What was your school like?

battybats said:

I picked someone who tended towards indifference first and immediately ceded all decision-making to him

Brilliant management and delegation skills at such a young age 

I don't think I was ever asked to choose. I probably wouldn't have been able to remember most of their names if I had. 

It was pretty much accepted that I was always picked last, as I was a liability on any team. I was so clumsy I could fall over my own feet and couldn't catch a ball if my life depended on it.

The only time I briefly gained popularity in PE was the day I ran into the PE teacher and knocked her over. It was an accident honest!

Your primary school reminds me a little of the junior school I attended in the early 1980s, which had been built in the Victorian era. It was a small school with each year group consisting of a maximum of about 20 pupils. In the school hall, I remember there was a cane hanging on one of the walls. Although corporal punishment in state schools wasn't outlawed until 1986/1987, I don't ever recall that cane being used on anyone, as the sight of it was sufficient to ensure most pupils behaved.

After leaving junior school, I then moved to a different part of the UK, where things were a bit different. Instead of progressing to secondary school, I spent 12 months in the final year of a large local primary school. It was a shock to the system as there were two class groups per year. The curriculum was slightly different too, which also caused me some issues.

I had then attended the local secondary school, but found the size of it and the number of pupils too overwhelming. After a few months, I transferred to a different secondary school that was smaller, and a slightly better fit for me.

Although there are people from my school days that I miss, I can safely say that I certainly don't miss school and being forced to learn about subjects that I had little interest in.

Wow I'm so sorry you had to go through that

So much change for you that's sad.

I went to three schools 2 primary and 1 secondary school.

Which school?,  I went through 8 schools from the age of 5 to 18.  This includes two special schools and the same school twice.  I got kicked out of three schools.

Independent schools main advantage is that they can expel students and hand them back to the state sector. Most education authorities have a committee of head teachers and officers who place students who have been excluded. If a schol expels one of their problem kids, they just get another problem kid to take their place. We can be talking muggers and rapists here ... literally.

One of my last roles before I retired was working for the part of the LEA that had to "broker" the horse-trading. In a few cases kids did make a fresh start at a new schol and go on to make a success of their education. But often kids will go through several "fresh starts", then on to a Pupil Referral Unit, then graduate to a Young Offenders' Institution.

Parents who send their kids to independent schools care enough about education to make economic choices. A lot of parents are not rich  (admittedly they are not exactly poor either) but choose to forgo spending every evening down the pub and a fortnight in a villa in the Costa Paquet in order to invest in their kids' future.

It is possible to discipline kids without physical punishment. All that does is teach them that might is right and the big people have a right to bully little people.

I don't know if you work, but how would you feel if your boss were allowed to slap and humiliate you?

If the school has a good learning environment and the kids are kept engaged there is very little need for punishment, because kids are creatures of habit ... get the routine right, and most of the kids will comply.

The "little sods" are often kids from chaotic homes and may well be "acting out" because they are subject to domestic violence or bullying at home, and want to take it out on younger and more vulnerable students. They want to be "big men" like their bullying fathers. They store up the resentment against parents, teachers and authority in general until they are big enough and ugly enough to pay the violence forward to the next generation. That's what keeps the psychiatrists, social workers, police and prison officers employed.

Personally I think there's better ways to discipline people than physically punishing them. 

Dogtooth said:

The school i went to was pretty rough anyway. It took all of the kids that had been expelled from other schools. 

Sounds like we went to the same kind of school hahaha

The treatment of children was poorer for children in the older days, more so if the said child was special needs and had more difficulties than the rest. 21st Century schools, the ones I went to, the teachers have no power to discipline if they do they'll either be fired or face prison..... Kids know this, especially the older kids so they get away with all sorts.

When I was at school Tubby Jenkins was a right pr*ck he was horrible to the other kids and swore at the teachers, even threw his meal over a dinner lady. His parents got a letter but he was like it again and again.

I don't think it's right to be cruel to kids but not being able to discipline when they're being little sods means they don't respect or care about adults and teachers. As my Grandad tells me he received the cane and it taught him to be a decent responsible man.

I should add that I was at infant school in the late fiftes and, happily, that was the tail end of it all.

Ben

PE sucks I never enjoyed it

I used to pretend to have a migraine when it was pe I couldn't stand it.

That looks a nice school.  Mine was much bigger than your school, Goosey, it was an incredibly modern building newly built when I was going there. The building itself was interesting as it was so new, advanced is the word I would say. But it was a school and I found it incredibly stressful being there.

I enjoyed learning, most of it but, P.E. and mathematics were my least favourite to do. It didn't help that I had horrible teachers for both of those but during P.E. I was picked on my the other kids and the teacher as well! I used to dread P.E., more than I dreaded maths. Back then I was a fairly round kid, an easy target to bully. Now I work out and I'm a lot fitter, I don't think anyone would even think of bullying me now.

Behind the school there was this cool tree that I used to sit under at break and lunch, it provided shelter from the sun and allowed me to listen to my iPod. That was my highlight of school really, the rest wasn't much fun.

Caelus said:

i think its the desire to be there and the free choice to want to have a education that determines the level of violence among students.

I agree although not all pupils at private schools will want to be there.

A lot are pushed there by pushy parents.

There are other factors like background and poverty etc that affect children's behaviour.

From my experience in senior school, the teachers make a huge difference re discipline.

It's partly I think down to the personality of the teacher as to whether they can control children.

My niece worked for a long time in an inner city comprehensive (in recent years) and she was fine with it and could control the boys.

She has a 'strong' personality.

i think with private schools too though its a effect that the kids there want a education.
while in anything free, its more a prison camp and the kids hate being there, they are not there to learn they are forced there against their will so they get aggressive.

this is also why when you go to college later on college isnt like high school, everyone is nice in college as college was a optional thing and people only went there out of free choice and want of pursuing education.

i think its the desire to be there and the free choice to want to have a education that determines the level of violence among students.

a paid optional school will have more discipline as the kids want to be there to learn.

Caelus said:

but the fact kids in high schools are so insane and run riot attacking teachers in class tells me that a ballance between both is required, there needs to be some form of discipline. a balance between old and new,

The trouble is what is acceptable and what isn't.

I don't really approve of any kind of physical punishment, but without it, children don't know any barriers.

I suspect though that if you look at private schools, the discipline is better without physical punishment.

I worked in one once and the children did seem better behaved and in fact I have an acquaintance who moved from a comprehensive to a private school as a teacher, and is far happier now.

So, it's a class thing too probably.

In my first secondary school the kids locked the teacher in the stockroom cupboard  And that was a strict C of E school! I left not long after starting there though which I found quite traumatic. 

aye but modern schools the children run amok and even attack teachers. in modern high schools.

i dont agree with the old schools physically assaulting kids with canes lol thats a bit much maybe.... but the fact kids in high schools are so insane and run riot attacking teachers in class tells me that a ballance between both is required, there needs to be some form of discipline. a balance between old and new, as new is a bit too loose and allows kids to destroy the school structure and ruin learning process.

Ben said:

Oh yes, you were not aloud to write with your left hand in the fifties. Happily I'm right handed, but what a stupid rule that was.

'Throughout human history left-handedness has been considered as sinful. It has been associated with the devil, weakness, female gender, unhealthiness, evil, something that has to be turned to a "good"--right side by force'.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21180101/

This is why they were so strict about it in the Catholic school my work mate went to: it's on religious grounds.

Oh yes, you were not allowed to write with your left hand in the fifties. Happily I'm right handed, but what a stupid rule that was.

I've been stood in the corner a few times, and facing the wall, and had chalk thrown at me by the teacher., and they used to thwack you with a ruler. They really were rather cruel at times.

I never minded being told to write a hundred lines though..... and now I now why!

Ben

Yeah, that is familiar. My particular moment of infamy was when I forgot which team I was on and scored an own goal. From that point, I was certain to be the last to be picked.