Off Topic Politics Thread

I left secondary school in Farnborough 1966 and was one of a growing group who wouldn't accept the status quo. Particularly corporal punishment, several teachers were physically restrained by pupils, I got an undeserved clip round the ear stood up, was about to reciprocate, stopped and took him out to make a formal report and possibly involve the police. On route he apologised, I left it at that he also apologised to the class and thereafter changed his approach. There was a change going on, some teachers left one whose behaviour would be considered sadistic today.

I left and took an apprenticeship with day release, became the apprentice association rep. We successfully complained about one or two college lecturers whose teaching was out of date and irrelevant. We also took a far more active part in the improvement of the training we were getting.

So there I was 16 in '66 questioning all aspects of life. Writing the above jogs my memory. During a careers advice class at school something suddenly struck me. Up went my hand and I asked if I'd got it right. Leave school start work or further education continue working taking my two weeks holiday retiring at 65 with a life expectancy of 70. I was indignant, said that's not for me I'll find another way. I was told to leave the room as I was a disruptive influence. I was never made a prefect strange that.

 

I came across one or two sadistic teachers during the course of my education. And quite a few who weren’t bullies, but could only seem to keep order by lashing out at kids.

I also had a few excellent teachers, to whom I am still grateful. They were mostly the ones who wanted their charges to think for themselves.

There was also one Maths teacher who everyone was scared off because of his general demeanour, but who dished out very few punishments, if any. I was genuinely scared of him, but in hindsight he was the reason I passed my Maths O Level.

 

Thinking about education, the most important subject should be "Health" in all its aspects - physical, mental, oral hygiene, diet, and taking responsibility when sexual awareness arises. What did I get at school? Not this!

 

Funny, isn’t it? We had an absolutely brilliant Maths teacher who could walk into a chaotic classroom of 13-15 year olds and there was instant silence. He never used corporal punishment but just got our respect with his teaching. I remember he was off one week and I messed around so much in the class taken by his replacement that I was sent out. The next week when he came into the room he singled me out and said “I heard you were sent out of the room by Mr Hallighey. That’s very disappointing” ..... I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.
Out of a class of 31, we achieved 30 “A”s and 1 “B” at O-level. He was the only teacher to get a 100% pass rate at A-level too. Legend. Sadly I heard years later that he committed suicidal. What a waste
Pity today’s “yoof” couldn’t have that level of respect, eh?
And yet there were a number of sadistic and bad-tempered teachers there. They wouldn’t be allowed now to do things like throw board rubbers (and even a chisel in woodwork) and chalk with unerring accuracy, would they?
I’m all for gaining respect by your decent actions, but when you hear of the little ****s chucking bricks off the bridges over the M27, you wonder if some level of physical punishment might not go amiss ......

 

Or to paraphrase Billy Connolly “instead of being told how to chat up girls, get a job, look after your money ..... what was I taught? ****ing algebra!”
Though, to be fair, we all use algebra a lot more than one might think!

 

Sorry to cut across your education chat, but Trump is promising tax cuts for the middle classes [oh yeah?]. To pay for it? Well, watch the video and find out.
And remember that this Tory government is going to try to model align itself with Trump's economic strategy. Sorry, Trump's underlings' strategy. Trump has no ****ing idea:

 

Didn't work with me Dave, was caned many times because I was a disruptive little **** and I took a certain malicious delight in saying "didn't hurt, didn't hurt" after every stroke just to provoke the teacher. I still bear the scars, but the kudos points after my headmaster actually broke a cane on me were worth the pain.
Punishment is a useful tool, but physical punishment isn't particularly

 

My "secondary school" was so crap that I cruised through it. The grammar school that I could have gone to was denied to me by my parents, but that's another story. There was one maths teacher in this crap school who had an extraordinary skill and which was totally missed by all the other pupils in the class. I used to be captured spellbound by this, in an, for me, otherwise dreadful school for learning.

He would write the first line of a mathematical problem on the board, and with his left hand start the second sentence. If you think about this, it is mind stretching.
Not only could he write with right and left hands, but together at the same time. And the left hand wrote different words to the right hand. Plus, the left hand, writing the second part, wrote the first word of the following line, to the last word written by the right hand [he was right handed, I think, from his gestures of pointing or picking objects up, etc]. The handwriting was slightly different from each hand, but neither could be considered the dominant hand.

Finally, if he wrote mathematical problems on the board which only took up one line, he was able to write one problem in one hand while writing the other problem underneath with the other hand. Funnily enough, he was an otherwise unengaging maths teacher, as dry as dust, so we never learned that much. But I always remembered that skill. He must have been a savant, or austistically skilled, in an era which didn't openly recognise such things.

 

Seems to me the discussion re. the teaching skills or otherwise of our collective youth was dependant on whether the teacher was authoritative or authoritarian. The same distinction applies to parenthood. It also applies to the professionals in health and social services, and in a more general sense policing, as in 'policing by consent'.
The problem is how do people acquire the necessary skills to behave as authoritative adults? Clearly a good start in life that provides the ground work that points towards emotional maturity. Hence the stupidity of the years of austerity that cut 'Sure start', perhaps the most important public service to be cut... I could go on but you get the gist.

 

Anyway, to my main point. You guys are talking about education for children. Possibly for the future. This morning I started off giving my vague opinion [I do have a fairly clear idea, but couldn't summon it]. It was about letting kids enjoy their curiosity [whereas schooling kills it unless the child is super curious] and encouraging their thoughts to expand and think forward and go to tangents when they find a reason. Basically, what I'm saying is that I would encourage kids in the various ways of thinking. I would also include a good basic understanding of mathematics [or maybe even solid arithmetic] and reading [and writing]. You can actually go without being able to add or subtract, but try going through life without being able to read. People do it, and their lives are severely limited by it. They can't do what we do here, for a poor example. Any other subject could be up to them for their exploration. Personally, I would encourage a science, but that would be my preference.
I would also encourage them to be children. Proper kids things. Run around a lot. Play hide and seek. Climb trees. Take a few risks, etc. Playing games teaches an enormous amount about life. It's improperly understood to this day, except by experts in the field.

So what brought me back to this subject after my abortive morning attempt to explain myself? Youtube's Zac and Jesse, from Now You Know.
It's about "Back of the Napkin" maths, or as we used to say, "on the back of the cigarette packet", or "back of the tissue." Anyway, it explains a lot about practical skills.
Typically American, but don't let that put you off:

 

Yep my granddad used to be able to write with both hands and as fast. Not me though I can sign with both hands but not much more than that.......

 

I was speaking to my own children about this recently. They actually said that we seemed to encourage them to ask questions. (And not why do I have to go to bed now type questions....)
I distinctly remember my son asking what does splitting the atom involve? meaning I had to go out and get him a book on the subject. Which he says he's has still got somewhere..........Yes sometimes questions you couldn't answer. Luckily for me there wasn't a question or subject (Including the girls) that I wasn't prepared to discuss. Or put them on the right track where to find the answers if I didn't know..........which was probably fairly often Im guessing....

 

An interesting article on the true unemployment figures.
I haven’t had time to look into the various links in it, but I have always been suspicious of the government claims.

https://www.businessinsider.com/une...e-used-to-create-the-numbers-2017-7?r=US&IR=T

 

Interesting looking back on teachers. I was on a local Facebook history site and someone posted a picture of my primary school head. Cue loads of posts saying how wonderful he was. I posted saying that in my last year I had been sent by my teacher to deliver a message and, being told it was important, knocked on his office door and went in. A girl from my class was sitting in his lap.

His grandson contacted me complaining about my post and I think I must have been banned from the site because I can no longer post. Over Christmas I was talking to a lady and we found that we grew up in adjacent streets. I casually observed that we must have gone to the same school and, as she I'd three years older than me, would have been there at the same time. Her immediate reaction was to say "Mr. N*****.

She went on to tell me that she was sexually abused several times by this man. As I had seen several posts by the grandson implying that as I no longer posted I was a "false accuser". So I emailed him and asked for a retraction of his accusations. I was contacted by the local police and threatened with prosecution under the Malicious Communication Act to which I replied effectively "Go ahead punk, make my day." I received a mail back saying that they were not going to prosecute me. ( it's not their decision anyway but the CPS) when I told the lady she called the police and made a complaint of Historical Sex Abuse. The headmaster in question was a JP and Chairman of the bench who my dad referred to as "A rancid Tory." He lived across the road from us.

 

A girl at my school who I went out with years later was assaulted by the physics teacher when she was 12. Her parents complained, as did a few other parents, and he found another job fairly soon after. I have often wondered over the years if he ever ended up being prosecuted.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/society...TayrlFVickxxJyxs8qyTuJz7zgCQqJmI-zbo97aNd3Qn4

Good work electing the crook, working class North...

 

Facial Recognition Cameras being rolled out by the Metropolitan police across London.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/27/facial-recognition-cameras-technology-police

What a bloody disgrace, and the reality of '1984' and a Dystopian world is now very much with us. China uses the same technology to maintain an iron like grip on its citizens and we are going to be subjected to much the same snooping here. The Met police 'assure us' that their only intention is to catch criminals and terrorists and the average citizen has nothing to fear. Oh really.

This is all about power and control and many innocent people are going to get caught up in it. Protestors, climate activists and other decent people will find themselves on police and anti-terrorist databases just by exercising their right to object. These people will be the first to be lifted when the government want to crack down on perfectly legal protests, just because they see them as a threat to their authority.

What has happened to our right to privacy? Who the hell are these people that they think they have the right to monitor and record people just going about their lawful daily business? It's outrageous that any government should allow this to happen, let alone instigate it, but when you have an arse wipe such as Priti Patel as Home Secretary I guess we have to expect this kind of thing.

Well Mr Metropolitan policeman you can shove your London cameras up your arse and take a packet of **** off tablets while you are at it.

 

Every budding criminal, climate activist, political dissident, or civil liberties campaigner in London should immediately start wearing Priti Patel face masks bearing her smuggest expression. In fact everyone should.

 

Thanks for posting that TS2 can't like it, horrible the orange man and the people pulling his strings. The massive error by the opposition of going for the early election has given spaffer Johnson such a large majority that proper scrutiny and amendment of legislation isn't possible. The WAB was passed with parliamentary approval and family reunification removed. So Cummings and the rest of the shadows will form the UK's ongoing policy.

 

I understand the non-like SJ. I hate the bloody thing myself.