Priest telling boys how to pee at school?

[Downamongtherednecks]

Tween ds is at a private school, not UK. Most staff are female. There were incidents of the boys’ loos being left with pee around the lavatory bowl, so a male member of staff (priest) took the boys into the loos (in groups) to tell them that this was unacceptable and to suggest that they aim better and that they should perhaps practice more (!).

This was not discussed at all with parents.
AIBU to think this was not an acceptable thing for the school to do? It seems far too private and something surely better handled by parents. Priest has form for sexism so it is possible that may be one reason I instinctively don’t like it. DH (robustly boys’ private-school educated) says this was fine, it's a boy/male teacher thing, and he can’t see a problem with it. Happy to be told I am being biased against the sexist priest. No intention of taking it up with school btw, as dc are leaving anyway. AIBU?

dontlaugh yes I do know the origin of the word but it's not used in that sense now.

Glamour originally meant to cast a spell/ bewitch, fabulous meant fabled as in a unicorn is a fabulous beast and also a fantastic beast, existing only as a fantasy.

dontlaugh I want to say sorry to you, as I feel this thread has brought up again all the awful stuff that the Irish Catholic community has had to deal with - and the worry that it hasn't "quite" gone away. I truly posted because I was trying to work out where my feelings of mistrust and dislike came from for this incident. I remember when Fr Kit Cunningham, probably one of the best known priests in the UK, (and someone I often drank with when I lived in London) was unmasked as a serial child sex-abuser. It cut the ground out from under me. I've tried to listen to what people on this thread have said (well, the non-frothing ones!) and yet.... (How long before another poster accuses us of "playing the Irish card "?)

Dontlaugh your argument is one for the Church to have no involvement in education at all. Whilst that is an argument I would generally agree with, although not necessarily for the reasons set out in this thread, it's not really the point here.

I'm aware of lots of meanings of words, Phaedra, thanks to my degree in English.
They may evolve over time but the original meanings are important, and help us understand how society has evolved, as much as the original meaning showed us what society thought about women, and what they think now.
Dismissing a history of a nation, which has learnt the very hard way that it does not pay to trust society with our children, whether that's education/health/care or welfare is what is bothering me about this thread, which is why I keep reading it.
But I have to keep telling myself: this is not Ireland!
That's my issue, not anyone else's.

Phaedra, got in it one, state/church completely separate, and a secular education system.
That is a choice in the UK, but sadly not in any real sense in Ireland.

Indeed dontlaugh I'm sure you are aware of the meaning of words as am I so there really was no need for you to spell out the original definition of hysteria to me.

Your situation is different from OP's. You don't want your children to attend a church school; I would never have sent my son to one. The OP has. I don't understand why, given the reservations she has. Had this incident taken place at my son's private, non-denominational co-ed school it would not have occurred to me to make anything of it beyond agreeing the boys should show more respect to the cleaning staff.

If OP doesn't trust the teaching staff then she should remove her son but there was nothing untoward in what happened on this particular occasion.

I agree mostly, Phaedra.
I do think the incident as outlined was indeed untoward, but there we shall have to agree to differ.

I have fewer choices than you might think (and if you look at my OP, I have already found another school) - since the local public school is unthinkable for us - due to not teaching evolution, not having science provision, frequent drugs raids etc. You have to try to imagine the state of public schooling in some areas of the US, and the fact that huge numbers of people home-school to avoid the system. Our choice was local RC private, further away private, or boarding school. The other private school is much further, and more expensive, but several other families are pulling their dc from the RC school, so we can at least car pool. Choice? Hmmm. (I can't home-school as I work out of the country frequently for weeks at a time)

I feel for you, OP, as ironically the one issue that has arisen from our country's lack of choice in education is, funny enough, consistency in standards.

So if you are in the US, the ball game is utterly changed. It's the lesser of two evils, really, isn't it? And whilst you're probably paying for that choice, when something like what you've outlined happens, you do have to weigh up the outcomes if you change school.
I would never place my child in a catholic school willingly but I'm lucky where I live I don't have to, and the standard of education in our local non denominational school is excellent.
If it wasn't, we be screwed, no 2 ways about it.

T

thanks Dontlaugh. Yes, it's the curse of the Irish that we take the education so seriously! I used to teach a Latin club in a deprived part of London, at one of the RC schools - my God you should have seen the commitment of the Irish parents to getting their dc to school by 8:15 am when the club started! I am luckier than most as we CAN afford to pay the fees at the non-denominational private school - even though it means my having to take on more work in a few countries I'd rather not visit.

Dontlaugh 'the whole notion of clergy taking responsibility for any aspect of personal hygiene fills me with horror'

If this was an incident about personal hygiene, then I think I am with you.

But this was about the state of the boys' loos and the priest manages the buildings, ultimately.

I am Irish too, but attended a community school for secondary that had minimal clerical oversight (one nun on the school board) and a chaplain who was a Franciscan and a thoroughly decent human being.

I have been accused (with a lot of justification I have to admit) of being an Irish Tiger Mother.

The Irish round here tend to have their children in every sport going too, but mine suck at most of the essential skills for sport. Otherwise, we would spend our lives at swimming meets or softball tournaments or soccer.

I find it so strange how some posters seem so sure about what happened, despite not being there. It's like 'Simon said'. Nobody knows, except the boys and the Priest. Nobody knows.

"Irish tiger mother"
That's funny!

The boys are 11- and 12-year-olds, Anna, not 4-year-olds!

Of course we don't know precisely what happened, but common sense says that one of them would have said something if the teacher had abused one of them in front of the whole group.

11-12 year old boys are more often targeted by paedophiles than are 4 year olds.

Pope Francis reckons 2% of priests are paedophiles. That means that rather more than 2% of priests in schools will be paedophiles as they will be attracted to those roles.

Why take boys in "small groups" into the toilets? There is nothing abstract to grasp about the fact that peeing on the floor makes a disgusting mess. The boys will all have seen it every time they go into the toilets to use them so will know exactly what the priest is talking about if he talks to them in a large group in, I dunno, the Assembly Hall. Choosing to take them into the toilets (with their long association with male on male sex) is weird. What possible benefit would it have?

Why is it weird? People keep saying that but really "teacher talks to small group of students" isn't weird, nor is choosing a location where the problem is visible to talk to them.

The fact it is a priest is neither her nor there.

Has anyone actually said what's wrong with a male member of staff taking a group of boys into the loo to shown them the disgusting mess they've made and to tell them not to do it again?

Have I missed something?

sirzy ,hakluyt

It's a mystery to me. I'm not clear if those who think it's wrong are objecting to any teacher whether lay or not male or female or simply a male religious teacher.

No-one has, as far as I'm concerned, said coherently what is wrong, beyond it's wrong.

And I am not (a) one of those free spirits who apparently never bother closing the toilet door and (b) usually inclined to give the Catholic Church the benefit of the doubt about anything. So even as a prudish atheist I fail to see what the problem is.

I mean it might be possible to argue that it would be humiliating if a female member of staff did the telling off............

Why take boys in "small groups" into the toilets?

It's so they can have the piss pointed out to them by an authority figure. Have you not been reading the thread?

Why take boys in "small groups" into the toilets?

It's so they can have the piss pointed out to them by an authority figure. Have you not been reading the thread?

and because they knew it would be inappropriate to do this individually (not to mention time consuming) and could not practically fit whole classes/year groups in there!

is it OK for a priest, a known priest who is a member of staff at the institution in question, to take a small group to one side for (for example) drugs ed? a prayer meeting? a student council meeting? to even cover a lesson when their teacher is suddenly taken ill?

he was talking to them, not demonstrating how to pee, not asking them to demonstrate their technique, not asking for samples to test against the piss on the floor to publically name and shame the culprits!

I'm another who is amazed this is still rumbling on, when this is such a non issue!

"Why take boys in "small groups" into the toilets?"

Presumably because there wasn't room for big groups?

Also, small groups mean everybody in the group can see exactly what the priest is talking about.