by Sandra Stallyon
Education is one of those issues that everyone feels they have a right to comment on.
Maybe it is because they were all horrible children themselves and went to school once, or are feckless parents of a frightful brood?
But they’re wrong. Only teacher knows best.
In fact I’d go farther and say only head teacher knows best.
There are some exceptions, obviously, like every profession there is the odd bad apple in the barrel.
But it still amazes me when I stumble upon evidence of fellow head teachers who have some leftist, way-out, modernistic, clap-trap views on education.
A prime example comes in this grown-up newspaper where a former head mistress claims teachers should be allowed time to teach.
Is she, like, for real?
The last thing teachers should be doing is teaching. The war on children will not be won by helping the devious hordes to learn.
Teachers should be acting more like jailers, not teachers. Lock the blighters up and if they step out of line intimidation and interrogation is the only answer.
During my time as headmistress at the girls’ school, if we ever had any dissent or beastliness from the pupils then they were isolated and interviewed until they confessed. Here’s my former deputy – Hilda Bunce – interrogating a girl accused of wearing the wrong socks:
If my memory serves me correct Hilda said she was going to administer a Chinese burn and the girl crumbled. After confessing to wearing beige-coloured socks, instead of regulation white, the girl was put in solitary confinement for 3 years and then expelled at the age of 18.
I feel confident in saying she never wore miscoloured clothing ever again.
If we ever had mass mutiny then the girls were made to stand still in the gymnasium with their hands on their heads and their torsos twisted for a whole week:
Such methods work and they are what made me such a successful, respected and illustrious head mistress, despite what my pinko governors might have thought.
Teachers should teach?
I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life before.
It is that kind of defeatist attitude that will see the war on children lost.
