Our generation took body consciousness to a whole new level, with quite devastating results. We were taught to judge others not by the breadth of their character but by the size and shape of their bodies. It saddens me that this obsessive desire to look a certain way has seemingly overridden the desire of being a good person, resisting to gossip, being truthful and loyal to the people around us and acting with integrity. We live in a society where people would sell their souls for a preferred dress size and confidence is based on form and complexion over character development.
What has this philosophy provided us with?
Depression, peer pressure, cosmetic surgery addiction, diet crazes, suicide, bullying, anorexia and bulimia.
The internet is awash with pro-anorexia websites which thousands of girls – some as young as six – are using to compete against each other in deadly starvation games, a study has found.
More than 500 of these ‘gruesome’ sites exist and encourage vulnerable young women to barely eat and just drink coffee, smoke and take diet pills to look like a ‘goddess’.
Using the phrase ‘starving for perfection’ they say users should eat no more than 500 calories a day – the recommended level is 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men.
They also include ‘thinspiration’ sections with images of super-slim women and in the last year 500,000 girls have admitted visiting them, and one in five were aged between six and 11.
University Campus Suffolk in Ipswich has carried out research into the issue and found than many of these websites are set up by people with anorexia and other eating disorders.
‘It starts with an individual who wants to share their experience and as they get a following they set themselves up as almost Goddess-like,’ researcher Dr Emma Bond, senior lecturer in childhood and youth studies said.
‘When I started this research last January I came across a website set up by a girl who was disgusted with herself because she had put on a few pounds at Christmas. She planned to fast for three days and regain control.
‘In under two hours, she had 36 followers saying things like “You’re wonderful, you’re an inspiration to me, I’m only fasting because of you”.’
Some of the people are even posting pictures of themselves in very few clothes on thousands of blogs and on social media like Twitter.
Official figures show that one in 200 women and one in 2,000 men have anorexia – which means they starve themselves or exercise excessively to stay slim – although some experts believe the true number is much higher.
Around eight per cent of women and one per cent of men develop bulimia at some point. They binge on excessive amounts of food then make themselves sick or use laxatives to stop gaining weight.
Many sufferers of eating disorders hide their problem from family and friends by pretending they have already eaten to avoid meals and wearing baggy clothes to conceal their skeletal shape.
Doctors believe that anorexia or bulimia is more common in people who are perfectionists, tend to worry a lot or are often depressed.
As addictions go, internet addiction is relatively new. Since we all love to spend time surfing the net and we see it as a natural and normal form of relaxation many ignore what is becoming a very serious problem. Children are spending far too long in front of a screen, often skipping meals, becoming sleep deprived and sometimes even defecating in their pants in order to avoid missing precious minutes of a peer-to-peer game or social chat session.
ONE in five Aussie kids spend so much time surfing the internet that they miss out on meals and sleep, a study shows.
Edith Cowan University researchers have revealed that “excessive internet use” is twice as common in Australian children as British kids.
A fifth of the Australian children surveyed said they had “gone without eating or sleeping because of the internet”.
More than half confessed they waste so much time online that they “have spent less time than I should have” with family, friends or doing homework.
Sixty per cent said they had caught themselves surfing when they were “not really interested”.
And half “felt bothered” when they could not get online.
Internet obsession appears to peak at the age of 13 to 14, the study shows, as children start high school and use the internet more for homework and social networking with friends.
Not only doesn’t humiliation work in promoting and nurturing good citizens but it is an absolutely appalling practice. To strip a student naked and parade her in public amounts to disgusting conduct regardless of her infringement.
The scale of cruelty and corporal punishment in Indian schools was highlighted yesterday by the attempted suicide of 13 year girl who was paraded naked by a teacher for ‘stealing’ £15.
The girl was forced to remove her clothes by a female teacher at a school in north-west Delhi after being accused of stealing money and a mobile phone from a classmate. She returned home after school and jumped off the balcony of her four-storey block of flats. Her relatives said she had been distraught by her public humiliation.
Her case emerged amid a series of reports of brutal attacks on children by teachers throughout India. A four year old boy was forced to drink his own urine by his nursery teacher in Andhra Pradesh to punish him for wetting himself. A five year old boy in the same state was beaten up by a grammar school principal, while a seven year old Dalit girl was thrashed by her mathematics teacher for failing to solve a problem. A teacher was arrested in Madhya Pradesh for partially scalping an eight year old girl .
After reading this, I want even one person to come forward and explain to me how corporal punishment can be legal in some civilised countries. How is it possible that we can allow any kind of harassment, humiliation or physical consequences, often in the hands of a person who have a clear emotional detachment of the child in question?
I love an original and inventive idea. Sometimes I feel that teachers have become too afraid to experiment and try new methods. I hope to read a lot more of this type of thinking from our teachers:
Children generally don’t respond well to having their toys taken away, but if those toys are replaced with cardboard boxes, it turns out kids don’t mind so much.
That’s what Ohio preschool teacher Pete Kaser learned when he removed all the toys and learning tools from his classroom and replaced them with raw materials, such as boxes and egg cartons, NBC4 reports.
“The children were actually not asking for their toys back or where the toys were at all, which is kind of shocking,” Kaser, who teaches at Wellington in Columbus, told the Huffington Post.
Instead, the kids started exploring the materials and working together to build a variety of creations they dreamed up on their own. They’ve since created an igloo, a pirate ship, a rocket ship, a hotel and houses with makeshift kitchens. Subject matter from previous lessons even came into play when the children fashioned a didgeridoo out of a cardboard tube after learning about the wind instruments while studying Australia.
“I just spent so many years looking at all my teaching materials and thinking that so much of them have a preassigned value to them,” Kaser said. “I wasn’t getting the imagination out of the children that I wanted.”
A toy phone, for example, is going to look like a toy phone and function as a toy phone to most children, Kaser explained. The same goes for a cash register, or a train. But if you ask a child what he or she sees with a cardboard box, you might get 10 different answers and thus, more creativity, he argued.
Kaser said he plans to continue with the box experiment until the children no longer show interest, but so far, he said, the students are still engaged. In addition, several of the shyer children have come out of their shells and taken to leading some of the projects.
Teachers do not have the right to get physical with their students no matter how bullied, humiliated or intimidated they are made to feel. I can understand what this teacher was thinking and I sympathise with the position he was put in, but his actions were simply not acceptable. If only teachers were treated with greater respect from the wider community, then students would get a more positive insight into what we do and why we do it. This kind of attitude comes about from a growing lack of respect for teachers from the wider community.
Video of a student punching and attacking a substitute teacher at Palm Beach Lakes High School in Florida is going viral, and school officials are investigating the filmed incident.
The video begins with an unnamed student and the substitute teacher — identified by students as Mr. Smith or “Smitty” — standing face-to-face in an argument. The student then shoves the teacher and punches him. The teacher tackles the student, chasing him until the teen runs out of the room. It’s unclear what the brawl was about, but students interviewed by WPTV spoke highly of the teacher and said students should show respect for him.
“A teacher should, you know, stand up for himself, but not to go on ahead and you know,” Palm Beach Lakes High senior Darrel Phillips told the station. “I’m speechless right now.”
School officials declined comment on an open case, but say that the substitute teacher has been fired and the student was expelled.
The excuse that hazing was once an accepted form of initiation which has been outgrown by a greater sensitivity towards the impact of bullying behaviour is a cop out. It beggars belief why this practice was ever deemed acceptable in any way. It is an awful tradition that not only does not belong in today’s age, but should never have been allowed – ever!
A parent is suing Maine West High School for what she calls the sexual assault of her 14-year-old son by members of the varsity soccer team.
The woman, who wore a baseball cap and sunglasses to conceal her identity, said the hazing ritual was sanctioned by coaches at Maine West Township High School. She said that in October the school’s anti-bullying laws, which are required by an Illinois statute, were broken.
“You think when you drop off your son at school, it is a safe place to be. But I feel the coaches should have kept him safe on the soccer field and they didn’t do that,” she said.
The parent was joined by her attorney, Antonio Romanucci, who filed a lawsuit against school officials and coaches. Romanucci said the incident happened September 27 during school hours and on school property. The freshman was pushed down, held down and sodomized by upper classmen who had pulled down his underwear, Romanucci said. The attorney said the hazing was sanctioned by the soccer team’s coaches.
“That behavior, in today’s society, is disgusting. It should never be condoned. It should never have happened,” Romanucci said.
Romanucci says two other freshmen were also attacked.
Six students were petitioned to juvenile court for battery and hazing following a Des Plaines police investigation. Two coaches were temporarily reassigned with pay, pending the outcome of the investigation.
A spokesperson for Maine West Township High School District 207 would not comment on pending legislation, but said the district takes misconduct “very seriously.”
Romanucci said he has evidence that hazing has been ongoing at Maine West for at least four years, and he believes there may be more victims.
I make a point of not lying to my children, yet as I posted a while ago, I am guilty of perpetuating the tooth fairy fib. I am also guilty of hiding vegetables in my daughter’s food without telling her, and if she mistakes quinoa for couscous, who am I to argue?
The ice cream van only plays music when it’s run out of ice cream….there’s a princess in your tummy who can only eat vegetables….and there’s a baby dragon in the hand-drier who needs to practice his fire-breathing on your hands.
These are just some of the white lies parents have admitted feeding to their children to steer them onto the correct path in life, according to new research.
Some 90 per cent of parents have a list of creative tales they tell to their little ones, with other favourites including that you’ll be washed down the plughole if you stay in the bath too long and that eating green food will turn you into a superhero.
The traditional tale of the tooth fairy remained the most popular story, used by 38 per cent of mums and dads, while other prevailing stories include giving different foods more exciting names to get kids to eat them, such as calling broccoli trees (21 per cent) and feigning phone calls from teachers to tackle reluctance to do homework (16 per cent).
TELL ME LIES, TELL ME SWEET LITTLE LIES
35 per cent of parents disguise vegetables in other foods to get children to eat them
A third of parents spell out certain words to each other using letters rather than say the word in full
One in seven (14 per cent) parents wind clocks forward to get children to bed on time
2 per cent of parents tell their child that the music played by an ice cream van means they’ve run out of ice cream.
Parents surveyed as part of the research admitted to getting creative with their children in order to improve behaviour (58 per cent), encourage them to eat nutritiously (56 per cent), improve imagination (39 per cent) and improve their health and well-being (38 per cent)
The traditional tale of the tooth fairy remained the most popular story, used by 38 per cent of mums and dads
I was staggered to read of the rising numbers of underage rapists, some of which are as young as 10 years-old. How can this be happening? As a Primary School teacher it is absolutely unfathomable that children that young could commit such an atrocious act.
Surely online pornography is just a quick and easy excuse. It must be more complicated than that:
Children as young as ten are being arrested on suspicion of rape amid fears that online pornography is twisting their view of sex and relationships.
The scale of sexual offences committed by primary school children was revealed in disturbing figures from police forces across the country.
Twenty-four forces arrested children under 13 for suspected rape in the past year while seven detained at least one ten year old.
The figures, obtained by the Daily Mail under a Freedom of Information request, highlight growing concerns at the influence of online pornography on impressionable young minds.
Yesterday NSPCC spokesman Jon Brown said there was ‘undoubtedly’ a link between children carrying out sexual assaults and easy access to online pornography, which gives them a ‘distorted picture of what sexual relationships should be about’.
John Carr, from the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, said: ‘There is already a widespread feeling that the internet is playing an unhealthy part in the early sexualisation of children and these revelations about the arrests of ten-year-olds for rape will add fuel to the flames.’
The figures were uncovered in a survey of all 52 police forces across Britain.
Of the 39 that responded, 31 forces had arrested children between the ages of ten and 13 on suspicion of rape in the past year.
Seven said the youngest child arrested for rape was aged just ten while six said the youngest was 11, and 11 forces said the youngest suspect was 12.
Forces reported only the age of the youngest child they had arrested for the crime, meaning the actual number of very young children detained in each age group could be much higher.
According to the figures, 357 children aged 18 and under were found guilty of a range of sex crimes including rape, sexual assaults on other children, grooming, incest and taking or possessing indecent photographs of minors.
What is the point of punishing students whose only sin was to dye their hair to raise money for charity? How many students do you know of who actively use their time and energy for raising money for a worthy cause? Not that many I assume. So why demean the concept of consequences and victimise a bunch of selfless students all the the name of order and control.
Two mothers have been left furious after their daughters were thrown into a school’s locked barred-windowed ‘isolation block’ because they dyed their hair for charity.
Friends Lucy Gyte and Rudi Stables, both 13, were given a dressing down by senior staff after the October half-term when they arrived with their hair dyed in aid of Breast Cancer Research and Children In Need.
Lucy and Rudi – who dyed their hair pink and blue respectively – were inspired to do something for charity after watching last month’s Pride of Britain Awards.
Now their mother’s claim the girls were left too scared to return to school after teachers punished the teenagers by sending them to an ‘isolation block’.
The parents criticised teachers at Wath Comprehensive, Wath near Rotherham, South Yorks, for what they saw as a disproportionate response to the incident.
Mothers Sue Gyte and Jakki Harrison said that their daughters missed three days of school after a ‘terrifying’ experience behind the barred windows and locked doors of the school’s ‘isolation block’.
They also claim the girl’s stay in the block, which lasted for the duration of three individual school days, left them open to bullying.
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