BOOK: The Great Discipline Debate

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 […]

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 […]

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’, […]

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 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 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 […]

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 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 […]

“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 […]

“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 […]

“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 […]