportionality of punishment, and does not endorse revenge. The law is above the individual emotion that drives violent retribution. That's why we need it. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.237.52 |
I have studied this closely, I know what little bastards ALL children can be, particularly when they smell weakness. Did the ringleader deserve to have his head caved in? yes, probably, should he have had? no, of course not. For once, I think the courts have acted with sensitivity and balance. gcw | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.146.249.100 |
No, Weber, the children were not justified in what they did. No one said they were. But children aren't justified in a lot of what they do. That doesn't mean we can respond as if we are children, too. The children at my school could behave quite horribly. They locked teachers in cupboards, shuffled their desks up whilst the teacher was at the blackboard so that they were trapped against it, hummed throughout entire lessons so that the teacher could never guess who was doing it, one coloured his erect penis in green with a highlighter and waved it at a female teacher. This all happened when corporal punishment was perfectly legal (or at least was for some of it). I've also seen a teacher throw a boy down a set of steps, breaking one of his legs; a teacher who was an ex-boxer hold a child against a wall and break his nose with a punch; seen a teacher bang a child's head against a desk because he thought (incorrectly) that he was being mocked; and had a teacher wedge my head into a wooden frame held in a vice because I wasn't good enough at woodwork. Adults beating up children is not acceptable, no matter how stressed they are. If you're that fragile, you shouldn't be in a classroom. The children in that classroom are under your care, no matter how abominably they behave. As Gcw says above all children can be bastards, being able to deal with that is part of what teaching is. And it always has been a part of teaching. The fundamental change, however, is that parents now side with children over teachers. It used to be that if a teacher punished a child they would have the support of the parents. Now the children know that their parents will probably disagree, and may even go to the school to argue over any punishment. We've had thirty years of teaching unions being undermined by governments. Of being told that parents know more than teachers do about teaching. It has finally reached the point where many parents believe that, and that is what causes children to behave utterly without respect towards teachers, the fact that their parents have no respect for them either. Applauding teachers who crack their skulls isn't going to help. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
"Did the ringleader deserve to have his head caved in? yes, probably, should he have had? no, of course not." Again, I'm speechless. Perhaps keener minds than mine is required to see any difference between those two sentences? I think the verdict was probably correct. I'm just appalled by some of the attitudes on display (and I choose that word carefully) here. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
Ack. "than mine ARE required" | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.233.93 |
Stevie - yes, Highsmith's "The Terrapin" is a great reverse-trauma tale... and a tale where reading, you the reader want to do what the small boy protagonist does.... If this whole story was prefaced by "An Amicus Production," then yes, it would be wholly and poetically justified.... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
"the little shit probably got just about what he deserved." "Here's a more detailed report, and I stand by what I said." Can we assume the latter statement refers to the former? I ask because it's difficult to believe that a an adult would hold the opinion that a misbehaving child should have their skull fractured as punishment. | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.146.249.100 |
Proto - I'm not sure that, here in mainland Britain, anyone's appalled by this sort of attitude today. It's become so common to demonise young people in the papers as 'feral' or 'bestial', that otherwise thinking people have no qualms about having the most horrifying opinions about them. It's part of the growing tabloidisation of our culture. Anything our tabloids say becomes received wisdom, despite the fact that it's usually lies (see out Summer of Knife Crime, in which fewer crimes involving knives were committed than the year before - or ever before recorded). Interestingly, had this man beaten his employer until he had bleeding on the brain for putting him in a situation like that when he was unable to deal with it, I can't see our media being so supportive. It would have been the tale of a vicious attacker who was trying to excape responsibility for his actions by blaming them on 'stress'. Anyway, I'm not appalled to hear the preponderance of 'little shits', 'little bastards', and 'little pricks' about a boy none of us know more than a sentence about. I'm not even surprised. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.237.52 |
Proto, My mind is no keener than yours, perhaps my opinion wasn't clear, I will try to clarify... From the evidence I have heard, and from my own experience of the cruelty of children, I can well imagine how this child could have pushed the teacher beyond reason, hence resulting in the attack. I do not condone the attack, simply can understand how it could happen. We are all human and have weaknesses, this teacher was pushed beyond his endurance, BUT, in no way should he have done what he did, the point I am trying to make clear is, I can UNDERSTAND why he did what he did. gcw | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.146.249.100 |
I mean 'escape', of course. It's my inner hoodie pronouncing things for me now... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
GCW, thanks, that's a lot clearer, and I do understand it too. That's a long way from saying this, though: "Did the ringleader deserve to have his head caved in? yes, probably," | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.185.150 |
Proto, I think that statement was meant to distinguish between the emotion of retribution and the rationality of punishment. Most violent acts are prompted by anger, in a context where the attacker feels that they are righting a wrong. Courts get sick of hearing "He had it coming." It's quite possible to recognise that someone has done something terrible and also to recognise that a specific punishment handed out to them is unjustifiable. I think that's the distinction being made there, however paradoxical the wording might sound. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.237.52 |
Proto, "Did the ringleader deserve to have his head caved in? yes, probably," Perhaps this comment was a bit flip, I am not as literate as some, but Joels' comment above sums up what what I was 'trying' to say effectively. gcw | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.90.191 |
Ah, fair enough. I think we can have sympathy for all parties involved here, and condemn the wrong on both sides too. No winners here. A man has had a breakdown, destroyed his career and now has to cope with the guilt of what he's done. A boy has had his skull fractured, seen the man who did it walk free and will undoubtedly be left with psychological trauma from being violently attacked by an adult. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.129.110 |
Couple of thoughts; - The kids wanted the man to do what he did. They did want to destroy his life. - A local teacher here killed himself after such horseplay. - The teacher shouldn't have been there, but that's not his fault. - Kids CAN be cruel. Sometimes the media siezes on this to sell papers but here that's not the case. - It was impossible for that teacher to behave properly in those circumstances. - But yeah, a dumb bell was probably going a bit far. Maybe a slapping? A few years ago I went nuts with a bunch of kids younger than this and threw stones at them, screaming. I was temporarily insane. I also grabbed this little kid for knocking on my door and running away and dragged him into my house threatening to call the police before then dragging him to his parents house to tell them what he did (I wasn't angry at him so much but rather the line of teenagers who constantly picked on me and banged on my window every time they passed - he was just in the wrong place and time). His dad then went nuts with me of course (the kid HAD been a little shit by the way, for other reasons; my autistic kid told me that after that he stopped being picked on by him at school) and I ended up being cautioned (even though it was me called the police because I'd been frightened by my own behaviour)I went to apologise to the family and the kid but they just acted like they wanted to beat me up (which just ended up with me crying in the street). Groovy. As I get older I don't believe there are any adults in this current world, just people fortunate enough not to be weak or strong enough to be brave. But even the brave and the good can be broken sometimes, especially when the respect and care they have initially for children is thrown back in their face by them. Rejection can sting. Logically, I should be sad for the kid, but the ancient bullied kid in me can find not one jot of sympathy, I'm sorry (and I'm one who did manage to for the 'devil' kids, and currently Jon Venables). Maybe I need to know more about him. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.129.110 |
'Chris Keates, general secretary of the teachers’ union NASUWT, called last night for an inquiry into how technology, such as mobile-phone cameras, could encourage children to “play to the camera” and behave badly in class.' It's a well known fact that being filmed can incite people to do things they usually wouldn't. And gangs/groups hold huge influence, too. School sucks, for everybody. I still say adults should be able to join classes, that it should be more like college. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
All right, perhaps my initial comment was a bit harsh. Let me say that the boy got what he asked for, then. Just to be clear, I'm not basing my view on any tabloid view of children. It's based on my wife's experiences as a teacher for thirty-nine years, and my own observation of children's behaviour. No, I certainly don't think all of them are out of hand by any means. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.129.110 |
I think we're animals a lot of the time, fooling ourselves that our intellects dominate. It's in us to tread on the weak because we think weakness is a failing, deep down. We sort of want one another to be up to scratch, not have to worry about them. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.237.52 |
I think all our comments on this incident are coloured by our own personal experiences. Frankly, I don't feel sympathy for the boy, but I do for the teacher who lost control. Will good come from this? Will the boy, and the rest of the class feel guilty that they pushed the teacher to this? Will that guilt change how they may behave in future? will they realise that adults & teachers are human, vulnerable, and need the same respect & self esteem as themselves? will they realise that they did wrong just as the teacher did wrong. CONSEQUENCES! This is NOT condoning what the teacher did at all, but if children understood morals & consequences then these sort of incidents would happen less. gcw | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Absolutely, Gary. Reports suggest the boy's parents were outraged by the verdict - one hopes that they were by their son's behaviour. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/apr/29/teacher-peter-harvey-pupil | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.146.249.100 |
Just to be clear, I'm not disputing that the children in question were being utterly vile and despicable. Children are often horrible, cruel, I was just refusing to applaud a mentally-ill man beating one until he thought he was dead. When I was at school, it wasn't hugely uncommon for a lesson to leave a (male) teacher in tears. Two teachers committed suicide while I was at the school and, in retrospect, others were clearly suffering from depression. And this was all when they still had the power to beat children (or to send them to the headmaster to be beaten, technically). Hitting children didn't solve the problem. If anything, it made those who got hit more determined to get revenge. My school's culture was based on casual and random acts of violence: the teachers could beat the bigger boys, the bigger boys were encouraged to beat the smaller boys. You know, for discipline. And no one had any respect for the teachers at all. (That's not entirely true. Those teachers who had never had problems with discipline were almost exclusively those who rarely punished people, lost their tempers, or were reduced to screaming, purple rages. Those who behaved like adults, with a passion to communicate. As long as they didn't look too funny.) The pupils at my school had no respect for teachers because their parents didn't. They knew that whatever punishment was given out would be overturned or ameliorated at home. There was a constant refrain of "You can't give me detention. My dad pays your salary." or "My dad earned more this week than you will this year." However, and I say this from my own experience and that of my mother and two grandmothers who were all teachers, some teachers are vindictive, petty, sadistic brutes, with no business being near children. And for all of the most vicious ones you will find ardent supporters amongst those ex-pupils: the ones who got to watch them being vicious, rather than being on the receiving end of it. That's why I won't take a quiet smile away from a story where someone who was mentally incapable was left in charge of children (even horrid ones), and beat one until he thought he was dead before smashing his head against a wall to 'let out the bad him'. | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.146.249.100 |
Um... neither my mother nor either of my grandmothers is a sadistic brute. But they could point you to teachers who were... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.88.246 |
Tony, you've loosed a blunderbuss of points there, which I can't keep up with, and I'm not really sure what your point is. Corporal punishment is okay? I used to think that, but now I don't. (admission: whenever I say that, I realise it's possibly a sly way of implying that my thoughts are more evolved than someone elses). I've become convinced that violence can cause long-term subconscious trauma, particularly in the young. It's hypocracy to allow authority figures to visit violence upon kids and expect them not to do the same in their lives outside school. Nathaniel, I have the same experience - the teachers who had the most respect maintained a quiet authority. It's much rarer to encounter discipline problems in college, but when I need to, I employ the same technique in my lectures. These skills are as important as any other qualification that a teacher should have. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.129.110 |
I haven't said anything about corporal punishment, just my feelings really. All we have seen is like some scientific experiment, an unsurprising turn out from a mix of ingredients. It's like being angry about an apple falling from a tree. And by trying to explain or discuss this story by mentioning other stories (though I've done it myself) feels pointles because the people in the other stories weren't these ones. I'm certainly not smiling about the walloped kid, just saying I have no real sympathy for him, having never been in a bully's shoes (I hope). Anyway, it's an increasingly unreal world, one I feel more and more I've stumbled into by accident and got stuck in. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.129.110 |
All of these threads are fascinating and will pull you to pieces. http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=107341913864&topic=14504 'this was before I realised if you see children coming towards you you should always cross the road'  (I have to stress I don't hate kids - just aren't very good at the old comebacks) | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.129.110 |
God, read Laura's post; http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=107341913864&topic=10045 | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.129.110 |
'Yap Hoo Suet Just my 2 cents. Mr. Harvey could've not gave a damn about what the kids did, take his pay every month, and left them to rot. I've seen that before. some of the teachers in my school do that, thinking: "well, they're not my children anyway, why bother when they give me sh*t?". But IMHO Mr. Harvey felt a sense of respon...sibility towards them. The fact that he got so enraged shows that he truly cared about them. I'm not saying that what he did was right, but its a fact that everyone has a breaking point, we wouldn't be human without emotions. You have my sympathy, Mr. Harvey.' | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.129.110 |
I think that's interesting. Those who care (too much) can flip more easily than those who are a little cooler about people. They have the inability to step back. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I won't be crossing the road. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.129.110 |
I always try and be nice if I can, pre-empt any chances of cheek. It usually works. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.207.195 |
"I won't be crossing the road." Nor I. Groups of kids aren't a pack of wolves, they're a herd of sheep. It's about your attitude - you teach people how to treat you. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
There are a multitude of opposite types of people; passive and aggressive, sheep and wolves, leaders and followers, bullies and victims, those who want it all and those who are content with their lot. Teachers need the power to be able to control those individuals who happen to be selfish, aggressive, bullying leaders of the pack. The ones who dominate a classroom and disrupt the education of everyone else in it... the alpha males who can turn a flock of sheep into an ugly mob (read 'Lord Of The Flies'). Like all troublemakers they are the selfish minority who spoil things for everyone else and who control their peers by fear of their disapproval. It is my belief that some form of punishment that will instil a greater fear in them (whether it be corporal or some non-violent form of public shaming) has to be put back in the hands of teachers (obviously under the strictest guidance, doh!) to identify early, curtail and then channel the energies of this disruptive element into something more positive. To pretend these individuals don't exist and that failure to tackle them is not a serious problem in modern society is sheer bloody minded stupidity. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and believing that a slap on the wrist (but even that would be wrong!) or saying "please don't do that, there's a nice chap" will deal with the maliciously power-hungry is just plain misguided. It's time we all got real and recognised something needs to be done to redress the balance of power in our schools and ultimately on our streets! Feck, now I sound like David bloody Cameron...  |