If this is a ‘minor incident’, I hate to see what a major one looks like:
A teacher of a co-ed government school in Gaighata in North 24-Parganas took off the leggings of a 13-year-old girl in the classroom on Wednesday because she was not in proper uniform. The girl wept and pleaded but the teacher allegedly did not return it even after school was over, forcing her to walk home in a semi-clad state. Headmaster Swapan Bala dismissed it as a “minor incident”. “We came to know of it only a day later. It is not a serious matter. Some people are unnecessarily making an issue out of it. The teacher has apologized. We shall take a final decision on Friday,” Bala said on Thursday.
If the Principal and teacher were stripped of their clothing in public, would that be a ‘minor incident’ too? (I am not advocating this of course, I am just trying to make a point!)
“The court has banned and ordered the dissolution” of the Martijn organisation, a spokeswoman for the civil court in the northern city of Assen, Luta van der Leij, told AFP.
The court said in a statement Martijn glorified sex with children as “something normal and acceptable, or as something that should be.”
“The court finds lobbying for these rights is a grave infraction of the values of our society,” it said.
Dutch prosecutors on May 16 in closing arguments called for the organisation — which has been around since 1982, to be banned and dissolved.
1982? That’s 30 years! What took so long? This group should have been banned within 30 seconds of its inception, not 30 years!
When a nasty Facebook page that invites children to bully others is “flooded” by students of a particular school, isolated punishments is not enough. The most important step in this circumstance is to investigate the school’s culture and ask the following question:
Why, with all the awareness about bullying, are our students engaged in spreading rumours and making sexual taunts?
GEELONG students have flooded a Facebook page built to spread sexual taunts, rumour and nasty gossip.
The page victimising students from years 7 to 12 at Oberon High School features swags of hurtful, bullying comments.
A parent said she became distressed after stumbling across the Facebook page earlier this week.
She said her child had been bullied at the school and she feared others would suffer emotional and social effects similar to her child.
“When I got on to the page and I just felt totally disgusted and really horrible because half of the kids on this page I know and you couldn’t get sweeter kids,” the woman, who asked for her identity to be withheld, said.
“They’re the kids that won’t speak up and say this is wrong so somebody has too.
“These types of things can have serious effects on kids.”
Oberon High School is investigating the page with acting principal Elizabeth Kelly saying the school, which was made aware of it on Tuesday, was in the process of speaking with students.
I am glad that the school has not washed their hands of this incident. They have a lot of work to do.
A newspaper story and video of George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School shop teacher and security dean Stephan Hudson manhandling freshman Kristoff John, found its way to the front cover and website of the Daily News today, months after the March 6 attack, which left John with a sore back and a reputation as the aggressor in the incident. Indeed, John’s mother, Diane John, was told her son attacked the teacher and that they were doing him a favor by not disciplining him—and she took the word of Hudson and school officials over her son, who insisted he did nothing wrong and didn’t deserve the beating. John later transferred out of the school and, eventually, his mother sent him to his native Grenada to live with relatives.
But when the Daily News showed Diane John the tape, she was absolutely shocked and is now demanding the police and the city’s Department of Education investigate the incident. “They lied to me!” the betrayed mom said tearfully when The News showed her the clip for the first time. “No one wants to see their son taken advantage of and beaten like this.”
The policy of banning the application of sun block at school has been exposed as a complete and utter failure. When teachers are applying lotion on themselves and making comments about how the children are burning up, it becomes clear that this policy, as well-intentioned as it may have been, is cruel and must be repealed.
Michener says school officials have promised her the sunscreen policy will be changed by fall, thanks to a change in state law that gives schools new leeway on handling over-the-counter drugs. Shannon McMinimee, a lawyer for Tacoma Public Schools, said in an e-mail that the school board was expected to review the policy but would need to seek guidance from state officials and health experts first.
But sunscreen rules are common. They typically stem from state and local policies that stop kids from bringing any drug — including non-prescription drugs — to school, says Jeff Ashley, a California dermatologist who leads an advocacy group called Sun Safety for Kids.
Sunscreens are regulated as over-the-counter drugs, so many districts treat them like aspirin, just to be safe, he says.
It time for all schools in all states to follow California’s lead. This is a bad policy. Change it now!
Some of my fondest memories and proudest moments in teaching have been related to working with children with extreme behavioural issues. Sure, I could have blamed the home situation of these students, but how is that going to fix the problem? In teaching, one has to expect that they will encounter many students who have violent tendencies and flawed parents.
A growing number of primary school children are too violent and disruptive to be in school, the Government’s behaviour tsar said today.
Charlie Taylor, the former headteacher who advises ministers on discipline, said; “There is a group of children showing very extreme behaviour, very difficult, challenging, violent behaviour – often quite young children. There is an increase in those kind of children.”
They would often resorting to kicking or biting fellow pupils in the classroom, MPs on the Commons select committee for education were told..
He said a school could be “a good school” in terms of the discipline it promoted but still find itself unable to deal with such children
Mr Taylor’s comments follow claims from headteachers’ leaders that children often arrive at primary school — lacking in personal skills and ill-equipped to communicate with their fellow pupils.
They have put the blame on parents who fail to communicate with them – and allow them to remain in front of computer screens or TVs for the most part of the day.
We teachers need to stop blaming others and accept that we have a difficult job to do that requires doing. If we are the only stable presence in a child’s life, so be it. If we invest the time and energy into kids who are difficult and self-destructive, we have a realistic chance to make small but crucial changes to their self-esteem.
A high school teacher who branded her students ‘frightfully dim’ and ‘lazy whiners’ on a scathing blog has finally been fired for her ‘unsatisfactory performance’.
Natalie Munroe’s blog garnered nationwide attention when it was discovered by her students in February 2011, and she was suspended.
The English teacher was allowed to return to Central Bucks High School East in Philadelphia, but her classes were monitored by other staff.
Now the school board has dismissed Munroe, who taught 11th grade, by a 7-0 vote based on a year of class observations.
‘Ms. Munroe was, at best, a satisfactory teacher and was experiencing performance difficulties well before her blog became an issue,’ the board’s president, Paul Faulkner, said, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Perhaps Ms. Munroe could entertain becoming a professional blogger.
Growing numbers of children are failing to develop properly at a young age because of the toxic pressures of modern life, it was claimed.
The powerful lobby of childcare experts said that many “commercially vulnerable” under-16s were spending too much time sat unsupervised in front of televisions, games consoles and the internet in their bedroom instead of playing outdoors.
Children are also among the most tested in the Western world after being pushed into formal schooling at an increasingly young age and more likely to be exposed to junk food and poor diets than elsewhere, they said.
The comments were made as a new group – the Save Childhood Movement – was launched today in bid to highlight the multiple threats facing young people.
I found the court ruling in this case quite extreme. I can’t work out why this mother wasn’t granted granted supervised contact with her children on the condition that she undergo ongoing therapy for her mental illness:
TO the outside world she was a loving mum who had a very sickly young son.
But after 115 New South Wales hospital visits in three years, she has been banned from contacting her nine-year-old child – and his three siblings – before they turn 18 amid grave fears that her behaviour could lead to one of them being harmed or even killed.
The “extreme” order was made after the Children’s Court heard the woman showed signs of Munchausen syndrome by proxy – a form of child abuse where parents repeatedly invent illnesses for their children because they crave attention and sympathy. She denies the claim.
The mother has also been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder.
In the first case of its kind in the state, the court heard that while obsessing on her eldest child she neglected the others – aged three, six and seven – describing them as “side salad”.
Child experts referred to them as “forgotten children”.
When a court bans a parents of all contact with their children they need a very good reason.I am not convinced the reasoning here warrants the severity of the ban.
Do you believe this mother was harshly dealt with?
With an explosion of ADHD medications prescribed I imagine that medication sharing and misuse will become an everyday reality:
A US suburban “supermum” has revealed how she became addicted to her son’s ADHD medication to help her do housework.
The woman is one of the growing number of mothers turning to prescription drugs to help them deal with their daily parenting responsibilities, the US ABC Network reports.
Betsy Degree, from suburban Minneapolis, said she started taking prescription medicine to deal up with the demands of being a mother-of-four.
“I grew up in a house where my mom was very neat,” she said.
“Everything was really clean, beautiful dinners every night and that didn’t come naturally for me.”
A few years ago after stealing one of her son’s Adderall pills she found she was able to be the mother she wanted to be.
“I was able to get all the stuff done around the house,” Ms Degree said.
“I was able to cook the dinner and have everything perfect.”
Many will argue that upkeep isn’t a sufficient reason for taking ADHD medication. I would argue that if maintaining concentration is a good enough reason to prescribe drugs to children why wouldn’t it be a good enough for adults who need help in getting stuff done around the house? Why is one problem so much more urgent than the other?
Another thing that interests me is this quote by addiction treatment facility Hazelden chief medical officer Dr Marvin Seppala:
Dr Marvin Seppala told ABC News the rising incidence of addiction was a “significant problem”.
Research thus far suggests that individuals with ADHD do not become addicted to their stimulant medications when taken in the form and dosage prescribed by their doctors.
I am deeply concerned that this is an addictive drug with or without prescription, whether it be taken by child or adult, homemaker or student, ‘supermum’ or naughty child.
Topical Teaching 