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In another lesson, after several attempts to make pupils be quiet, a boy's voice can be heard calling out: "Suck me off, Miss."
Posted on 04/27/2005 10:23:30 AM PDT by Pyro7480
Secret film of classrooms reveals world of swearing and porn
By Becky Barrow
A documentary to be screened tonight offers a withering portrayal of the education system.
It shows pupils swearing in class, searching for porn on the internet, assaulting each other and refusing to co-operate with or respect their teachers.
After a 30-year gap from teaching, a supply teacher using the pseudonym Sylvia Thomas returned to 14 secondary schools in London and the North over an eight-month period.
She secretly filmed her experiences using a camera hidden in her briefcase and a microphone disguised as a jacket button.
Her experiences, chronicled in Classroom Chaos on Channel 5, will disturb parents who already suspect that their children are receiving a far from perfect education. At the end of her first day, the teacher describes how she went home and "sobbed my heart out, thinking: 'Is this what education has come to?' "
During an English lesson with year 9 pupils, which begins with several boys punching each other and swearing, a pupil responds to her attempts to discipline him by saying: "I'll come to your house and blow you up."
In another lesson, after several attempts to make pupils be quiet, a boy's voice can be heard calling out: "Suck me off, Miss."
A pupil aged 11 or 12 swears after being asked to be quiet and the teacher says: "Do not talk to me like that, please." He replies: "Don't talk to me like that - I've got my rights, you know."
Pupils drift into lessons, sometimes 15 minutes late. They use mobiles and hide under desks. They arrive with crisps and other food despite notices on the doors prohibiting eating or drinking during the lesson. They get up and leave lessons despite being told to sit down.
More than all the swearing and the disruption, it is the constant level of noise that may take viewers aback. When one class is silent and working hard, the teacher says she finds it "eerie" because it is such a change.
Of the six lessons that Miss Thomas teaches at one school, she estimates that pupils learn something in only two of them. The rest are lost to "low-level disruption" or worse.
Miss Thomas says that when she was teaching in large state secondary schools in the 1970s, "being cheeky" meant nothing more serious than whispering in the back row. During her recent experience she was shocked to discover that one school, which is not alone, had a police officer based on the premises.
When a boy is searching for pornography on the internet, he says to the teacher: "I just typed in anal, didn't I?". The police officer is summoned.
Miss Thomas said that in the past she "kept control of the class without ever needing to resort even to shouting". After her recent experiences, she was often hoarse at the end of a day's work.
The one encouraging note struck in the documentary, which was produced by the award-winning film maker Roger Graef, was the Sir John Cass Foundation school in Tower Hamlets, east London. It has been transformed by the headmaster's strict disciplinary policy.
Ten years ago few pupils returned after the lunch break, which lasted for 90 minutes. Now the lunch break is shorter and everybody comes back.
Miss Thomas admits that she could simply be accused of being incompetent, having been out of the profession for three decades. Working as a supply teacher, with subjects of which she has little or no experience, does not help.
But when she puts that point to other teachers, one replies: "Most teachers would watch that and say, 'I am not surprised. I am not shocked. That is my life.' "
We have teacher who are searching for porn while at school and have inappropriate relationships with students. What a mess! I am glad my kids are grown up and out of the schools.
Students need to unionize,
and then make a deal with
government on how the budget should be used.
What an invaluable public service. She should be knighted.
Expose the lies.
I agree, but the biggest problem is who is raising our children.
Don't be too sure. I went to school in an upper middle class town in MA in the '70s, widely hailed as "a great school system." The inmates were running the asylum. The administration's PR spin was far different from the reality. Everyone involved in public schooling, from the teachers to the parents to the students, has an incentive to lie.
[...]
In another lesson, after several attempts to make pupils be quiet, a boy's voice can be heard calling out: "Suck me off, Miss."
I agree, but the biggest problem is who is raising our children.
=====
Totally true. Parents are a big problem in controlling education and ensuring the proper education of THEIR children. They are too complacent, and assume way too much. I fought the big fight, when my youngsters were in school -- actually won some big changes in school faculty and practices. But it took EFFORT AND INVOLVEMENT. Something nowadays too many partents are not willing to invest, and at the risk of their own kids true education.
Mike
Yes and no. Our country has always had some amount of problems stemming from kids who are from troubled families. However, the most drastic change in the behavior of school children and the effect on schools came in the late 1980's when middle-class mothers began to leave home en masse to seek employment. Wealthier kids were now home alone. Dual-income parents began to spend more money on their children to make up for not being there with them. These kids turned into monsters and grew up with feelings of entitlement. The stability of the middle class base was gone. Schools in the best of neighborhoods suffered. Sexual harrassment guidelines were studied and put in place in schools. Then it was drugs and guns and breatholyzers at the Prom. It will get worse before it gets better.
Some of us may be for that kind of involvement, I would rather put that kind of involvement into homeschooling.
I do not have any tolerance for the typical socalist bureaucrat. Too much stress for me.
I teach in Mississippi, and my students are respectful and quite well-behaved.
But, alas, Britain is having its 1985.
The following week, she reported that a hand-built trophy case for another school was trashed less than a day after being completed. The district threatened to fire the carpenters who built the case.
In all fairness, the paper sent about 30 reporters to the district's 16 high schools on Monday, and did not find these conditions at every school. However, the city has a firm commitment to the bureaucracy and unions that dominate city politics.
My dad had a paddle hanging on his junior high classroom wall until about 1983 or so. That was about the time they banned corporal punishment.
Congratulations on your decision to enter the world of full-time home education. I say full-time, because you'll soon learn that once you're in the education mindset, you'll find teaching opportunities in just about everything you do.
I'm going to ping one of my favorite homeschool moms. She has connections to folks with homeschool ping lists, alerting you to articles that I hope you will enjoy.
The FR Homeschoolers are a freindly bunch, and we're all very supportive of parents who are new to homeschooling. Make no mistake: it can be tough when you're starting out. You'll reach a comfort zone after a while. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about curriculum, approaches, and so forth.
Netmilsmom: PING.
Not always -- I've had a few of them get rather nasty with me, generally stemming from the fact that I'm not, in principle, opposed to public education, (having gotten a pretty good public education myself).
I find that public education often gets the blame for outside problems, such as the prevailing culture, kids with horrible attitudes and even worse home lives, and so on.
It's tolerance and diversity don'tcha know. Two "buzz" words that will destroy our society.
prolefeed, unspeak
My college roommate is a public school teacher. He tells me that parental involvement is the most reliable indicator for academic success. There is a greater correlation than gender, race, or economic status. If parents are involved, children succeed.
So why did we choose to homeschool rather than be involved public school parents? Our public school system is so bad (in so many ways) that it was just easier to do it outselves, we are in a financial position to live on one income, and my wife had a great interest in doing it.
We've been happy, and haven't regretted our choice. I hope that you'll look back on your choice and feel the same way.
I'm on it, FRiend!
I am not a militant homeschooler, I am a militant "do right for your child". I am militant that a child needs a parent, not an institution. If your child needs to get some school in to see what it's like, that's fine with me. Some children that I have seen in my homeschool connections NEED to go to school for a while, just because the world rises and sets on their butts.
I believe that a child is better off to do Kindergarten and maybe first grade before homeschooling. My younger daughter will be attending half day Kindergarten in the fall, then come home and do her regular work. I expect she will not go to First grade. In fact I'll be surprised if she makes it to Christmas.
I'm here if you need a boost, even if your daughter goes back to school.
Some children won't learn from a parent. But the learning is much more fun at home!
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