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.
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?
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 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.
I don’t believe in criticising parents. Parenting is a mighty job and no parent is perfect. This parent though, is much less than perfect and worthy of making an exception for. She must accept all the negative exposure she’s got coming her way:
A traumatised school boy has branded his mother evil after she tricked him into believing he was seriously ill with cancer.
Emma La Garde, 37, was jailed this week for three years and nine months for banking more than £85,000 in benefits by abusing her adoring son.
‘I don’t like her,’ her son, 10, said of her wicked scam.
‘She is evil. I don’t think she has a normal brain. I didn’t really understand what was happening.
‘I don’t miss her any more. I did wonder why she picked on me. I have spoken with Dad about it loads, and it must have been because of my age.’
According to the Daily Mirror, the young boy said of his horrific ordeal: ‘It was horrible being made to think I had cancer. My mum made me think I was going to die.
‘I asked her to tell me why she did it but she wouldn’t say.
‘I said to my mum: ‘Why did you pick on me? Why did you lie and say I’d got cancer when I was all right?
‘She made me miss out on all the fun. I would have loved to go down the park and play tag and football with all the other kids. But my mum made me stay home to rest.
‘I felt like I’d been singled out. I didn’t want to be different. But she made people treat me like I was different. She wouldn’t let be a normal kid.’
The school boy revealed that he now plays football and hockey and is in the school play.
La Garde’s husband, 38, told the Daily Mirror he still finds it hard to believe she duped him for so long.
‘I’m not angry with Emma and I feel no love or hatred towards her. I find it strange but I have no feelings for her.
‘I think she did it for greed, to live a life of luxury. I think it was pure vanity.’
To their neighbours, they were a typical middle-class family: mum, dad and their three polite, well turned-out children. Home was a four-bedroom detached house with stunning views of the Gloucestershire countryside, and the family drove a shiny new car.
Though there was no obvious source of household income (dad had apparently lost his job in the recession), that didn’t stop them from going on expensive holidays and enjoying frequent weekends away.
The only fly in the ointment was the precarious health of the family’s eldest son. Though to the casual observer the boy seemed to be bouncing with energy, it became painfully obvious that something was badly wrong when he lost his hair and eyebrows.
Generally, the family tended to shy away from social contact, but now his mother — uncharacteristically open for once — tearfully informed neighbours that the boy had cancer.
And when a wheelchair was spotted being hauled into the house, it was clear that he had taken a turn for the worse.
Some school officials have a love affair with the word “no”. Any time they are asked a question by a teacher the answer is a predictable – “No”.
In the rush to satisfy politicians, donors, board members and parents, looking after teachers and responding to their wants and needs takes a backseat to all other stakeholders.
Teaching is supposed to be a flexible, family friendly career. But it isn’t in the hands of officials and their favourite two letter answer.
A former California school teacher accuses school officials in a lawsuit of failing to accommodate her breastfeeding schedule.
The Monterey Herald reports that Sarah Ann Lewis Boyle has sued the Carmelo School, where she worked, and the Carmel Unified School District, alleging discrimination and wrongful termination.
The lawsuit was filed on Oct. 30.
Boyle says before returning to work, she told a manager at the school that she would need about 15 minutes every day between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. to pump her breasts.
Boyle claims the manager told her to train her breast not to make milk then, and the district made no accommodations to allow her to feed her newborn. According to Boyle, she later received a negative evaluation and was urged to resign.
District spokesman Paul Behan said the district does not comment on litigation.
I am glad you don’t comment on litigation. I also hope for your sake your schools don’t comment on breasts and breastfeeding either.
A scandal erupts where a child care worker allegedly rapes a young child. Were the parents who send their children to this center informed?
Of course not!
That would be acting transparently and we can’t have that! Fancy putting the interests of the victim over the welfare of the accused:
POLICE reject claim by Education Minister Grace Portolesi that they advised against telling parents that an out-of-hours school care program staff member sexually assaulted a child in his care.
Mark Christopher Harvey, of Largs North, was convicted in February this year of unlawful sexual intercourse with a young girl in 2010 while she was attending his out-of-hours school care program in the northwestern suburbs.
However, a mother of children who also used the program – who did not want to be named – has said parents were never informed.
Ms Portolesi emphatically told Parliament yesterday the decision to keep the information from parents had been “on the advice of SAPOL”.
However, a statement released last night by SA Police said the principal of the school involved was “advised by police that she should consult with DECS (the Education Department) to formulate a method of advising the school community what had occurred”.
Ms Portolesi refused to respond to the statement and stood by her earlier comments in Parliament.
The mother who spoke yesterday said her two children only told her there was a problem after a school friend saw Harvey on the TV news.
Her children were interviewed this year by police after raising their own concerns about Harvey.
At no time since his arrest had the school or the notified parents or Education Department apologised and no counselling had been offered, the mother said.
“I just want to know why we weren’t advised,” she said.
“I think it’s our right. I feel like a failure as a mother because I was not advised of this and was not able to help my children from the start.”
In Parliament, Ms Portolesi said that Harvey’s employment was “immediately terminated” on discovering his offence.
Opposition education spokesman David Pisoni told Parliament Harvey had been employed by the department for a month after his arrest.
“Why has the community not been officially notified?” he said.
Hungry children from families too poor to eat are being taught cookery at school on Fridays so they have food to take home for the weekend.
Shocking figures have also revealed the number of Britons relying on emergency food handouts has soared to record levels – with charities warning the grim situation is going to get worse.
One in seven children regularly go without a hot meal, according to the Unite union, and in Bradford, West Yorkshire, a handful of schools are getting pupils to cook a high-carbohydrate, nutritious meal before heading home for the weekends.
The Trussell Trust, which runs a nationwide network of 270 foodbanks, said nearly 110,000 people turned to it for help between April and September – compared to 128,697 over the last financial year.
The organisation is expecting to feed more than 200,000 hungry mouths by the end of this financial year, with food prices likely to rise further and fuel bills increase by nearly 10%.
reports that Sarah Ann Lewis Boyle has sued the Carmelo School, where she worked, and the Carmel Unified School District, alleging discrimination and wrongful termination.
Topical Teaching 