The Stigma of the School Dropout is Sometimes Unfair

November 28, 2011

For some reason, society seems to have an issue with “dropouts” who choose a trade over completing high school.  Whilst I am not in favour of someone chosing to drop out without a legitimate Plan B, I highly respect people who make the choice to become plumbers, builders and electricians, even when it’s at the expense of finishing high school.

Australia’s Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, is right to push for the opening of trade schools in preference to virtually paying students off for completing school. School and University is not for everyone. There are teenagers much more adept at taking on a practical trade than writing essays, working through trigonometry problems and making sense of chemistry.

Paying students just to finish school (it’s the parents that get the money) achieves a lot less than it sounds. Often it doesn’t translate into higher education training and it doesn’t guarantee that there will be marked differences in the takeup of the dole.

Mr Abbott wants to investigate a return to the former Coalition Government’s scheme for technical high schools and school-based apprenticeships.

Mr Abbott declined to endorse a Labor Government election promise to pay families $4000 to help keep teenagers in school longer, saying the spending would have to be appropriately targeted.

“The other point I want to make is that it’s all very well keeping kids at school past year 10 but they’ve got to be the right kids being kept at school past year 10,” Mr Abbott told Sydney radio 2UE.

“A lot of kids would probably be better off in the long run leaving school at year 10 and getting an apprenticeship rather than staying on doing an academic or quasi-academic time at school when in the end it’s the practical trades that we need.

“I mean, one of the great initiatives of the Howard Government was to try to foster these school based apprenticeships to try to get back to a considerable extent towards, if you like, technical high schools.

“And I guess I’d want to carefully study this and make sure that the right kids are getting the money and that we really were keeping the right kids at school because if you’ve got the wrong kids at school it can end up like a glorified occupational therapy basically.”

He told reporters later: “It’s important that some kids stay at school and go on to university, it’s also important that other kids get a good technical education.”

I don’t like the “pigeonhole” mentality society seems to employ. Such thinking makes it hard for people to take different routes and make changes that are right for them. The popular opinion isn’t always the right one for the individual. All countries need active and educated members of society, but they also need good tradespeople.
School is not for everyone. If you have a passion for a trade, don’t hesitate, go for it!

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Posted in Education Matters | 4 Comments »

Video Game Addiction is Real and Very Serious!

November 27, 2011

I am not one to use therm “addiction” lightly.  Many would dismiss video game addiction as merely a bad habit or a product of an anti-scocial personality, but it is very real.

Video game addiction can take over a child’s life and deeply affect their relationships, schoolwork and daily routine. With role-playing games such as World of Warcraft now in vogue, the video game addiction has become far more serious.  Because these games have no designated end point, the game goes on indefinitely.  This means that kids struggle to put the controller down in order to eat, sleep or even go to the toilet!

It is an addiction which at the moment is relatively hidden:

In fact, in 2007, a Harris poll found that 8.5% of youths between the ages of 8 – 18 in the United States could be classified as video game addicts.

“The excitement, the thrill and the challenge, for some people gets greater and greater, and then it takes on a life of its own.” Dr. Anna Bacher, a therapist in Sarasota, treats patients with addictions — including those who have a hard time putting down the controller. “It can go to the extreme, where they stop sleeping, they stop eating, the person becomes irritable, lethargic, depressed, highly anxious and very difficult to be around.”

It is absolutely essential that parents are aware of the consequences of an addicted child before the odd game of World of Warcraft and games of its type, become an obsession. Parents should not feel that copious hours in front of the computer amounts to innocent fun.

Yes, gaming addiction is better than drugs. But not as much as some parents may think.

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Posted in Gaming Addiction | 1 Comment »

The Last Thing Kids Need is a Swearing Doll

November 26, 2011

I am horrified at some of the language that kids use nowadays. Hearing expletives obviously used by their parents at home, kids as young as 6 come to school sprouting four letter curse words as casually as if they were discussing the weather.

The last thing these impressionable children need is a talking doll that adds some unpleasant words to their ever expanding vocabulary.

PARENTS listening closely to the babbling sounds of a baby doll were shocked when the toy appeared to say “you crazy b***h.”

The You and Me Interactive Triplets sold at Toys R Us stores in America and online via Amazon are supposed to say mamma and dadda and babble like a real baby.

“Oh, absolutely.  She’s calling them a crazy b***h,” Kathy Wetter told Local 6 news in Florida.

Listen to what the baby has to say in the video above.  What do you think it says? Tell us below.

Dozens of videos of the doll have been uploaded onto YouTube and angry parents have flooded Toys R Us with complaints.

The toy store insists the baby is just babbling.

In 2008 Wal-Mart removed Fisher Price’s Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle and Coo doll after parents claimed it said: “Islam is the light.”

Fisher-Price insisted that the doll was not pushing pro-Islamic messages. The sound some parents were hearing was caused by an accidental distortion of the doll’s soundtrack.

Toys R Us said it has no plans to take the swearing doll off its shelves, but it would allow offended customers to return the toy with a receipt.

Call me old-fashioned but young children swearing is not a good look. Just listening to some of the words this doll uses from the YouTube clip attached above, I am appalled that this was allowed to get on shelves without so much as a warning to parents. To manufacture a doll that is programmed to say nasty, misogynistic expressions is quite irresponsible.

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Posted in Child Development | 2 Comments »

Report Writing That Says a Lot Without Saying Anything

November 25, 2011

It’s report time again, which means the long nights and deep frustrations have arrived.  Many will think I’m strange, but when I first started in  teaching, I was looking forward to writing reports. I saw it as an opportunity to inform the parents about how well I know their child. Communication with parents has always been very high up my priority list, and I saw reports as the centrepiece of good quality communication.

But since I became a teacher the rules for report writing has changed, and we are all worse of as a result.

The Government has legislated that reports all feature the same grading system and the same essential sections.  Two such mandatory inclusions include a list of skills in every area that the students need improvement in and what the school will do to address these needs.

Sounds good, right?

Wrong. Schools across Australia are so terrified that if the teacher doesn’t end up addressing the needs of the students as promised in the reports, then it will open them up to litigation. So schools have quickly searched for a loophole, a strategy designed to be seen to guarantee things to parents without actually guaranteed anything.

And out of that think tank came every teachers new buzz word – ‘encourage’.

“The school will encourage Max to underline key words when reading worded questions.”

“The school will encourage Rita to use rubrics before planning a piece of writing.”

So in the end, the school is offering no actual response to the child’s needs, just some “airy fairy” words that don’t actually mean anything.

And then there’s the “education” words that don’t make any sense to most parents.  Because many teachers are expected to leave out hard truths like, “Max doesn’t behave in class” and “Rita doesn’t apply enough effort”, teachers have employed words that the average parent wouldn’t understand.

For example, teachers love using words that start with “meta” like “metacognitive”, “metalanguage” and “metabolic steroids” (OK, maybe not the last one).  As the custom is to spare the school of angry or dissatisfied parents, teachers have become great at writing reports high on words and low on substance.

It’s actually harder and more tiresome than it sounds.

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Posted in Reporting | 4 Comments »

Think Twice Before Branding Thoughless Kids as Paedophiles

November 24, 2011

Last month I wrote the following comment about the lunacy of putting naive children on child pornography charges:

The same laws that seek to protect children are being severely undermined by a total lack of common sense.

Australia has a sexual offender registry which was designed to assist the government authorities to keep track of the residence and activities of sex offenders.  You don’t have to be Einstein to realise that being on that list is detrimental to that person’s ability to get a job, loan, sense of freedom and quality of life.

The registry is a vital tool in dealing with pedophiles.  That is why I was astounded to read that children caught ‘sexting’ photos of themselves or friends have been put on this very list.

Two days ago I spoke against the “Sneaky Hat” craze.  “Sneaky Hat” refers to teenagers posting half-naked pictures of themselves with a hat covering their genitals.  As much I find this fad quite unpleasant and potentially dangerous, I would be very disappointed if the teenage founders of this craze to face child pornography charges:

Police are investigating a Facebook craze that originated in Queensland encouraging teenagers to post pictures of themsleves nude on the internet.

The Queensland teenagers behind the new Facebook craze “Sneaky Hat” and contributors to the website could face child pornography charges, a cyber safety expert says.

The craze involves young people posting naked pictures of themselves with a hat covering their genitals and/or breasts, and has spawned similar social media pages, websites and Youtube videos.

The original page was started by 15-year-old students from Dalby, Queensland “for a laugh” but quickly attracted about 100 photos of their friends in the “Sneaky Hat” pose — and more than 10,000 followers.

“We just thought it was funny, but after a while it started like getting wild, out of control,” the Sneaky Hat website’s founder told ninemsn.

“There were all these people who were posting naked pictures and stuff.”

“My mum saw it, she knew and just thought it was funny.”

Police have now requested the images and Youtube videos created by the students.

Cyber safety expert Susan McLean, formerly of the Victoria Police cyber safety project, said the page was infamous around the world and that “any pedophile worth his salt” would be saving the pictures for their own purposes.

“I would question the brain matter of these parents,” McLean said. “That it is just for fun or between friends is the biggest load of crap I have ever heard.”

“This is a form of child pornography and they need to realise that the law applies to teenagers just as much as anyone else.

Well if that is the case, change the law! It is just plain senseless to ruin the life of silly immature teens by charging them with an offence intended for paedophiles. This isn’t just dumb. By bunching young, stupid teenagers with sick, evil paedophiles, we completely undermine the significance of being on the sex registry.

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Posted in Social Media | 4 Comments »

The Worldwide Revolution Known as “Cyberbaiting”

November 23, 2011

It is no surprise to me that “setting-up” the classroom teacher has become a universal sport. With the introduction of the mobile phone and the high-profile cases of teachers being caught on camera and subsequently fired, it was only a matter of time before something like “cyberbaiting” took off.

A study from Symantec found that 21% of teachers had either been cyberbaited or knew a teacher who had.

Cyberbaiting, according to Symantec’s Internet safety advocate, Marian Merritt, is when students deliberately provoke a teacher into doing something stupid, then video it and post it online.  “This of course has the net effect of embarrassing the teacher, taking a momentary lapse of judgement in a classroom and embedding it onto the web.”

As per that 21%, remember it includes teachers who know someone it happened to. Only 4% said it happened to them. Still, it’s one more thing for teachers to think about.

The study — which included interviews from kids and parents in 24 countries including the United States — also found that 62% of kids reported that they have had a negative experience online.  It also found that 95% of parents know what their kids are looking at online.

A number of key points come to mind:

  1. Mobile phones should be banned from the classroom. Those playing with one in class should expect it to be confiscated and returned only when their parents come to pick it up personally.
  2. Students caught filming, posting or sharing secret tapings of a teacher should be expelled (at least for the more serious cases).
  3. Teachers should be given the appropriate support so that they are able to teach a class without doing or saying things which they would be ashamed of.

Somehow I expect that this nasty practice will continue without a hitch.  Yet another example of the modern-day culture of “teacher bashing” permeating in society.

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Posted in Cyberbaiting | Leave a Comment »

New Facebook Craze Branded “A Paedophile’s Paradise”

November 22, 2011

Some fads are just harmless fun. Many would argue that the Sneaky Hat craze falls under that category. Sneaky Hat, which refers to the practice of taking a photo of yourself naked with nothing more than a hat to cover your private parts, is not “harmless”. Kids that take part in it are not just stupid and foolish. They are reckless in the extreme:

The Sneaky Hat trend has been branded a ”paedophile’s paradise” and involves mostly young people posing in nothing but a hat covering their genitals.

Countless Facebook pages and other sites, open for anyone to see, have sprung up showing male and female teens in provocative poses after reportedly originating at a Queensland Highschool.

Cyber safety campaigner Susan Mclean said contributors to the fad were not only staining their futures but risking child pornography charges.

”It’s no use saying its just fun, it’s harmless fun, the consequences can be quite severe,” she said.

”It is going to end in tears and those pictures – it’s not like sending it on your phone to your boyfriend who may or may not send it on – this is on www (world wide web).

“They’re on public sites, anyone can see them and people are posting them with their names, they’re proud of the photos,” Ms Mclean, founder of Cyber Safety Solutions said.

A Queensland Police spokesperson said they were monitoring the trend but a Victoria Police spokesperson said there had been no reports they knew of in Victoria.

Parents, please do want you can to make sure your children don’t entertain the idea of sharing their hats with the world.

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Posted in Cyber Safety | Leave a Comment »

Experts: Medicate Your ADHD Kid or We’ll Report You To The Authorities

November 21, 2011

I suppose it was only a matter of time.  The writing was on the wall earlier this year when experts were outraged when a mother, Christie Haskel, claimed that coffee had cured her son of ADHD.  The medical experts came out in force against Ms Haskel.  How can this woman treat her child with something other than a drug with pharmacological effects that resemble closely those of cocaine and amphetamines?  And coffee? That could damage the poor child’s health!

Now it seems they have taken their pro-drug, anti-choice platform a further step into the ultra-extreme. Now they are threatening parents – take the drugs or you’ll be reported:

EXPERTS have warned that parents who don’t medicate children with ADHD could be referred to child protection authorities under controversial draft guidelines being considered by the National Health and Medical Research Council.

The practice points, to guide doctors who treat the disorder, were drawn up by an NHMRC expert working group to address community concern over the use of stimulant medication to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. They state: “Consideration should be given to the ability of the child/adolescent and their caregivers to implement strategies. As with any medical intervention, the inability of parents to implement strategies may raise child protection concerns.”

Child psychiatrist and Monash University lecturer George Halasz says the situation should not be seen as unique to ADHD and parents who fail to manage serious conditions such as their child’s asthma or diabetes could also be considered to be failing their duty as a parent.

Dr Halasz said the new guidelines were a step in the right direction because they asked doctors to first try to find other explanations for a child’s behaviour before they diagnosed ADHD.

Firstly there is a gulf of difference between a parent’s decision not to administer ADHD drugs and a decision not to treat a child for asthma and diabetes. Secondly, this move does not promote trying alternate methods but reinforces what many suspect; that Ritalin and it’s type have become a one-stop fix for a condition yet to be fully proven.

The British Psychological Society said in a 1997 report that physicians and psychiatrists should not follow the American example of applying medical labels to such a wide variety of attention-related disorders: “The idea that children who don’t attend or who don’t sit still in school have a mental disorder is not entertained by most British clinicians.”

Another problem I have, is how can you even consider reporting parents for not giving their children a drug that has the following possible side-effects:

How about we report lazy doctor to the authorities who prescribe this drug without due process? How about we report bullying tactics by so-called experts? How about we let parents decide for themselves what is in the best interests of their children?

How about you think about the consequences of drugging such a large proportion of our young?

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Posted in Children and Medication | 3 Comments »

Crying in Front of Your Students

November 20, 2011

I have never cried in front of my students.  However, in my first years of teaching, there were times when I felt completely out of my element and had to keep my resolve and try by best to pull through.

I’ve just read a brilliant piece by Caitlin Hannon, a first year teacher, whose introduction to teaching reduced her to tears.  And who can blame her?

I broke a cardinal rule of teaching several times last year: I cried in front of my students.

Sometimes it happened out of frustration. Just as often, I was overcome during very honest conversations about the struggles my students face within and beyond the school building. At least twice the tears were brought on by uncontrollable laughter at a student’s joke.

As a first-year teacher, I figured tears (of some kind) were inevitable.

I knew I wanted to make a difference, and I thought that difference needed to start in the classroom — not in an office as a policymaker, with little or no connection to, and understanding of, what happens inside schools.

This desire, and my nontraditional education background, led me to Teach For America, a program that trains recent college graduates from various backgrounds to teach in public schools. I spent my first year teaching English at Tech High School, which served a predominantly low-income, minority population. This year, I am teaching seventh-grade language arts at Emma Donnan Middle School.

By the end of that first year, I realized that the life I’d changed the most was my own.

Who is prepared to read a child’s disclosure of abuse in a journal entry?

Who is an expert at helping a student handle the loss of several close family members in a bout of gang violence over the weekend?

I experienced both of these scenarios and more during my first year, and it’s hard to imagine a traditional route to the classroom making it any easier to deal with such heartbreak.

Above is just an excerpt of the article.  I encourage you to read the entire piece. It strengthens my long-held position, that teachers are not fully prepared for the rigours of a classroom due to the failings of the teacher training programs. I also feel that new teachers are left to their own devices when they really need a non-judgemental mentor to help show them the ropes and counsel them through the tough times.

Ms. Hannon may not have had her last cry at school, but her passion and teaching philosophy suggests that she is going to have a great future. Her students are going to be the great beneficiaries of her blood, sweat and, yes, tears …

 

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Posted in Teacher Training, Teacher Welfare | 6 Comments »

Secret Mobile Phone Footage Catches Out Another Teacher

November 19, 2011

Even though I am not in favour of children bringing mobile phones inside the classroom, I am not in the least bit sympathetic when teachers get caught out as a result of being covertly filmed by students.

With a phone camera, a special-needs student in New Jersey managed to turn the tables on a teacher who had been bullying him.
US-based ABCNews.com quoted the school district superintendent as saying teacher Steven Roth now faces disciplinary action for his actions.
The ABCNews.com report said Roth was heard on the recording calling the 15-year-old student a “tard” and saying, “I will kick your a** from here to kingdom come.”
The ABCNews.com report said that when the boy, who has ADHD and emotional issues, first told his parents about Roth’s bullying, they were skeptical.
But eventually, his father gave him permission to take his cell phone to school and record the bullying – and the boy did that last Oct. 24.
On the video, which lasted nearly 10 minutes, the boy had asked the teacher several times to stop calling him “special,” provoking an outburst from Roth.
The ABCNews.com story said the video also showed Roth to appear to use physical intimidation, walking up to the boy and standing directly in front of him.
The boy’s mother said she was appalled after watching the video. “I’m just appalled. I’m sickened and appalled,” she said.
Roth has been at the school for eight years, according to the boy’s mother.
“Teachers are supposed to build students up and build their self esteem, not rip it down. You don’t scream at them … degrade and threaten,” she added.
Mr. Roth may feel set-up or unlucky that he was undone by a child contravening school rules. I think, by the sound of it, he’s lucky it took so long for him to be exposed in the first place.

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Posted in Bullying | 2 Comments »

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