Naoko's news, views and shoes thread

[Handley_Page]

Piglet and her friends do have assessment tests about once a term from the sound of it. The Welsh government have got rid of yearly exams, since these are viewed as very stressful for kids, parents and teachers and only teach the kids how to pass exams, not about the actual subject.

I taxed her with why the girls only learn netball and hockey, and not football and rugby. She looked disconcerted and explained that the girls' PE teachers are not trained in how to teach tackling (which I accept as I know tackling has to be very gradually introduced for school children and carefully taught), but I insisted that given the level of expertise available to boys in the Academy for Perfectly Ordinary Piglets (which happens to be very high), I felt it was a missed opportunity.

Isn't there a form of "touch" rugby for youngsters ?
Would that not be a start ?

I can vouch for the teachers side of it as two of my cousins teach primary. Piglet is a perfect example of what happens when you offer carrots not sticks ( bribes, threats, and lock-ins excepted of course )
Because it's important for girls to use weapons
Stands in line for es

What is the approved reaction to a really nasty young little b@st@rd who has no concept of fairness and pain to others?
Bit difficult to offer a carrot to 'em, eh?

 

[stickygirl]

What is the approved reaction to a really nasty young little b@st@rd who has no concept of fairness and pain to others?
Bit difficult to offer a carrot to 'em, eh?

That depends where you put the carrot
*kisses back*

 

[beachbum1958]

My own Tripehound's school made the mistake of teaching her hockey and lacrosse; in other words, they gave her a lethal weapon, and taught her how to use it...

I'm not going to draw any 'St Trinian's' parallels here, but giving Tripehound and her friends long sticks with a bit of heft was giving them carte blanche to commit mayhem; basically, they were armed, in the frame, and ready for blood. True to my worst fears, the little 1st Form girlies played a famous school in Rutland, and committed so many fouls, beatings, and unbelievable exhibitions of raw fury that they were banned from playing for the rest of the year. Lori was shocked and appalled; she was called to the school to explain why her step-daughter was filmed battering the crap out of a girl twice her size.

Lori's initial reaction, as a shrimp herself, was to go 'Yay, go girl!', which wasn't the most helpful thing to say; eventually, Tripehound was called in and duly suspended, which is what I think she was hoping for, but then it emerged the girl had called her a 'slope'; (Tripehound's mother was half-Korean, and Tripehound is the image of her mother; people tell me she looks just like the Disney 'Pocohontas' character). She took exception, and went in for the kill. When this was finally revealed, the school reinstated her, which she blamed Lori for, and began her regime of running away at every opportune moment.

Things only quieted down when the school relented and allowed her to keep her horse at the school, they thought it encouraged self-discipline and orderliness, in that she had to muck-out and groom the thing before breakfast every day, and also kept her natural impulses in check, as the thought of putting a lacrosse stick or a hockey stick in her hands made the school governors feel all faint...

 

[R. Richard]

Piglet and her friends do have assessment tests about once a term from the sound of it. The Welsh government have got rid of yearly exams, since these are viewed as very stressful for kids, parents and teachers and only teach the kids how to pass exams, not about the actual subject.

Without a review of what a child has or has not learned, school is an exercise in denial of reality. A computer based test can test what the child has earned, but can also verify at what level the child has learned, because the next question depends on the correct or incorrect answer to the previous question. The main concern is that tests not only test the student, but also the teacher. (Don't try to tell me about environment. I was living in an abandoned building, shoplifting my meals and fighting bigots who didn't like Whi' Boy, on a night by night basis. I was a National Merit Scholarship finalist.

 

[Handley_Page]

That depends where you put the carrot
*kisses back*

I just had to look up the word "stent".
I guess one might stretch a point occasionally.

My own Tripehound's school made the mistake of teaching her hockey and lacrosse; in other words, they gave her a lethal weapon, and taught her how to use it...

I'm not going to draw any 'St Trinian's' parallels here, but giving Tripehound and her friends long sticks with a bit of heft was giving them carte blanche to commit mayhem; basically, they were armed, in the frame, and ready for blood. True to my worst fears, the little 1st Form girlies played a famous school in Rutland, and committed so many fouls, beatings, and unbelievable exhibitions of raw fury that they were banned from playing for the rest of the year. Lori was shocked and appalled; she was called to the school to explain why her step-daughter was filmed battering the crap out of a girl twice her size.

Lori's initial reaction, as a shrimp herself, was to go 'Yay, go girl!', which wasn't the most helpful thing to say; eventually, Tripehound was called in and duly suspended, which is what I think she was hoping for, but then it emerged the girl had called her a 'slope'; (Tripehound's mother was half-Korean, and Tripehound is the image of her mother; people tell me she looks just like the Disney 'Pocohontas' character). She took exception, and went in for the kill. When this was finally revealed, the school reinstated her, which she blamed Lori for, and began her regime of running away at every opportune moment.

Things only quieted down when the school relented and allowed her to keep her horse at the school, they thought it encouraged self-discipline and orderliness, in that she had to muck-out and groom the thing before breakfast every day, and also kept her natural impulses in check, as the thought of putting a lacrosse stick or a hockey stick in her hands made the school governors feel all faint...

As ever, BB, your talent for telling a tale is vastly ignored. You can really write well.
I had a cousin who knew about Hockey & lacrosse sticks and the damage one can do; it took a long time for the bruises to heal.
BTW: Did the one who accused her of being 'slope' (a term I have never heard before), get a bit of a pasting from Authority ?

Without a review of what a child has or has not learned, school is an exercise in denial of reality. A computer based test can test what the child has earned, but can also verify at what level the child has learned, because the next question depends on the correct or incorrect answer to the previous question. The main concern is that tests not only test the student, but also the teacher.

Back in the day, we had a test at the end of every term AND every year. It would ensure that the next year's schooling was better aimed, I guess.
Given enough warning about such things, I cannot for the life of me see the problem.
But we seem to live in a very soft world these days.

 

[stickygirl]

I think the problem with annual tests is not that they are a bad thing as such, but that they suffer from too much interference from government bodies. Responsibilty has been taken out of the hands of teachers and put into quangoes because governement want to micro-manage, and overpaid interferers, with cheap suits, think they are gods. The end result is that the system is too big and not flexible enough. Thrown into that clusterfuck, successive govts have introduced private enterprise via academies.

As for badly behaved kids.... c'mon, there have always been bad kids - the difference is you aren't allowed to trash them anymore or bugger them in choir practise like the olde days.

 

[Handley_Page]

I think the problem with annual tests is not that they are a bad thing as such, but that they suffer from too much interference from government bodies. Responsibilty has been taken out of the hands of teachers and put into quangoes because governement want to micro-manage, and overpaid interferers, with cheap suits, think they are gods. The end result is that the system is too big and not flexible enough. Thrown into that clusterfuck, successive govts have introduced private enterprise via academies.

As for badly behaved kids.... c'mon, there have always been bad kids - the difference is you aren't allowed to trash them anymore or bugger them in choir practise like the olde days.

Back in the Day, a violent or 'naughty' child could be given a right good whack with a slipper; in front of the whole class or even the school.
I begin to think that each school should have its own authorised "executioner".

 

[beachbum1958]

I just had to look up the word "stent".
I guess one might stretch a point occasionally.




As ever, BB, your talent for telling a tale is vastly ignored. You can really write well.
I had a cousin who knew about Hockey & lacrosse sticks and the damage one can do; it took a long time for the bruises to heal.
BTW: Did the one who accused her of being 'slope' (a term I have never heard before), get a bit of a pasting from Authority ?

'Slope' was the derogatory term the US forces in Vietnam used for the locals. As far as the girl who called Tripehound that, I don't know if her school up in the wilds of Rutland did anything to her, but I did hear that after the game she was mysteriously beaten-up behind their school bus in front of half the school, who swore hands on heart they'd seen or heard nothing...

Being an only child with no strong female influence in her life until quite late on, she developed into a self-reliant, arsey, loud-mouthed, street-smart, opinionated squirt with more guts than you could hang on a paddock fence; if there was ever a Tripehound/Werewolf punch-up, I'd have to flip a coin to decide who to bet on for the win...

 

[R. Richard]

I think the problem with annual tests is not that they are a bad thing as such, but that they suffer from too much interference from government bodies. Responsibilty has been taken out of the hands of teachers and put into quangoes because governement want to micro-manage, and overpaid interferers, with cheap suits, think they are gods. The end result is that the system is too big and not flexible enough. Thrown into that clusterfuck, successive govts have introduced private enterprise via academies.

The underlying problem with scheduled tests can perhaps best be understood by reading 'The Pencil Sharpener Man'. Almost an entire USA high school English class was unable to write a simple theme on anything connected to the real world. The failure wasn't the tests or even the students. The teachers weren't interested in the students learning anything, just in the emotional reacti9n of the students to what was read or heard.

 

[stickygirl]

That c*nt Jeremy Clarkson used the term in one of his Asian Top gear specials.

So back to this spanking HP... how bad did you have to be to get spanked? Only asking from an educational pov..

 

[R. Richard]

Back in the Day, a violent or 'naughty' child could be given a right good whack with a slipper; in front of the whole class or even the school.
I begin to think that each school should have its own authorised "executioner".

Back on the day, there was a violent man who occasionally attended class at Manual Arts High School. He always wore a jacket, even on the hottest days. Down one side of the jacket was a Bowie knife, down the other side was a .357 magnum. If Whi' Boy didn't get you with the knife or the gun, he could settle things hand to hand. The authorities in the South Central couldn't deal with the situations there. Whi' Boy, by then called Willie Green, did figure out a way to improve the safety of the South Central He done split clean.
If you want to try corporal punishment, make damn sure that you have what it takes.

 

[MrBennet]

I was beaten twice at school, once for poor grades and another time, wrongly, for a misdemeanour I hadn't committed. It hurt but the pain of indignation was worse. I can't say it did me any good or harm. It didn't make me work harder as we were already terrorised by an old fashioned teaching establishment. Happily at the senior school things were a bit more advanced. I think there are better ways than beating a child - the practise lacks imagination and simply demonstrates exasperation on the part of adults

 

[oggbashan]

That c*nt Jeremy Clarkson used the term in one of his Asian Top gear specials.

So back to this spanking HP... how bad did you have to be to get spanked? Only asking from an educational pov..

It depends on the era.

1900 to 1914? A grammar or spelling mistake was enough.

1918-1939? Talking in class, sleeping, not paying attention, distracting other pupils.

1945 - 1960? Same as 1918-1939 but less frequently. Smoking on school premises or grounds was a justification for caning.

Post 1960 the use of corporal punishment was greadually eroded until it became illegal.

 

[Handley_Page]

It depends on the era.

1900 to 1914? A grammar or spelling mistake was enough.

1918-1939? Talking in class, sleeping, not paying attention, distracting other pupils.

1945 - 1960? Same as 1918-1939 but less frequently. Smoking on school premises or grounds was a justification for caning.

Post 1960 the use of corporal punishment was greadually eroded until it became illegal.

There are those who maintain that the inmates have taken over the asylum . . .

 

[NaokoSmith]

Happy Easter.

Chocolate, chocolate - it's time for lots of chocolate!


Although TBH, in the past, we have had situations when Piglet was given her weight in large foil-wrapped eggs at Easter. A couple of years I still had some left over at Christmas, which I recycled by melting them down and dribbling them on the Christmas biscuits

An Ogg sighting!
*hug*s


Goodness me, the discussion about school discipline, sporting regime and testing is pretty lively. Let me see ...

Re. the testing, the trouble with that is that if there are yearly exams, teachers are prone to restrict their teaching to things which will help the kids get good results in the exam. Then once the exam is over, everyone is exhausted and does nothing for quite a chunk of the term. I dislike exams partly because when I was an undergrad, I had a friend who had slacked his way through two and a half years of highly privileged learning opportunities. In the last three months, he stuck himself in a library and learned how to write a good essay in half an hour. So in the exam he wrote great half-hour essays based on very little knowledge, and got a 2.1 when other people who had worked much harder and had far more knowledge of the subject got lower grades. I felt this was not a very good means of assessing what he had (not) gained from his education.

Although Piglet's school do little formal testing, they have frequent and rigorous assessment and I was pretty impressed by the knowledge teachers had of her abilities (bar a few slackers like the PE teacher), considering they spend much less time with her in the week than did the primary school teachers.

beachbum and Jane, I am totally with you on the lacrosse/hockey weapons-training thing! I have always eschewed these as very dangerous games - compared of course to rugby, which is a nice gentlemanly blood sport involving mere fisticuffs. Although as someone who had to have quiet words about children who pulled slanted eyes at Piglet (nobody did this for me at school as in those days it was not taken so seriously), I am delighted to hear Tripehound had something sturdy in her hands when she was slurred in the middle of a match.

HP, as regards rugby for growing children, there is a very good and organised graduation of tackling skills nowadays. At a very young age, children play 'tag' rugby, where they have some sort of velcro tags - once the other team has got six or seven of these without scoring, the referee stops the game and hands the ball over to the other side. After that, kids play 'touch' rugby, where you have to hold a player then after six or seven holds the ball is handed over.

(Now where is he putting his carrot? <snerk>)

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2F236x%2F39%2Fc0%2Fcf%2F39c0cf6e12f08a661fa6dd2d1031eb2e.jpg&f=1

 

[Handley_Page]

Can I have a decent copy of that Playboy Bunny cartoon please?

 

[MichaelinChina]

It depends on the era.

1900 to 1914? A grammar or spelling mistake was enough.

1918-1939? Talking in class, sleeping, not paying attention, distracting other pupils.

1945 - 1960? Same as 1918-1939 but less frequently. Smoking on school premises or grounds was a justification for caning.

Post 1960 the use of corporal punishment was greadually eroded until it became illegal.

1968 Australia (Queensland state school) - I remember vividly watching classmates (boys; girls were never caned) being caned in front of the whole class for misdemeanours. By the male class teacher.
The Headmaster also had a set of canes in a cupboard in his office. ''The cuts'' as they were called were as many as 6 - on the outstretched hand.

 

[R. Richard]

:Re. the testing, the trouble with that is that if there are yearly exams, teachers are prone to restrict their teaching to things which will help the kids get good results in the exam. Then once the exam is over, everyone is exhausted and does nothing for quite a chunk of the term. I dislike exams partly because when I was an undergrad, I had a friend who had slacked his way through two and a half years of highly privileged learning opportunities. In the last three months, he stuck himself in a library and learned how to write a good essay in half an hour. So in the exam he wrote great half-hour essays based on very little knowledge, and got a 2.1 when other people who had worked much harder and had far more knowledge of the subject got lower grades. I felt this was not a very good means of assessing what he had (not) gained from his education.

Although Piglet's school do little formal testing, they have frequent and rigorous assessment and I was pretty impressed by the knowledge teachers had of her abilities (bar a few slackers like the PE teacher), considering they spend much less time with her in the week than did the primary school teachers.
HP, as regards rugby for growing children, there is a very good and organised graduation of tackling skills nowadays. At a very young age, children play 'tag' rugby, where they have some sort of velcro tags - once the other team has got six or seven of these without scoring, the referee stops the game and hands the ball over to the other side. After that, kids play 'touch' rugby, where you have to hold a player then after six or seven holds the ball is handed over.

An end of year test should be comprehensive enough that all of the major areas of knowledge are covered. Of course, the student needs to be required to demonstrate the underlying knowledge and not just memorized 'facts.' In the badly broken high school that I attended, the best students in an English class could write reams of essay about how they felt about a subject, however, they couldn't write any sort of description of a real world process. In math class, the better students could demonstrate ability in such important areas as addition, sub traction and even multiplication, however, they were unable to solve real world (word) problems. In order to pass English, I had to play American Football. We would run a simple play, '34 delay, x out, y streak, z zig out.' The other guys would have to be walked through their specific assignment, with no idea of the overall philosophy of the play. I ran a 31 power, x out, y out, z kick and the mike linebacker broke through. I faked a lateral to the trail back (there was no trail back,) put my forearm upside mike's head, did a mcelhenny cut and got the first down. All that from a guy who couldn't pass high school English.

 

[beachbum1958]

1968 Australia (Queensland state school) - I remember vividly watching classmates (boys; girls were never caned) being caned in front of the whole class for misdemeanours. By the male class teacher.
The Headmaster also had a set of canes in a cupboard in his office. ''The cuts'' as they were called were as many as 6 - on the outstretched hand.

In my prep school (England, 1968 - 1973) the least little infraction got you caned in front of the school, usually at Assembly, first thing in the morning; of course, you were told the evening before, so you had a whole night to stew. Answering the question a master (who were all psychotic to one degree or another) was screaming in your face got you the cane for being 'lippy and smart', while not answering the question was 'dumb insolence' Net result was the same, you got flogged in front of the school, minimum six on one hand, and if the bastard headmaster was in a bad mood, you got six on each hand.

When I moved up to boarding school proper, my older brother, who was 10 years older than me, an alumnus of the school, and a lieutenant in the Royal Marines 45 Commando, reminded the school of the pain and destruction he and his squad were capable of raining down on them if his baby brother was physically abused or injured in any way; I didn't find out about this until long after I'd gone to university, but apparently the school took him seriously, because for the seven years I was in that snob-factory, where beating was routine and an accepted hazard for stepping out of line, the only punishment I ever received was extra prep, detention (basically house arrest), or being gated (confined to the school grounds) on home weekends...

 

[R. Richard]

Double post

 

[stickygirl]

So... what have all these bruised bottoms and hands brought us? Hands up if you would do it all again or recommend your children/grandchildren should enjoy the same benefits?

 

[MrBennet]

Ha! Look out chaps, we've been ambushed! Sticky question indeed

 

[curl4ever]

...
She has really enjoyed secondary school and taken to the new intellectual challenges like a leaping salmon. (And let's not forget that Somebody got her through a major bereavement plus leaving the Fella, and settled her into the new domestic arrangements in good time for her to find her feet at secondary school without additional emotional turmoil distracting her.)
...

I think that that Somebody deserves quite a tribute!

{ } * { }

 

[beachbum1958]

So... what have all these bruised bottoms and hands brought us? Hands up if you would do it all again or recommend your children/grandchildren should enjoy the same benefits?

Much as I've been tempted to believe over the years that Tripehound is a changeling, and my real daughter is off being mummy and daddy's Perfect Little Princess somewhere far, far away, while I have the Wild Woman Of Wonga, if anyone, teacher or educator, had laid a hand on her, they would have had to spend the rest of their life using their belly-button as a blow-hole, because I would have hammered their head up their own arse; you don't hit kids, period.

 

[jaF0]

Too much?