Friday, March 14, 2008

The things that matter

A local newsletter for our area from the Welsh Conservatives was pushed through the letterbox today. One of the main headlines is 'Discipline in Schools'.

Apparently the abysmal failure of state schools over the last 10 years has nothing to do with resources; it's lack of discipline. And their solution: school uniforms.

It's a bit odd actually as the schools in our area all have compulsory uniforms. The school my children attended is particularly strict. When Daughter was there I got involved in a wrangle with a deputy-head over the colour of her hair. Or was it the length of her skirt?

She was a grade A student, polite and a credit to the school, and they were being, as far as she and I were concerned, petty-minded over things that didn't matter.

And now George is eating the chair. Lack of discipline is rearing its ugly head in my home again.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

That sounds quite like the school systems here. Cover their internal failures with external trappings. Sad state of affairs no matter which side of the pond we're on.

Leslie: said...

Same here. I'm a firm believer in boundaries...with room for adjustment, of course. But that was one of the reasons I took early retirement - the lack of appropriate discipline from the administration. When teachers can't rely on backup from that corner office, then what's the use? And it seems that the schools are expected to provide so much of "everything" that there is no room or time for the basics. And then they wonder why kids can't write a sentence by the time they graduate. hmph!

Anonymous said...

Well... ;0) imho most schools don't work. Teachers are expected to do too much -paperwork, parent the kids who are there, but not teach, there is no time to teach anymore. Ironically I have friends and family who are teachers and they all say the same. I'm really glad mine don;t go to school :0)

Anonymous said...

bring back the caine, alfie ;-)

Anonymous said...

this is hilarious. problem is discipline and solution is school uniform. ha ha

well, i think you are not alone who suffers from the incompetencies of a school administration. here, we mostly experience a lot of the unnecessary policies that do not have anything with the welfare of the students.

MissKris said...

When one of my brothers decided to grow a mustache in high school back in the late 1960s, the school threw a FIT!! Even tho it was always coming in thick and looked good on him...he kept it trimmed up nicely, too...it was too 'radical'. Hmmmmmm. If schools would spend more time on educating than they do about focusing on how students look, maybe kids would know how to read and write by the time they leave school. The writing/reading ability of American students is absolutely appalling at times. Too much time here is spent on trying to get control of the classroom. With no discipline, so many kids are unruly brats. I speak of this first-hand, having worked for public schools here for several years. A lot of GOOD kids, too...but, oh, how the bad ones could disrupt!!!!

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

No one has to wear a school uniform here and they have no discipline problems. I taught in sec schools most of my life and always thought the whole thing was nonsense. Maybe George is a revolutionary? - Good for him!

Mauigirl said...

They're touting uniforms as a solution to things here too. When I was in high school I used to wish we had uniforms so I wouldn't have had to agonize over what to wear to school each day!