Jean Walker

Jim Your description certainly seems to indicate that behaviour has got worse in the US. it's very depressing. I think, when quotations from the past are used as evidence that behaviour has always been perceived as worse by the previous generation, you need to be careful that you are comparing like with like. Yes, children may have been less respectful of their elders in Ancient Greece, but does that mean that they were ceasing to say please and thankyou or does it mean they were verbally and physically abusing their teachers and parents. My peers and I misbehaved at school 45 years ago - I was sent to the Principal regularly for talking in class because 20 years before that, children were seen and not heard. I was threatened with expulsion for accidentally spilling ink on the new order of linen in the cooking room. Now, We cannot get a student even suspended for physically attacking a teacher. A colleague who was punched in the breast by a Yr 6 boy was told that he just needed more love and he was put in another class "where the teacher might have a better understanding of him". Most of us accept that children should have more freedom, more right to express themselves, more right to move round the class, talk to others, interact etc etc, but that's a hell of a long way from constant verbal abuse, spitting, biting, throwing sharp objects, carrying knives and guns. How many students murdered other students up to 10 years ago? How many stuck knives into teachers? How many ruined teachers' careers by making false accusations? How many parents backed their children in the face of all other evidence to the contrary? And what sort of message does all of this deliver to others? That they can get away with it too, and that's exactly what happens. Those on the borderline of behaviour cross it because they know they can. I don't have any answers either, but I daily see the victims of these children, with ruined health and ruined careers. A recent report here from the Australian Chamber of Commerce advised schools AND UNIVERSITIES to have glass walls between rooms and for teaching staff to desist from wearing clothes which could be used by students to strangle them. No mention of the perpetrators of the crime - merely the onus on the victim to deflest the criome. What sort of message does this send? I am going before I get too angry.

PS Is it possible that in the UK there doesn't appear to be an increase because so many are moved into EBD and PRU units? Here we don't have any and the only ones not in mainstream are those in juvenile detention units having been committed for a serious crime. It's therefore fairly easy to tell whether numbers and levels have increased, and the consensus of our teachers (based on wide surveys) is that it definitely has.

I agree with Andy about the parenting, although not with his assessment about numbers and levels of behaviour. Perhaps you need to see it from the outside and from a wide perspective to really see the full picture . The year before last I taught in a 1200 all-girls high school from a good area. In my Yr 7 almost half were from one parent families and all were perfectly normal and well-behaved because on the whole they had educated, sensible and financially OK single parents. It would have been easy to assume that this was so everywhere if I'd not recently been in other scools. However, at the rural high school I taught at before that where there was poverty, unemployment and crime in the community, the parents, in two's, were as Andy describes - as unmanageable as their offspring. Here we don't have a National Curriculum or League Tables or external exams or much testing and teachers can now do whatever they want to with groups of EBD or SEN kids as long as they can report on the outcomes such as literacy and numeracy etc. Many schools are doing half year units in automotives, fishing, weightlifting, gardening, model cars, and units in life skills, well-being, health etc etc. But it appears to make very little difference. I spoke to one teacher in a difficult schol recently and I said to him: this new curriculum framework must be making it easier for you with your disengaged/challenging students. His reply was that they were just as badly behaved whether they were off fishing, fixing cars or sitting in Maths. So, that may not be the magic cure that everyone seems to think. I believe that here we have done almost everything that is possible in the way of curriculum offerings, alternative approaches, alternative programs etc, but still the problem kids continue to grow in numbers and level of behaviour. We have a significantly increased number of totally unmanageable children in kinder and the early years who spit, bite, kick, swear, have no understanding of reasonable behaviour and generally behave like wild animals - any of our teachers will tell you that is the case. I'm afraid I'm pessimistic about changing any of this round until there is a shift in society's values and attitudes. I also know many teachers who tell me that they would happily forego pay rises in return for helping them cope with challenging behaviour.

I noticed 30 people have looked at this thread, bit no one has replied - is it not of any interest to teachers?

It's an interesting subject. As I've said before, I am mildly addicted to the TES staffroom site, although I read rather more than I post. What I find interesting there, is that there has developed a sort of clique of posters who are considered by many others (and themselves) to be the "leaders" or head boys/girls of the site because they've been there longest and shouted loudest, and whose opinions carry more weight than others, even when what they have to say is not particularly erudite or profound. I suppose it's no different from the playground, as it results in bullying, factions and misinterprations of intent. Accusations of "trolling" are becoming more common, as well as the use of multiple log-in names and subsequent game-playing of pretending to be someone else. I also find it interesting that some people can get more upset and hurt by cyber colleagues than they probably would in real life. Perhaps addictive personalities are also more susceptible to criticism? This forum and the TES site are quite different in character in the Educational Issues threads, but probably more similar to the JFK threads in some of the senses I've mentioned above. I don't read these at length but can pick up on the angst from just the topic headings. Nowt so queer as folk, as my Yorkshire mother is always reminding me.

I, too, would like to hear about how different countries deal with this issue. Here, the gurus keep telling us that appropriate curriculum/methodology will make a difference - while this is partially true for sem-reasonable students, it certainly appears to make no difference to the hard-core offenders. I gather that in the Netherlands, the current education review has not moved away from a national test at 12 and consequent streaming of students into three different types of education in different settings. This would be seen as completely unacceptable here, yet the Netherlands is often considered to be a forward thinking country. I wonder what it does with its recalcitrants?

This is a really difficult one. Do you continue to set up more and more alternative units until there are as many as there are "normal" schools, or do you put the money into the mainstream school to deal with the problems in situ? Here in Tasmania, we probably don't have as many highly violent/disruptive students as the UK, but they are on the increase, both numerically, age-wise, and level of violence. We have absolutely no units for behaviour management of any kind, and under tour newly introduced restructuring into clusters with full responsibility for ALL students placed firmly on to individual schools/clusters, I can see things getting even harder for teachers who have to deal with these kids. However, our DoE is adamant that they will not set up system-wide units like the UK EBDs and PRUs - if schools want to create an "alternative" setting, they will have to do it at the local level out of local funds. While the rationale for this may be commendable, the reality may eventually be disastrous. The argument here is that special units of any kind merely contain the problem and don't address it on a long term basis, but while this may be philosophically correct, it means that teachers and decently behaved kids are constantly at the mercy of the thugs.

That is amazing - that a child has to assault a tecaher a second time before they can be punishes. it beggars belief. Here in Australia, things are not probably quite as bad as the UK but we are getting a few cases. Luckily we are able to press charges fairly easily, but the biggest barrier to that is often the management of the school who prefer to keep things quiet and side with the parent. A colleague of mine was deliberately and heavily punched in the breast by a large Yr 6 boy. The principal's response was that i) if she had been a better teacher it wouldn't have happened and ii) the boy just needed more love and attention. It is this sort of attitude from management that causes many of the problems - parents see that they can get away with having bad kids, and nothing will happen to them because SMT want to keep school's reputation intact in order to attract " clients". When Head's had more power and parents accepted the authority of schools and schools weren't competitive market places, there was less of it. Like you, I didn't think I'd agree with a Tory proposal, but I do with this one.

Have just been informed that Michael Tomlinson will be leading a forum on new curriculum in Adelaide, SA, next month. I can't attend, but have requested the CD of the proceedings which they are going to make. Will let you know what he has to say when I get it. South Australia is in the throes of a curriculum review - but, then, who isn't?

I found this on a site after doing a search for education in the Netherlands. It is dated 2004 so is current. The separating of students into four streams explains the rationale for this type of curriculum. Here in Tasmania our studnets are not streamed from K-10 so I am not so sure it would be the best sole method for heterogeneous classes. The Netherlands method of streaming at 12 would not be acceptable here I'm afraid. The school systems in New Brunswick and the Netherlands operate with very different philosophies. In New Brunswick, the Department of Education has implemented a policy of inclusion. In the Netherlands, students are streamed beginning at age 12. In New Brunswick, all students are educated together. Students of different abilities are in the same classroom. They may be grouped and regrouped for instruction within the classroom in some circumstances - math and language arts for example, but for most studies, students are in the same classes, receiving the same instruction up to the end of grade 10, or students mostly age 16 years. Positive examples are given by the students who are academically strong. These students can help their peers as well. In the Netherlands, students are tested at the end of their elementary schooling. The tests and teacher recommendations determine the level of education to which the student will be streamed. Level I students are in the highest academic level. These students are considered the brightest, and will go on to university. Level II students, while very bright, also have technical interests. Level III students will enter vocational training for a specific trade. Level IV students are not the brightest students. They will be doing common jobs that require little training.

Is the Tomlinson Report going to make a difference to secondary education? It seems to be allowing a move away from the national Curriculum towards a more child centred model?

I have recently returned from our national union conference, where the keynote speakers were Bob Petersen, an American union activist and teacher, Mary Compton, President of NUT, Jorge Lavez, President of teachers union of Chile, Thulas Nxesi, president of teachers union of South Africa, and Debbie Te Whaiti, president of teachers union of New Zealand. They all had one message - the neo-liberal invasion of education is worldwide and must be stopped. Bob Petersen has a website: www.rethinkingschools.org which is worth a look. His description of schooling in the US under the Bush administration was frightening, as was Mary Compton's quote from Blair which went something like: Education used to be a benefit for everyone, now it's an economic necessity. The commercialisation/privatisation of schools whereby education is a commodity to be purchased by those who can afford it and where only the rich get "quality", and where knowledge is judged by testing and certifying, is in MHO the beginning of the end of democracy.

David What is your response to the letters above from an insider's point of view? We will be in Gothenberg in June and our friends there are always intersted in a good political debate about their country. I'd like to be up to date!!

I've been away for a week in the sun of Western Australia, at a national union conference, so am just catching up with the replies to my question. Marco Your system sounds fascinating. What happens to the students who don't want to do any of the assignments? Here, we would have at least a third who would simply never attend school if they were given the choice. I understand the argument given above about the education versus social role of school, but in practical terms right now, do most of your students attend and do most actually complete the assignments? Is this for all years or just in secondary? What sort of ässignments" are set? In Tasmania we do not have external exams until Yr 11/12 and even those are only part of the overall assessment. We do have national standardised literacy/numeracy testing but only in Yrs 3,5,7,9 and these are generic skills tests, not regurgitation, yet we do very well in International tests such as PISA and TIMMS. A guest at the conference I attended was Mary Crompton, President of the UK NUT. She is Welsh and was telling us how Wales has abolished all testing with no "detrimental" affects. Finland also does not "test"and is top in all International tests, so why can't Britain see the light on that one? I agree that curriculums can be too narrow and regimented, but I also think they can be so wide and free that subjects such as languages, music, fine arts etc can become merely adjuncts to skills teaching. I can't yet decide where the happy medium is, hence this question.

I posted this question at a busy time - perhaps why noone answered. I'd still like to know what people think on the subject??

As most of you will know, I was probably one of the earliest to make similar comments about the JFK posts and I now do as suggested and just go straight to new posts and skim through. Even so, seeing so many JFK posts is still a bit off-putting at times. I think the TES staffroom site caters very well for UK teachers - my guess is that 90% of posters are British and it is an incredibly busy site. "Foreigners" such as myself, are accepted but not altogether considered part of the "family" of posters, often because we are discussing things that we do not have in common. What the Education Forum does better is put teachers from all parts of the world in touch with each other with, IMHO, less parochialism. Perhaps we should build on that aspect - after all, a good business looks to provide a service that does not already exist. Don't know how you'd do it, but I think it's the way to go.

I agree about the communication aspect, especially in high schools. This new position could become part of the career path for those who begin as TAs, progess to AT, either through a discrete college course or a partial competency/prior knowledge requirement, then on to what we call B.Teach - an in-service teaching degree. Some caution has been sounded about it becoming a cheap way to recruit teachers, also that we may end up with similar problems to the UK in regard to supervision/responsibilities etc., so we are treading carefully, and as a union we will be keeping a close eye on how it develops, but I hope that ultimately it will assist both students and teachers.

Here in Tasmania we are about to begin putting together quals, training, position description, salary scale etc for a completely new position of Assistant Teacher. This is the result of a survey recently done into special needs delivery here. The AT will probably be 2 year trained, have teaching conditions (ie duty of care/school holidays/permanency etc) and will sit between the TA and the teacher in terms of responsibilty, duties, and salary scale. We have been told by our DoE that there is no other equal position anywhere else in the world, although I believe British Columbia has something similar. I'd be very interested to learn about the advantages/problems of the working relationship between teacher and your LSA, and will look at the website you posted and then get back with some more thoughts.

But tell the truth Derek. You pinched the quiz, as I also did on the Jokes thread, from the TES website - even left the bit on the bottom that the TES poster had added about being right. The posters on TES gave some interesting alternative answers, but I think Ann's was a great effort. Happy Christmas from the southern hemisphere. it's 6.30pm and have too much to eat and too much to drink, but feeling very satisfied with my day!

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/qui...aspx?QuizID=143 Not a card, but a bit of Chritmas fun in the form of a quiz.

It's probably pretty obvious why Im part of this forum. I like exchanging educational news and opinions from all over the world, and it has been a great resource to me in my job. It's just amazing to be able to ask a question and have answers from experts all over the world in a matter of minutes or hours. It's easy to feel isolated in a place such as this, and I have always loved travelling and meeting new people and hearing about different approaches - on here you can do almost the same at no cost!! Well done, forum administrators, long may you prosper in your endeavours!

My taste is a bit different but I am really glad that even living here in Tasmania I have manged to see Pavarotti twice, Domingo once, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, and Joan Sutherland many times at the Sydney Opera House. Now, there's a venue - on a summer's night, with a glass of champagne, looking out over the harbour - can't beat it. On my travels through the UK and Europe I've been to most of the big opera houses, but Sydney has an atmosphere all of its own. The other thing I've enjoyed immensely is two Proms concerts at the Albert Hall, complete with flags, whistles and plastic tiara. Loved it!!

People can take responsibility for their own stress up to a point, but it is not always possible to handle it yourself when you are in an inferior position or when standing up for yourself is likely to result in an 'unproveable" punishment. For instance, here, teachers are employed by the state govt and we have a transfer policy which makes it quite easy for a bullying principal to "arrange"' the transfer of a teacher to a distant or more difficult school. It can never be proved, but it definitely acts a scare device to teachers who try to stand up to bullying. Also, the dripping tap method of bullying can eventually wear the strongest people down. Some bullies are not in the least put off by public "outing" - the worst ones thrive on it, and continue to bully people in small but constant ways. We had a case a few years ago where a college teacher was being constantly bullied by his manager. He did everything that was suggested to him to no avail. The employer was called in to intervene and a grievance procedure was put in place. This took months of stressful meetings and in the end, the employer admitted that they could not convince the manager that he was using bullying methods to manage. In the end, the only solution was to move the victim, and they had no real cause to discipline the manager as nothing could be proved, and he was totally oblivious to his own faults and simply kept on denying that he had done anything wrong. The process left the victim in a bad state of health and the bully with a sense of righteousness. There is not always a simple solution.

http://www.tes.co.uk/section/staffroom/thr...1&messagePage=1 Have a look at what teachers are saying on TES

Because I prefer classical music, I can't contribute to song writers or lyric writers, so this is for those people who like other stuff. Ten I'd take to a desert island: . the love duet from Madama Butterfly . Satie's Gymnopodies . a collection of arias by Maria Callas at her peak . a collection of the best of baroque music, including Vivaldi . a collection of Mozart symphonies, and . The Magic Flute . Beethoven's piano sonatas . good performance of Messsiah . Elgar's cello concerto by Jacqueline du Pres . Domingo in Aida I think I could manmage with these.