FIRST LIGHT ON THE SCOURGE OF BULLYING There are Answers to this Blight on Childhood Misery What price a 15-year-old girl’s life? Less than a year’s probation, it seems. This is the sentence recently handed down in the United States on five – yes, five – teenage girls, most two or three years older than […]
BOOK: The Great Discipline Debate
The Great Discipline Debate: Humor in Discipline
TALE OF TWO DONKEYS Humor as Therapy and as a Disciplinary Aid So, why all the jokes in a book about discipline? The control and pastoral care of children and teenagers is a very serious business: so it is ironic that the most effective single weapon in the teacher/parent arsenal is humor. A sharp and […]
The Great Discipline Debate: Guns
BROKEN BODIES – BROKEN HEARTS I’ve had it with this gun nightmare – enough is too much! No more Mr. Nice Guy for me – as a journalist and broadcaster, I make this solemn oath. I will do all in my power to send to Coventry any politician, Australia wide, who supports the ‘fine tuning’, […]
The Great Discipline Debate: Storytelling in Discipline
THE FAIRY TALE OF FASCISM New Stories for a New Millennium Living storytelling, whether for teachers or parents, is the creation of new, apt, morally sound yet exciting images for our children. Dead storytelling is practiced by the creatively indolent, who try to breathe life into the corpses of long-dead folk souls by endlessly regurgitating […]
The Great Discipline Debate: Blame
WHO’S TO BLAME? The Street Kids Scandal – or Tale of a Fallen Angel A liberal interpretation of the name Jasmin is ‘scented night flower’; how tragically ironic then to read that a 15-year-old girl – or prostitute as the press preferred to call her – named Jasmin was found defiled and strangled in a […]
The Great Discipline Debate: The Spoken Word
The Spoken Word “Yet another Ego indulgence is aggressive speech, using the voice as a pair of blazing six guns, threatening, and humiliating the children. If a loud noise is needed to rivet the attention of an obstreperous class, an emotionless banged desk lid is better than a roar. Not too loud or too often […]
The Great Discipline Debate: School Uniforms
The Uniform Debate (newspaper article originally in two columns) I was a member of the ‘Collar Up Gang’. We were easy to identify, wore our shirt collars turned up, our school ties only 3 inches long. This was an expression of our contempt for uniforms at my North Coast public high school un-affectionately known as […]
The Great Discipline Debate: Animal, Nature & Art Therapy in the Classroom
AN AVIAN COLLEGIATE! “In a way the teaching profession is like a large aviary; teachers can be characterized as various types of birds. This is not to demean them in any way, merely to isolate and study the well ~ or should that be feed tray? – from which they draw their disciplinary prowess. In […]
The Great Discipline Debate: The Teacher Dress Code
THE TEACHER’S NEW CLOTHES! The hall was very quiet as the remaining delegates wondered what the Chairman would do next. “I’d like to say a few words on how teachers can influence their environment to produce positive conduct in their pupils. Naturally as they have the power to control, they are also often responsible for […]
The Great Discipline Debate: Punishments
“WRITE OUT 100 TIMES – I MUST NOT GIVE BRAINLESS PUNISHMENTS!” The storm had cleared as the delegates gathered for the after-dinner session of The Great Discipline Debate. The afternoon summer light brushed the high cirrus fleeces with gold dust. James Boanerges introduced the next guest; she was an administrator of a large mental hospital […]
The Great Discipline Debate: Love Made Visible
“VORKIS LOVE MADE WISIBLE!” “I’m German,” said the be-suited businessman, leaning on the lectern like one born to public speaking “that’s vhy I chose to speak on the 4th Punishment Principle – Punishment with Vork, To get the most out of our factory vorkers, ve threaten them vith even more vork. So vhy use other […]
The Great Discipline Debate: Verbal Rights of Children
“A CHILD SHOULD BE SEEN AND NOT HEARD!” “Now that we’ve eaten, we can get on with the third principle of punishment – that of separating a child from the ‘herd I as we call it’; standing it with its face in the corner, sending it out into the corridor, whatever – only when it’s […]