Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

EDUCATION

I return to my series on anti-social behaviour, something that is rightly zooming up the political agenda. Two weeks ago I set out some thoughts about parenting classes. Thank you to all of you who have e-mailed or written with your own thoughts. I wanted to create a debate and I certainly have!

This week: how can we do more at school to crack down on totally unacceptable behaviour from a minority of young people?
We do not see this so much here, east of the Plym. We are blessed with mainly excellent schools and we do not really experience the scale of the problem. But when I discuss this subject with colleagues from larger cities, the picture is very different. There, for many teachers, it is not about education but survival. Every few moments a pupil assaults a teacher somewhere in the UK. Even typing those words I find it hard to believe, but I know it to be true. Locally, many teachers complain to me of a steady downward spiral of standards.

What is to be done? First of all, education is not like many services. Each child gets only one real chance at it and so we have to make sure that one person’s school years are not wasted because of the disruptive conduct of another. I am in favour of removing pupils who will not comply with school rules and who consistently disrupt the classroom. The head teacher should have the final say on who to exclude, no rights of appeal to second-guessers. Troublemakers will have to be dealt with in special “turnaround” schools. This will be expensive – but then so is the prison cell that awaits them if we do nothing.

Second, all my instincts are that we have created far too many medical excuses for bad behaviour. Attention Deficit Syndrome and its many off-shoots may well be the reality for a few, but for most youngsters, why don’t we call it what it is: you have not yet learned to behave properly.

If we stop treating something with drugs and focus instead on getting to the root of the behavioural problem we stand a better chance of turning precious young lives around.
Finally, let us give hard-working teachers the respect and protection they deserve. Too many absurd “human rights” claims are threatened or made by families of punished kids against respected educators. The law should prevent this except in extreme circumstances.

posted by Nigel on Monday, June 20, 2005