To want heads on platters? Utterly inappropriate school assembly

[Renarde1975]

This is a fucking corker. I am fuming but I'd like the hive minds' view.

At DS assembly today. Topic is 'Evacuation: WW2'. All good. Actually, they've done a great job and it's really excellent. Then this.

Towards the end, Christine Aguilera's 'Candyman' comes on. I'm watching open mouthed. I still cannot believe it.

MN: let me refresh you on the 'choicest' lyrics.

He's a one stop shop, makes the panties drop

He took me to the Spider club on Hollywood and Vine
We drank champagne, and we danced all night

He's a one stop shop, makes my cherry pop

And no, MN - this was NOT the radio edit.

And then to cap it all off for some inexplicable reason we are treated to two renditions of Don't Stop Believin' by Journey

A singer in a smoky room
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on, and on, and on

WTAF? Did I smoke crack this morning and enter into a parallel dimension? I am a teacher, that another member of my profession could fuck up so royally is just, wow.

I don't want my nine year old son to be singing this in a school assembly, or listening to words that objectify women and glorify alcohol. Turns out the kids were practicing the dance moves to Candyman for three weeks!

Richard Cheese. I love how he has such an amazing voice singing utterly filthy lyrics.

My kind of guy

Songs we heard or sang growing up:

Sex on the beach
Boom Boom Boom Boom (I want you in my room)
Horny
My five year old cousin loved Sex Bomb
My older siblings loved Like A Virgin and would sing it all the time.

My parents didn’t make a big deal out of it because I think they knew if they did, we would just do it more. We would be told to be quiet if we sang it in public but to be fair if we started singing anything in a public place where it wasnt appropriate we would be told to be quiet.

The Candyman song is based on a wartime song by the Andrews Sisters called Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

m.youtube.com/watch?v=8of3uhG1tCI

Don't stop Believing is on Charanga which is a music programme licensed for use within schools.

I work in a Church School and we taught the whole school the song last year...sounds amazing with nearly 400 children singing it. I really couldn't get worked up about that song.

Does anyone have DC that do the Young Voices at the O2 and other arenas across the country? Mine did last year and I was quite 😳😳 at several of the lyric choices. They have a couple of strange, slightly dodgy ones too this year from what I have heard of choir rehearsals so far too...

Two things iheart

1 - MN jury has 'gavelled' on Don't stop. I was being unreasonable. I accept this judgement unequivocally.

2 - what is this 'Charanga' you speak of?

Good lord the things people find to be offended about. No wonder teachers are miserable.

Teaches I have been thinking of the Andrew's sisters the whole day.

I must admit I nearly PMSL when Head said kids have been talking to GPs about WW2. Jesus, most parents there were born in the mid 70s...so unless we're into necromancy now...

Oh god this reminds me of a time when some year 4 children were desperate to perform in an assembly. They had made up dance moves at home and learnt all the lyrics. They briefly showed the deputy head, who was probably only half listening. The girls parents had encouraged them too.

Then they performed, rather clearly and beautifully...Katy Perry “Last Friday Night”...infront of some elderly visitors. I went purple.

🎶 Last Friday night,
Think we kissed but I forgot,
Then had a ménage a toi”
“There’s a pounding in my head and a stranger in my bed” etc 🎶

I do feel “heads will roll” is a tad over the top. Children barely understand the lyrics and I grew up singing some revolting songs. I had no idea! So yes I would raise an eyebrow but I think that as adults we bring the inappropriate meaning to the song. Children sing it because they love the tune and they sing it innocently. I wouldn’t have trained the kids to sing those songs though...I’m just one big contradiction aren’t I

No Jean. Most teachers are pissed at the usually utterly psychotic senior management team...

I can't believe you're annoyed about this. I must be doing this parenting thing all wrong. DD knows a lot about alcohol, periods, watches stuff totally inappropriate for her but it goes right over her head or if she's curious gets an explanation I've just never ever thought of censoring anything..

Charanga is a Music Programme developed for schools. Its like a step by step music lessons so you can teach music without being a music teacher if that makes sense?

So they'll learn the lyrics and then the melody and then put it all together. There are some brilliant songs on there...we were learning Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple) the other week.

Obviously not all schools use it but the point I was trying to make is that if the song is licensed to be used on there for schools then it can't be too bad (but I see you realised that anyway)

Candyman is awful though so I agree with you there.

But Renarde you said earlier that the threat of complaints used to make you "really anxious". I'm just confused as to why you would then do that to another teacher over such a non-issue . As this threat has shown, it's at the very least an issue over which reasonable minds differ.

No Jean this thread DOES NOT show I'm BU. Many posters agree with me. Some don't, fine.

It's not a non issue. The reason I didnt collar the Head at the time (believe me I wanted to) is that something didn't 'smell right'. Hence posted here.

A conservated estimate on death attributable to WW2 is 50 million people - which your 9 year old just learnt about... and you're upset about a few lyrics to Candyman? YABU.

Thanks iheart for that.

I'm guessing this exists because it's so difficult to get piano players as teachers? When I was at primary, there would always be a pianist among the teachers.

You're all full of talk op.... heads on platters...'collar' the head

Grow up a bit first maybe!?

Good God Blue. Ever heard of logical fallacies? Suggest you look up 'The Strawman Argument'

I'm well aware that some, many even, posters agreed with you. I just assumed that as a fellow teacher who'd been made anxious yourself by parental complaints, you'd have a pretty high bar for subjecting another teacher to that same anxiety.

I thought the fact that some posters, like myself, thought the song was fine might have made you re-consider. Surely, after all, that's the point of asking here.

It certainly wasn't my intention to misstate the general tone of the replies here.

I normally inhabit the relationship board where pretty much every post is about the way women are treated by their SO.

Why? Why are so many people so fucking miserable? Might it be in part because some parent fucked up at some point? Repeatedly?

One poster above says they never censor anything? Bloody hell. That's a hell of a statement to make...

Madonna and her beau must be seriously flexible if her heart is beating next to his during anal sex.

As for the issue at hand, I don't think it's a hanging offence but it's just, I don't know, disappointing. A whole world of appropriate, beautiful, thought-provoking music and songs to choose from and our kids just get this tawdry shite because it's 'what they know'. Couldn't we aim a bit higher for them?

IrmaFayLear's comment about her dc teachers saying kids can't access classical music made me want to cry. As a five year old in a council estate state primary in a tough area, my class improvised a dance to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. I thought it was the most divine thing ever. It introduced me to classical music, which has enriched my life beyond belief ever since.

Over the top reaction was expecting more to this story!

This has also reminded me of the day my friend and I once pranced about in her living room to "horny" by Mousse T. We were ten and made little devil horns out of our fingers. We thought that's what it meant. Her mum went ballistic so we promptly asked what the problem was and watched her go puce!

Also disappointed with the hand-jive when you have jitter bug, swing and boogie woogie as dances of the era.

Do you really think a 9 year old is listening that closely to the lyrics and understanding them? I think not! It's a catchy tune to them, that's it.

Richard Cheese is great! Not heard of him and agree that lovely treacle like voice with those dirty lyrics is very funny.

For me the Big Deal part of this thread is a Teacher knowingly chose such an appalling song choice for kids to learn and sing to. Pretty sure if my DD went in to her class chanting Blurred Lines to herself tomorrow and then told teacher it was a song mummy had chose for her to learn for our annual family nativity there would be concerns discussed in the staff room