To think that students have more rights than teachers ( and that this is not good.)

[malificent7]

If i treated my students the way they treated me id be sacked.

They swear, answer back, are extremely rude and patronising . One even tried to stroke my arm today.....ugggrrr!

Shoulder the responsibility how exactly? Our most challenging children are in care. How about them?
These children grow up and leave school. We will probably all be better off if they are helped, even at the expense of cricket.

Sorry Madonna, I know things are getting fraught but I did have to laugh... Play cricket means play ball? Play by the rules? I couldn't care less about the men in white outfits and gloves variety lol

Ha!!! So now I feel stupid.

However, back to my question...

Many parents want to shoulder responsibility but can’t.

You only have to look at the teenagers board on here. What do you actually do with a child who refuses to cooperate with parents and with school?

We sponsored (informally on a one to one basis) a family in Sri Lanka, while the civil war was still on. Dad was a tuktuk driver and earned about 65p a day, out of which he paid for the fuel, running costs and rent, leaving about 35p to keep his wife and small child. They paid school fees, health care and cared for his mum out of that. The smallish sum we gave them each Christmas paid for their daughter's school fees and medical bills as well as topping up. She got a scholarship to high school at 11.

That family would not have tolerated any school disciplinary reports at all, because it would have been wasting a major opportunity that will eventually lift the whole family out of poverty into the emerging Sri Lankan middle class. Sri Lanka has NO welfare state, like most LDCs, so people do what is best for them and their family. There's no scope to lament that one doesn't have scope for full self expression.

Oh, so that’s the answer, is it? Let them know that without an education they will starve?

Isn't that the reality?

What do you think?

Do you really believe every child from Sri Lanka behaves perfectly?

Yep totally agree but those children at our school get a huge amount of support from internal and external bodies, much like our SEND kids and I don't think they are the focus of the OPs post. Mostly it's the run if the mill kids who for whatever reason don't want to be at school / do not know about / do not want to adhere to societies expectations of behaviour. If the kid doesn't want to be there parents need to decide if formal education is appropriate. If they don't know the rules of society then the parents need to teach them. If they know but don't want to go along with what's expected of them then the parents need to set boundaries. It's a tough old world out there and children need to know how to co exist and do things they don't always want to do. Calling your teacher a c*nt for asking you to sit down stems from issues way outside most teachers pay grade.

Because, in Sri Lanka, there's no education unless the parents pay for it, then those in school probably do all behave. Those whose parents can't or won't pay aren't in school at all.

And do you feel that is something we should aspire to?

And in Sri Lanka, where basic amenities like running water can't be assumed, the school children are turned out every day in gleaming white uniforms.

That's not what she's saying coldstreams stop being facetious. She's saying that children who understand or have been taught the value of education respect it.

And if the parents don't set boundaries? In a practical sense, how are parents to be made to take responsibility? Who makes that happen?

As do most of the children we teach over here. The tread is about those that don't.

Actually coldstreams, I am impressed that people living so far beneath what is considered the poverty line have such respect for education and gratitude for a way out.

Instead of acting like entitled tw*ts.

But they don’t crabby

The ones who are taught it and respond to it go to school. Those who don’t just don’t go.

I’m not intentionally being facetious. I genuinely cannot agree that removal of education equates to it being valued. Contrary to popular belief, most children behave well most of the time. The fact the child in the example given above won a scholarship indicates school was enjoyable and learning was not a struggle to her.

Even in the U.K., prisons are stuffed full of people with poor literacy skills and chaotic educational histories. Removing education perpetuates the problem, it doesn’t solve it.

Sri Lanka still has corporal punishment, in prisons as well as schools. I'm not sure why you're holding it up as a beacon of elightenment. Although I'm sure the gleaming white uniforms look very nice

Most teachers in inner city schools can spot future prison inmates before they are 12 years old.

The parents that don't set boundaries should end up having to take care of their own boundary less children when all avenues have been exhausted. That should be the consequence of not setting boundaries.

If we do view helping a child with issues that affect their behaviour as outside a teacher's pay grade, and I have said more than once that this is not the job of individual teacher's, then whose pay grade does it fall into? Because the bar for social care involvement is ludicrously high, ditto CAMH services, and EdPsych. The one system where every child has a place is in a school.

Do you think Sri Lanka doesn’t have children with autism, sensory disorders, adhd and an inability to access the curriculum?

What do you think happens to those children?

ANd it's not removal of education. It's understanding that education is a route to a better life.

Plenty of parents from all walks of life struggle with boundary setting.