My condolences to everyone at SYH…

[Bouba]

The missus was a teacher, now retired. Her speciality was the special needs kids. One particularly troublesome lad kept pushing his luck and was on a final warning. He brought a kitchen knife to school and threatened her with it.

Instantly expelled from school and many hearings followed. The school was forced to take him back and the father brought him in and said "see, you can't touch my son again". She resigned the next day.

Speaking to the headmistress who was near retirement, she lamented that the future looked grim since failure was now being praised and the very first time kids are told they aren't good enough is when they fail their driving test. Until then nobody dare say "you're crap, work harder".

Assuming that they bother with the driving test...as that is also a slap on the wrist nowadays

 

[Bouba]

I can well believe the story, good for her.

Exam outcomes in schools and universities used to broadly conform to a normal distribution curve. This means you generally have a mass of average performers and, at each end, the exceptionally good and the exceptionally poor. Many people thought this was fair and rewarded those with special talent and those who worked hard, It also placed the lazy and the not so clever. The role of the teacher was to give everybody a fair chance and present their subject with skill and enthusiasm. Poor teaching could be tracked by average outcomes.
But what if everybody worked hard and was equally clever and what we really wanted to teach was not knowledge but attitudes of mind? (lets suspend belief on how likely this is; educational theorists are not known for looking out of the window at real life) You would end up discriminating with a finer and finer graticule till the distinctions became trivial.

So was born our present system where we do presuppose that everybody can win first place, those who do badly are assumed to be the subject of some form of disability or adverse discrimination which can be eliminated, in the classroom, in the school or in society. The responsibility for failure moves away from the individual to the teacher or the institution.

Anyroad, after all that blather, the point is I agree wonkyw. We now have kids within schools who are learning the implicit rule that it is always someone else's fault, abuse, idleness and violent behavior is further tolerated because exclusion is a black mark - not against the child but against the school. Pointless filler subjects are studied at examination level to get the school points up, bored uninterested children are lumped in with those with talent making learning difficult and even impossible.

Katharine Birbalsingh is a name worth following for those with an interest.

PS. Forgot the point. The Unusual Situation is the sort of thing that may happen if you teach people that they are the centre of everyone's universe.

.

I agree with what you are saying....I would like to add that the teaching profession is also part of the problem....and has probably been evolving since the 80’s. We are from a generation where forty wacks was your average school years....but troublesome kids unfortunately often come from troublesome families....the lawyers that make up our legislature have deemed that children have human rights. It’s an unholy mess....with enough blame to go round several times. I would never be a teacher....hell, I once taught adults at an institution where they paid a lot of money to attend....it doesn’t take long before they all descend into school children.
Western society is going to hell in a handcart....young people are merely the symptom....we are old...and I have no answers that are palatable to modern minds

 

[GEM43]

I agree with what you are saying....I would like to add that the teaching profession is also part of the problem....and has probably been evolving since the 80’s. We are from a generation where forty wacks was your average school years....but troublesome kids unfortunately often come from troublesome families....the lawyers that make up our legislature have deemed that children have human rights. It’s an unholy mess....with enough blame to go round several times. I would never be a teacher....hell, I once taught adults at an institution where they paid a lot of money to attend....it doesn’t take long before they all descend into school children.
Western society is going to hell in a handcart....young people are merely the symptom....we are old...and I have no answers that are palatable to modern minds

Alas, I draw similar conclusions. So the only thing to do is to go sailing and enjoy it whilst we can.

 

[turnstone]

I was anchored by the entrance to Trimley Marshes Saturday night there was a Beach party in the corner by the water ski area but I wouldn't say the music was excessively loud and it was all quiet by just after midnight.

 

[Bouba]

I was anchored by the entrance to Trimley Marshes Saturday night there was a Beach party in the corner by the water ski area but I wouldn't say the music was excessively loud and it was all quiet by just after midnight.

I have anchored in noisy places...had noisy boats anchor near me....but by far, the most annoying is to be near a water ski center....not the noise...but the rocking

 

[wonkywinch]

I agree with what you are saying....I would like to add that the teaching profession is also part of the problem....and has probably been evolving since the 80’s. We are from a generation where forty wacks was your average school years....but troublesome kids unfortunately often come from troublesome families....the lawyers that make up our legislature have deemed that children have human rights. It’s an unholy mess....with enough blame to go round several times. I would never be a teacher....hell, I once taught adults at an institution where they paid a lot of money to attend....it doesn’t take long before they all descend into school children.
Western society is going to hell in a handcart....young people are merely the symptom....we are old...and I have no answers that are palatable to modern minds

Remember when there were craft apprenticeships and it was OK to be a plumber or brickie? Too much incentives for pieces of paper rather than maximising an individual's skills & desires.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a dustman so I could rummage through other people's cast offs.

 

[johnalison]

I don’t think the teachers come out covered in glory but I don’t know at what point parents relinquished all responsibility for their children, from everything from potty training to learning. Looking from outside, so to speak, it seems that parents and schools have some responsibility. As well as feckless parents, not to mention non-existent fathers, schools have done little to help, with weak policies on mobile phones, a patronising attitude as shown by the silly habit of calling children students in place of pupils, schoolboys/girls or even scholars and teachers with a limited interest in their own subjects. I don’t know what is to be done, but a general atmosphere of petty law-breaking among young adults and the utt8ng of rights before responsibilities will have to be changed. My only suggestion is to cut off all communication with America.

 

[Bouba]

I don’t think the teachers come out covered in glory but I don’t know at what point parents relinquished all responsibility for their children, from everything from potty training to learning. Looking from outside, so to speak, it seems that parents and schools have some responsibility. As well as feckless parents, not to mention non-existent fathers, schools have done little to help, with weak policies on mobile phones, a patronising attitude as shown by the silly habit of calling children students in place of pupils, schoolboys/girls or even scholars and teachers with a limited interest in their own subjects. I don’t know what is to be done, but a general atmosphere of petty law-breaking among young adults and the utt8ng of rights before responsibilities will have to be changed. My only suggestion is to cut off all communication with America.

I come from a previous generation and my dad regarded school as a place to warehouse children....he didn’t think education left the school gate

 

[turnstone]

I have anchored in noisy places...had noisy boats anchor near me....but by far, the most annoying is to be near a water ski center....not the noise...but the rocking

I was a little further down than the water ski area the only thing rocking us was passing Gin palaces.

 

[flaming]

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a dustman so I could rummage through other people's cast offs.

I wanted to be a dustman because they only collected our bin on Tuesday, so I thought they only worked one day per week.

 

[Bouba]

I wanted to be a dustman because they only collected our bin on Tuesday, so I thought they only worked one day per week.

You should have been a vicar

 

[flaming]

You should have been a vicar

Most racing is on a Sunday.

 

[Frayed Knot]

Seems I’m a little late to this party (sorry for that one).
I have to say; this is nothing new.
We kept our boats at SYH up until about twelve years ago and experienced the “joy” of these raves on several occasions.
I expect now, as then, the beach, which is enjoyed by many families with children, is littered with syringes, needles, smashed bottles and N2O canisters.
I helped clean it up after two of those occasions.

 

[johnalison]

I was a little further down than the water ski area the only thing rocking us was passing Gin palaces.

I quite fancy getting one of those things and naming it ‘Djinn Palace’.

 

[Seastoke]

All of you moaning have possibly had children , and you believe them when they say that are going to a friends house to study or a sleep over. How many times have you said ,no way my children would not do that. You are blaming people on a beach which is public . I suppose Glastonbury should be band , and the ioW festival .

 

[Trident]

I stopped a couple of weeks ago in Sovereign is Eastbourne (expecting peace and quiet in "Gods Waiting Room" ) but no - "Rave Runners" - a group who run with several humping huge speakers on their backs - decided that they would run through upsetting locals in their houses, diners on the water front and yachties in their boats . They took half an hour to be out of earshot and then came back an hour later on their way home. I started hosing down the decks up wind of them on the second run and certainly heard no complaints about their soaking ... then again I wouldn't have heard much would I ?

 

[Seastoke]

We hear old people saying there is no respect anymore , but you still do name calling in your swan song years , Quote Gin Palace.

 

[Seastoke]

If you boat on the south coast, what do you expect , that’s one reason we moved south.

 

[Bouba]

that’s one reason we moved south.

I thought it’s because you were kicked out of the Welsh Med

 

[Seastoke]

I thought it’s because you were kicked out of the Welsh Med

Well yes but ,what that got to do with it.