Now... square this circle!

As a product of a Christian Brothers Education - they were neither christian nor brotherly from my experience - and a teacher for too many years to own up to, I have to admit I'm in a bit of a quandary. Now.. most people who know me will now be reaching for the smelling salts at that statement 'cos I'm not renowned for sitting on the fence about things!

The reason for my discomfort is the thorny problem of using schools and teachers to deal with ill-mannered, unruly and criminally emergent young people. Now I have a great deal of sympathy with what Rod Morgan, chairman of the Youth Justice Board,has been saying. Speaking to The Times he says that "it is time to confront the political correctness in schools that prevents teachers from disciplining pupils in the way that they used to — in part because they fear that parents will challenge them and even take legal action."

Indeed what teacher - or sane observer of young people's behaviour could argue with this statement from Rod:-
"What many young children lack are any sort of boundaries being set to their behaviour so that literally they don’t know how to behave properly. There has not been a role model to explain things and to set boundaries. Most children we know like a reasonably structured existence and many don’t have it."

Now something in me wants to say, "Well, society is getting exactly what it asked for when it removed the power to discipline from teachers."..... while another part of me remembers the Christian Brothers and a certain priest from my grammar school who must have skipped the religious lessons in Maynooth and attended advanced classes with the Sadist Society 'cos that guy knew how to hurt children! And sadly he had many friends of a similiar ilk on the school staff who ought never to have been unleashed unto a school population!

So therein is DD - Doherty's Dilemna. On the one hand, I see a great value in having a disciplinary power just short of getting kids into a system that sends them eventually to prison when a swift sharp punishment might have nipped a criminal career in the bud. On the other hand,I'd hate to see Father F's (shudder) power being revived.

So how do we square this particular circle? We need a system that that allows swift but reasonable punishment for minor offences delivered in an educational context by reasonable people while protecting yooung people from the more violent tendencies of some individuals. Of course this is all to do with respect and family values and and and and and... (hey you fill in the blanks yourself.)

Now I don't know the answer here but I have a lot of sympathy with Rob and a lot of fear about things that can go wrong, mixed with a greater fear that if we don't do something then we're heading for a society where we won't be shocked anymore by the violence of badly behaved young people but reporting on television when a youngster behaves like a human being!

Lord in thy Mercy

Last week in the Sunday Times Andrew Clover wrote a brilliant little piece called - "Dad Rules: Lord in thy mercy, hear our prayer (and get our child into this school)"

Now a smaller taster...just to give a flavour!

"I signed up for the prophecy workshop. I reckoned only a madman would sign up for a prophecy workshop. But I couldn’t believe it when I arrived. There were 40 people there — most of them, tellingly, in their mid-thirties. Parent age. I saw it clearly: Christianity was fun, but it was providing no peace of mind. The Lord couldn’t guarantee a school place.

So we moved house. To a white ghetto with amazing schools. We’ve not been back to church since. We don’t need to. I’ve popped in twice for a mid-afternoon pray, but churches are never as quiet as you’re hoping. There’s always someone polishing the candles."

As I say.. well written, interesting cameo of what goes through the mind of anyone seeking the best education for the little blessings that they have bestowed upon the world. You have to be pretty desperate to go for a prophecy course!

Measure this desperation against the debacle of current government policy. First they create and encourage FAITH schools, then they say that FAITH schools lead to division, then FAITH schools are so good for kids that 25% of all their places must be shared with kids of different faiths or no faiths - forgive me for asking...... but doesn't that negate the reason for having Faith schools? -and (trrrrrraaam (drum roll).. they back down altogether and say they aren't backing down:

"Faith schools 'climbdown' denied

The education secretary has denied caving in after he scrapped plans to force new faith schools in England to raise intakes from other religions.


Thanks for the quote BBC.

Now I have to ask.. is it any wonder that schools get it wrong sometimes? We all this back and forth on policy is it any wonder that teachers don't know what to do next? Even worse, of course, is when the schools and teachers then get pilloried no matter which action they take!

But.. I have a solution to this one! All we really need to do is bring all school up to the same behavioural standards as the best of the Faith schools that are so admired.And here is how it can be done! First, let Tony and company visit their children's schools and then stop the ministerial Jag/Bentley/Rolls at a random primary/secondary school chosen by sticking a pin in the map. (Note to Tony - you must do this yourself and not allow pre-choosing of pin-pricks..ok?) Second, pop along unannounced to that school and if it isn't as bright and cheery as your child's school go back to Whitehall and kick some butt 'cos you've just hit reality. Then allocte the funds required to bring that school up to the standard of teh one attended by the little blessing you've visited upon teh world and ask your civil servants at DfES/DENI to report when all schools have surpassed that standard.

And if you want to ask more about my plan just pop a question in this blog.

OU offers free learning materials

Yea... halleluya and yippee.... the OU has woken up to the Open Courseware movement started by MIT. Now, according to this BBC report :-

"The Open University is making its educational resources available free on the net for anyone in the world to use.
It aims to make 5,000 hours' worth of material available by April 2008 - not only for learners, but for educators to adapt and use for their own purposes.
The £5.65m OpenLearn project is backed by a US charitable foundation."

Now I just love this plan! We give all the knowledge away, make it freely available to anybody who wants it or who wants to learn from it.... brilliant! What have we been afraid of for years... that some people would accidently learn by bumping into great material?

The only piece in the jigsaw that isn't in place is how we organise the most important part of the learning equation - discussing this information with others and making sense of what we're reading. Somewhere we have to be able to explore with other interested people the books and articles and powerpoints that are posted. Neither the opencourseware movement or the new OU move allow access to staff so we're going to just go it alone!

Can I suggest that you pop along to Ultralab's Hotseat Corner and open up a debate on anything you fancy? Oh.... this is a free offer as well.

We thought we'd close the gap! Let me know how you get on... :-)