I was stunned how poorly I was trained at University. I completed a Bachelor of Teaching at a major Melbourne university, but experience has shown that my degree was not worth more than a roll of toilet paper.
My training did not prepare me for how to teach and what to do in certain highly pressurised situations. This is because my course was high on theory and propaganda and low on practical teaching opportunities. It was those fleeting teaching round experiences at other schools that I was able to observe other teachers and begin to form my own teaching style.
For a generation there has been a significant decline in scholarship in the nation’s classrooms. Education degrees do not prepare undergraduates adequately in subject knowledge. The result is that many teachers entering Australian classrooms clutching their bachelor of education scrolls simply do not have enough academic depth to teach with any scholastic authority.
I personally felt like I was drowning in “academic depth”. I wanted more practical experience … far more!
I’m sorry but ‘soul searching’ isn’t going to be sufficient in this case:
The suicide of a 13-year-old boy in southern Japan after classmates systematically bullied him — even making him “practice” suicide — while teachers ignored the abuse or laughed has prompted soul-searching among educators across the country.
One of the boy’s last acts was to text his tormentors and leave voice mails for them to say, “I’m going to die.” They texted him back to say, “You should die.”
The middle school student, whose name has not been released, jumped from his 14th floor apartment in the city of Otsu last October after enduring heartrending tales of abuse at the hands of his classmates.
His father filed several reports with the police, but officers never accepted them, saying that they could not prove that bullying led to his suicide, according to Japanese media reports.
Details of the harassment are coming to light eight months later, following a student survey conducted by the city’s board of education. In that anonymous survey, students write the bullying escalated to “punching and kicking” in September last year, about a month before the teen jumped to his death. The victim was pressured into shoplifting, had his legs and arms tied while bullies duck-taped his mouth. Students watched as their peers pressured the teen into eating dead bees, “pantsed” him, and made him “practice” committing suicide.
In the survey, some classmates report alerting teachers to those “practices,” but say nothing was done.
Instead, teachers reportedly laughed as bullies tried to choke the victim.
Any teacher found to be laughing needs to be sacked immediately. Those who texted back to the boy on the night of his suicide should be expelled.
There is a place for “soul-searching”. This however, is a time for action.
Click here to find out what happened next in this tragic saga.
THEY were meant to inspire young people to engage with sport, but the London Olympic mascots have been branded too creepy for children.
The one-eyed Wenlock and Mandeville – who were apparently born from the “last drops of steel” from the Olympic Stadium – were the product of an 18-month creative process using more than 40 focus groups.
Scores of giant statues of the creatures are about to be unveiled across London as part of a $48.5 million (STG 32m) makeover to drum up enthusiasm in the run-up to the Games.
But the Cyclops-like cartoon characters have faced a barrage of criticism online.
In merchandise reviews for the mascots on Internet shopping site Amazon, buyers have called the creatures “menacing” and “terrifying”.
“Like a nightmare, this evil eyed monster stares straight into your soul looking for the slightest weakness,” reviewer Mr Nicholas Shearer wrote.
Brazilian police have revealed a university student faked her own kidnapping to get out of an end of year assessment.
Susan Paola Fadel Correia, 22, claimed she had been abducted by three men who tied her up and held her captive for 24 hours, Para state’s civil police said, Gawker reports.
On Wednesday police said the student admitted she had made the story up and was with a friend during the time she had claimed to be held against her will.
Fadel has been charged with making a false report.
I am a supporter of school uniform but not because of this crazy theory that a uniform will markedly reduce bullying. Tackling bullying can only be successful if you tackle the cause, not the superficial aspects such as this.
Any child prepared to bully another over what they wear will more than gladly move on to other areas of bullying such as weight, appearance etc.
Still, with bullying, schools are often content with giving the impression of dealing with the problem, rather than actually doing something constructive:
Some Abbotsford parents are hoping school uniforms will eliminate the battle of brand-name clothing and the bullying that goes along with it.
Eugene Reimer Middle School and Dave Kandal Elementary School are introducing school “dress codes” in September – they’ll be the seventh and eighth to implement uniforms out of 48 schools in the Abbotsford School District.
“Some families can’t afford to buy expensive stuff, like when kids are coming to school wearing Nike out-fits and expensive brands and other kids feel left out and other kids feel teased, so it’s good – now kids will feel equal,” Manpreet Badwal, whose seven-and eight-year-old daughters attend Dave Kandal, said Wednesday.
“There’s a lot of bullying going on in schools, so this will maybe help.
A baby bodysuit with a woman’s silhouette printed on the front has parents in Southaven, MS outraged. “Inappropriate” is what several shoppers said when Action News 5 interviewed them outside of Gordman’s, the store selling the onesie.
Wild Child, a brand manufactured by Bon Bebe, sized the outfit for 18-month-old girls. But mom Cathryn McKee told the news station, “I just think that is a little ridiculous that you would put that on your child.” One father who spoke on camera says he wouldn’t let his daughter wear the “bikini” because “it gives people the wrong idea too quickly.”
Clever marketing should see this product be boosted by the negative publicity and sell like hotcake. I think we’ll pass on this one though.
Facebook has done a great deal in highlighting examples of horrible parenting to the rest of the world. Incidents which were once conducted behind closed doors are going public.
Video posted to Facebook is causing outrage in many circles, and Missouri’s Department of Social Services may be investigating it. The images show a fist fight between two small children, with the mother of one of the kids egging them on, even offering instructions to the tiny combatants.
“Got some action! Got some action!” the woman can be heard yelling as she shoots the video. “Y’all better ball up some fists!”
The video was posted to Facebook on Sunday. An acquaintance of the mother in question alerted FOX 2. She asked not be identified, but spoke in an interview Tuesday.
“It’s just sickening and I feel like there should be some kind of criminal action taken,” she told us. “I couldn’t even watch the whole video. I had to stop it and look again. It was sad.”
She says the urging of the mother was as disturbing as the pictures themselves.
“Ball up your fist. It’s like she’s training her before she starts school or something. It’s sad because today’s society in the black community its really sickening that these kids are learning how to fight, get guns and stuff, and it shouldn’t be going on.”
“Wow,” was the initial response of St. Louis child psychologist Russell Hyken after we showed him the images.
“That’s pretty overwhelming. Those are small children that really don’t even understand what is going on. I mean one child is screaming and the other child continues to go after her. I mean what is going on here?”
Firstly, I believe that it is the parents job to educate their children about sex. As a parent, I believe that it would be a blight on my parenting skills if I left such an important conversation topic to my child’s teachers.
Secondly, although in a perfect world, it would be nice to include every cause and every topic of importance into the curriculum, it is simply not realistic. Adding sex education into the curriculuum would come at the expense of time dedicated to english, maths, science and history. I don’t think that is a good result for students:
But a national survey of 15-29 year olds shows that sexual education across Australian schools ranges from no sexual education or minimal classes focusing on the dangers of sexual activity, to comprehensive lessons on the benefits, as well as the risks, of sexual relationships.
Research shows that less than half of sexually active school students report always using a condom during sex. But, the national survey said, condom use was declining and although young people account for 75 per cent of sexually transmitted infections, just 10 per cent of young people thought they were at risk of contracting an STI or AIDs.
AYAC’s deputy director (young people), Maia Giordana, said with the federal government rolling out national curriculum subject areas, the time was right for reform.”In some schools it’s being taught really comprehensively, and in other schools it’s not really happening at all,” Ms Giordana said.
The assertion that children are choosing not to use condoms because of a lack of education is just plain misleading. Could someone show me evidence that proves that a school sex education program leads to less cases of sexually transmitted diseases?
When will they realise that our curriculum is overcrowded as it is?
Just like in life, there are luxuries and necessities. Educators want to make us believe that digital gadgets like smart boards are a vital tool in the modern-day classroom. That is simply not true. Whilst I love my smart board and I was disappointed when it was out-of-order earlier this year, I can teach perfectly well without it.
One of the biggest necessities in education is the need for our students to arrive at school well fed and fully nourished. If that is not the case, it is our duty to do all that we can to provide healthy food for them.
But schools are underfunded? Where will the money come from?
I believe that even if we have to go without smart boards and other useful but non-essential equipment, it is worth it in order to ensure that our students are not going hungry:
Two children in every school class are going hungry because their parents fail to provide proper meals, according to new research.
An estimated one million children in the UK now live in homes without enough to eat, according to the study by the parenting website Netmums and the child welfare charity Kids Company.
The charity has reported a rise of 233 per cent in the last 12 months in children using its services for their only meal of the day. Those children have an average age of just 10.
Camila Batmanghelidjh, the founder of Kids Company, said: “We are seeing a lot more children struggling to get hold of food. We have kids who were so starving they stole frozen meat from a flat they visited and they ate it raw. We’re seeing effectively responsible parents who are just not managing to have food in the house.
This is another consequence of those blasted standardized tests. Schools wouldn’t dare invest in anything that didn’t have an immediate impact on student learning – including breakfast.
This is not good enough. We represent more than just a place of learning. We must also focus our attention on student welfare and ensure that every child that enters a classroom will be looked after properly, no matter what.
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