Horrified!

Marvell-ous response, Cory

You are v good at sonnets.

How about some Modadishu Hiaku?

Coming to play on your thread, Blu. I liked the Marvell

I agree slug

Hmm, in the UK those of us with the appropriate qualification call ourselves 'teachers' In my experience those who call themselves 'educators' are usually purveyors of some teaching product that they are trying to sell me.

And yes - nice one Cory!

Ooh, where is the sonnet thread?

Can I link to my very bad version of not a sonnet but an Andrew Marvell poem in repsonse to a greedy baby shower woman? Thus demonstrating that often, on MN, we make a resopnse in a medium that we feels suits the content - hence the sweary sweary messages and Pink Floyd song of the original thread. To HIs Coy Mistress

Rather good cory (applause)

brilliant cory

applause to Cory

Wow! In deep awe of Cory

Perhaps we could merge this with the sonnet thread:

Oh gentle Educator, whose defending hand
Is raised in outrage, battling to protect

The budding mind from coarseness, please reflect:
Coarseness forms an inseparable strand
Of any literature; would you see banned
Rude words and gore and penises erect
And cunts, so loved by Chaucer? Would object
To teaching of the Bard? Bar the non-bland
From youngsters? First ask: did their minds expand?
Were thoughts found where the censors would leave
Did windows open on a new-found land?
If so, as parents, lets give humble thanks.

I never knew that Mary Whitehouse was a teacher. My dad went to that school.

The New "Mary Whitehouse" ...

Actually , I have just googled her interesting.

She taught Art and Sex Education at Madeley Modern School in Shropshire in 1960 was shocked and dismayed by her pupils response to moral issues.

"Bad Language Coarsens the whole quality of life"

December 1974.
"Deliberate Propagation" of the idea that there is no proof of the effects of Television/ Theatre on "Standards or Behaviour" is to " Declaim or pervert the truth".

All this pearl clutching isn't new - a couple of years ago when I was relatively new to MN, a poster objected to this poem being taught because it was too full of cruelty and so on.

She didn't get many people agreeing with her.

I want my DDs to be taught challenging plays, poetry and other literature by teachers who are passionate about their subject, and who won't stick to a 'safe' reading list. I want teachers who realise that literature, drama and poetry of merit is being written now, teachers who are not mired in old dead writers to the exclusion of all else.

I am glad that there are still such teacher around, and parents who support them.

Shaving their hands. Bet this gets deleted.

Wheres the op of this thread ?

Oooh I got my first ever deletion - appropriately enough for a very mumsnet abbreviation which was in fact swearing. But not necessarily a personal attack...

But totally support adoptmama's statement and think she has been wrongly and unfairly deleted. MNHQ - this isnt right and you should not be supporting people who join MN to attack us for behaving within the rules and like Mumsnetters.

Adoptmama I feel very disgruntled on your behalf. How very rational and considered your response has been in response to what actually is censorship of your post on the part of MN.

Come on, dear MNHQ. There has been an awful lot of bowing to the pressure of bullyboys who have expensive lawyers recently. Let's stick up for common sense a bit, eh?

Am trying and failing to see why your post should have been deleted, adoptmama.

I worry if it is going to become fine to spout ill-informed rubbish but not to respond to it in a robust way. What kind of forum is that where debate is not encouraged?

Not that there's much debate with the OP as, true to form with these kind of threads, she appears to have tossed in a grenade and then run off cackling. Ever noticed how certain types of posters never have the courage to actually stand up for their opinions? I guess it's because in some subconscious recess of their minds, they realise that they wouldn't bear very much scrutiny.

I am still a brain surgeon

I agreed the poster was an educator! In a very caring manner!

What I said, in summary, was that I doubted the OP of this particular thread is an 'educator'. Which others have said without their posts being deleted. The OP has implied I am - and by extentsion any other teacher who swears on a public forum - unfit to do my job which seems to be a much more 'attack-ish' statment than mine.

I doubt s/he is an educator as I would expect a teacher to know that nothing I said (on the petition thread and as quoted by this OP in her opening post) 'smacks of race or class discrimination.' Saying someone hold white, middle class values does not smack of any kind of 'discrimination'. Discrimination is an act and unless I then advocate locking all white middle class people up (which I suspect would therefore include myself and most of my colleagues) I am in no way advocating discrimination. Nor was I being prejudiced as my statement was not a generalisted one about the entire white, middle class population but specific to the comments and attitudes of the OP in the petition thread and were relevant in the context of that OPs remarks about the play and teachers in general. So put that on your needles and knit it! If you are going to make accusations about posters, at least accuse them of things which make sense.

I said that the OP of the original - sign my petition - thread was a hypocrit for wanting the thread deleted from here and then touting it to the mail where she named her own daughter, making her searchable to anyone on the internet. Personally I would not do that to anyones child, especially my own. Nothing new there - it has been said now on the original petition thread and on the other thread on Secondary about the DM story. And I said that the Petition OP must have copied said thread before requesting its deletion as she had it to hand over to the DM. Finally the reason given by the petition OP for requesting deletion of the thread here was not the same as she gave the DM.

I said that this behaviour was dishonest. Which, by any definition of the word 'dishonest' it was. Again this was not troll hunting, making a personal attack etc. It was a legitimate comment and no different from similar comments by quite a few posters on the other two threads.

I said that I wasn't a bad teacher simply because I swore on a public forum.

Although I have been accused of that both on here and in the national press (and if that doesn't constitute personal attacks I don't know what does). The whole OP of this thread is, by extension, a personal attack on me :)

But I am ok with it not being deleted as I have my big girl pants on.

I named a bunch of fancy-schmancy unis I have seen my ex-pupils progress onto, which pretty much proves the fact that my swearing on a public forum doesn't prove my incompetence or unsuitability to teach(you know cos I don't actually do that in my classroom.)

I said that I consider it more immoral to make a teacher - the drama teacher of the original sign-my-petition thread - identifiable on a public forum. And that type of behaviour is more wrong than swearing. In addition I said I consider hypoctrical or fraudulent behaviour worse than swearing or being or behaving in bigoted way worse than swearing. I did not say the OP of this thread was doing any of these things and I think if you read the post properly you would know I was not talking about this OP but the actions of the petition-OP (who I could name as she has named herself in the media but who I won't). So, again, I do not see the T & Cs were broken.

I pointed out that the cause of the OP of that petition thread is supported by a neo-nazi, fascist, anti-semitic, homophobic web site called the daily stormer. Which I true, googleable and not breaking t&c's as far as I can see as there appears to be nothing in the T & Cs saying you cannot mention nasty, from-the-gutter web sites (cos that would definitely rule out mentioning the Mail on here). It is one of the higest search results on google when you search for the media story. I said in relation to that, all things considered, I would rather be slated by the DM readership that supported by that website. In fact on reflection now I would add that if i were actually being supported by that web site that would be a giant wake up call to me that I needed to reflect on my behaviour and attitude!

I didn't even swear :)

Although I did have some sentence-construction issues due to not proof reading, which is obviously a serious offense in an 'educator' such as myself :)

Now I presume the OP of this thread or someone who agress with him/her complained to MN that I had some how broken T & Cs. I fail to see how I did that. I think I made a fair comment in a reasonable way.

Oh, is that what the OP was about? I couldn't make head or tail of it. I get that s/he claims to be an 'educator'...not of English, I hope!

(LeBear, I could answer most of those questions, and I failed Eng Lit.)

Ds is currently studying 'Of Mice and Men' for GCSE, as are tens of thousands of others. Topics covered in the novel include visits to the local 'whorehouse', sexual assault, racism and murder.

Ds1 (13) has just finished that for GCSE. Its nice to know there are a few less topics that I need to discuss with him now.

(totally misses the point, wanders off again.)