to be shocked about the amount of suppo rt a teacher gets when they nearly kill a pupil

[2shoes]

now I know it sounds like the boy was not a good kid, but he was 14, the teacher nearly killed him, yet on here and in the media the teacher has been getting so much support.
yet a boy was nearly killed...........
(prepares to be flamed)

2shoes, a hate campaign is something extreme and severe and I would be terrified and angry if I were subject to one. It makes you a prisoner in your own home . I'm not saying I would take a 'hug a hoodie' approach if I were under personal attack on an ongoing basis but I think that's different to vaguely knowing someone/having had words with them/a bit of backtalk and thinking that it's alright that they had their head caved in. With the stress you've been under, it would be strange if you did have much empathy with your aggressors.. but that's different from generally feeling that violence towards a child (no matter how scrote-like) is okay IMO.

I agree with sterrryerryoh: "But I could never be alright with a child's head being staved in, no matter how much of a shit he was being." Two wrongs don't make a right and all of that.

mmrssceptic:

"Mrs Bean! hurrah for you! "

?????

So we should all just cast our humanity aside? That would cure society's ills?
Odette suggested that the parents of a 14 year old boy would rub their hands together with glee when they'd found out that he was head-injured as a reason she had no sympathy for that child. Perhaps that doesn't sadden you, but it does me. There's no 'hurrah' about it.

No I don't. That's what I don't understand. You said they'd always existed, and then you said the "system" is to blame. So as there've been lots of different systems in the last fifty years, which ones do you mean. Ps I did mean to say earlier -- I have no problem with anecdotal evidence at all. I quite like it actually certainly more than statistics.

Anyhoo here's where I stand. This teenager and his beastly co-conspirators were offered one of the greatest gifts human society has to offer -- a free education. Bollocks bollocks bollocks to blaming it on poverty. Bollocks to that. Every single day I see children whose families live on maybe twenty quid a month walking to school age five, six, seven. Some of them hideous, hateful, horrible schools where the teachers despise the children. But they work bloody hard, you see children doing their homework on their street mat, they know it is the only way out. As it is in Mansfield or wherever the hell else this crap is going on. Bollocks to poverty being to blame. What do they do with this gift? They not only reject it, they try to take it away from others, and they try to ruin the lives of those offering it.

In a distant, all-of-humanity, let's all hold hands and save the world sort of way, I can feel sympathy for him and his family.

In reality, and this is strange and discomfiting for quite a normal person (which I am honest), I just don't care to give it the headroom. Other people are more deserving and I just haven't the instinct for it with this person.

grapeandlemon, these youths weren't being rude. They set out as a group to torment a fellow human being into mentally cracking up. They knew what they were doing. They've admitted that.

If my son had done that and been attacked as a result, I'd be sitting by his bed in hospital asking myself how I'd produced a person so lacking in basic common decency and empathy for another individual.

It was you, saying you went to a horrible school but look you got fifty PhDs with knobs on.

So if someone told you half the world was hungry would you reassure them that, not to worry, your own fridge was full?

I appreciate it must be horrendous to live somewhere where you are victimised and your property is damaged and can quite understand how you could be angry - so would I.

However the case still is that if you come from a family where you do not have the basic care that you need, where you are not valued and constantly brutalised (and not necessarily from a 'poor' family) then you will become emotionally very damaged. The book i mentioned up thread 'Shattered Lives' has a very good chapter explaining how children and young people can become violent and aggressive. The same probably happened to their parents and so it goes on. To address the problem means loads of time and money. Giving social workers and others who work with damaged families the correct support to not become burnt out or desensitised. However it is far easier to demonise than to understand and punish rather than rehabilitate

There is a difference between repression and safe boundaries though tethersend. If the system actively tried to engage these children and find things they were passionate about, even gave them vocational courses, things might change. There is nothing wrong with strong discipline when it is combined with inspirational teaching and the focus on individual potential. When children feel there is absolutely no chance of going anywhere in life, so there is no point in learning anything, of course they are going to be as disruptive as possible. They've never had anyone believe in them or tell them they can achieve something great.

It is not all down to the teachers as I said, most of whom do brilliant work in very difficult circumstances. But the whole system cannot change in this country. We just don't value life very much. It is the same with the elderly. If you look at Holland and the way they run homes for people with dementia, one to one care, encouraging the residents to take part in life, cooking, gardening, shopping, whereas here we sit people in a chair and they are lucky if they get their arse wiped. Maybe we just don't like change.

Mmrssceptic - for heaven's sake. My posts on this thread have, with that one exception where I deviated into speaking about my own experience, been about how we have to see the other side: how we can't just assume that everyone has the same life opportunities or experiences.

To take your metaphor, I do hate it when people say things like: 'but what about all the good kids whose education is ruined by the brats?' for the very reason that it is usually a case of people with full fridges saying that the hungry of the world wouldn't be hungry if they only opened their own fridges (neglecting to realise that the hungry don't have fridges).

My point was that if you go to a rough school but come from a stable (enough) background (says the daughter of the chronic alcoholic) where education is valued, you are loved and your development is seen as important, then your fridge is already full. Sharing your class with the hungry is not going to empty your fridge.

mrsbean78 I think we are on the same wavelength(but I will hug a hoodie........my son)

2shoes

Just thought I'd add this kind of anti-social behaviour isn't just limited to "sink estates".The school I was at was in a nice middle class area.

This behaviour is on the increase and it's everywhere.

There are many,many people living with poverty and all it has to chuck at them who toe the line,parent properly, want their kids to get a decent education.They raise kids that don't choose to torment teachers and ruin everybody else's chances.

Sooo at what point do we stop making excuses and start making things fairer for the vast majority of kids and teachers who just want to get on and enjoy school?

The cause is emotional deprivation - can be seen in all parts of society actually. Children should be seen and not heard has a lot to answer for as has they are too small to understand

The biggest issue I have seen, MilaMae, is that the sanction for bad behaviour in most secondaries is internal or external exclusion.

From my POV as a speech and language therapist who frequently sees kids act out becausse they don't know what's going on, this reinforces the behaviour. "I don't know what's going on, I'll be a brat, I'll get out of this uncomfortable situation".

I don't know how else they can be managed but I do see that as a problem.

FWIW, re: "There are many,many people living with poverty and all it has to chuck at them who toe the line,parent properly, want their kids to get a decent education.They raise kids that don't choose to torment teachers and ruin everybody else's chances" I see these kids in the classes I'm in all the time. I wasn't quite one of these kids (our lack of money was solely down to my father's alcoholism) but IMO it's about love, pure and simple.

When people who have never been loved, cared for, respected or had an attachment to other people have kids, they raise people who do not love, care for, respect or attach to other people to an even greater degree. The effect snowballs over generations. How do you solve that? I have no idea of the answer to that either.

Sorry MrsBean it is going to empty your fridge,you are not going to achieve as well as you could do if every lesson you attend is consistently disrupted.

If your theory is right then exam results in these areas will be just as high as elsewhere-errr not so.

A child attending a science class in a school with no disruptive kids has a far more of a chance of achieving an A-C grade as it's so much easier to learn.If a teacher is consistently disrupted to the point he is chasing kids around and not delivering the lesson that is not a satisfactory lesson for anybody and a child will not learn all he should do.

That is unfair and it's not just "a child" it's the majority of the class.

And lets not forget the effect on the teacher's health-physically as well as mentally it must take a huge toll. Why should a few be allowed to cause this?

Sorry Xed post,dc just burst though the door,back later

imo it isn't all to do with poverty..
the family who have been targetting us don't live on a sink estate(HA maybe but this is a nice quiet estate) they don't live in povety.
but i can't imagine what it must be like to be a teacher in the girls class, if a 12/13 can jump out in the road an taunt my dh, with no fear.......wtf is she like at school(yes she goes to the local shit school)

It's not all to do with poverty... but don't for a second believe that it isn't a factor. It's a huge one.

"No I don't. That's what I don't understand. You said they'd always existed, and then you said the "system" is to blame. So as there've been lots of different systems in the last fifty years, which ones do you mean."

I said systems, mmrsceptic- I was not referring to educational provision per se. Social systems in this country have remained pretty much the same for the past 50 years.

Not really. Marriage has collapsed for a start and there've been vast numbers of children born to single parents. That's a big change. A massive social system change. Can you be more specific? Have to go but will read in morning.

All my sympathies were with the teacher at the beginning but now seeing them all running on the CCTV footage.. they were terrified. Stupid kids that went too far. Just an awful situation for everyone

One of my tutor group, year 11, nice enough girl, came to perch on my desk today.

Student: 'Me & have decided to stop giving Mrs Newteacher grief, she's all right really.'

Me: 'That's good...but why were you being horrible to her in the first place?! She's a good teacher, she's been working her arse off trying to get you 'orrible lot to pass your GCSEs, she's a perfectly nice lady & she's been going home to her own kids every day thoroughly miserable because YOU & your mates decided to be foul to her. Why?'

Student: 'Well, because she's new, miss. Like, duh. & anyway, X & Y were the ones who started it - the rest of us just went along with it. We can't tell them to stop, can we?'

That's how it is. & I teach in a very nice, successful school with a glowing Ofsted.

Mrs Newteacher is actually very good & pretty tough - I've seen a succession of less experienced colleagues be hounded out by our delightful students. It's part of our induction procedure for new staff & it's also what happens if you've been off ill or on ML. & if you've been off for MH reasons, you might as well paint a target on your chest & have done.

Sadly, the behaviour of the students in the Harvey case surprises me not one whit. SLG massively at fault for not supporting a) Mr Harvey & b) the majority of that class, who will have either been passive bystanders or playing up because the alpha trouble-makers made them feel they had to.

Quoting BitOfFun:"...somebody who clearly has deep mental health issues ..."---- that somebody should not be teaching children. End of.
YANBU to OP.

shocked at some people saying theyre children afterall...what like venables and thompson.... in my book it doesnt matter weather theyre 10 or 20, some still have the capacity to be evil little bastards whatever theyre age, just because theyre 14 does not make what they did excusable.

although i dont agree with what the teacher did, I feel quite sorry for him, the lad in question however, I dont.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/8653872.stm

Here is the CCTV footage. See the scared kids run.

So, the man was sworn at and called a psycho and he chased a 14 year old round the class and dragged him to a storeroom where he hit him repeatedly with a dumbbell while saying 'die die die'.

It's one thing to maintain a hard political line on how 'feral' youth can get away with anything (I would be terrified if my dh were to stand up to local ASBO teens for fear he would be knifed and I know, despite all my feelings about why society has reduced some kids to this, that this is wrong), it's entirely another to say that you would enjoy watching this carnage unfold and 'laugh' as the violence commenced. The footage is chilling and reminiscent of Columbine. Whatever your feelings about the child in question, I wonder how the rest of those kids are coping having witnessed this total lack of control? I don't think that recognising this is a terrible, terrible situation equates to 'defending the antisocial little shits' or wishing that the teacher in question had killed himself. I wish he'd stayed on long term sick a bit longer, though, or been supported better on his return to work.