It's around this time each year I really feel for some of our kids in schools. Today's a snow day for many, and that will have been a relief. How many times will they have heard 'Christmas this and Christmas that, presents, friends, family, holiday, Christmas tree, Christmas lights and yet for many of them, Christmas will be another day of struggle.
The TV has its role to play - I have just watched a little of Kirsty Alsop making presents and baskets of food for her friends. The table should contrast the red and white of Christmas with the blue of my kitchen. She says her house hasn't celebrated Christmas for 40 years and I'm sure many of our kids haven't ever celebrated in the proper sense.
What must it feel like to be in a chaotic and disjointed house at Christmas. Any money in the house may be spent on drinks and fags. Being left alone to look after younger siblings, little in the way of festive food - I think you get the picture.
Having watched 'Freedom Writers' last night, it made me think how we, as teachers, apply our middle class values and expectations onto the shoulders of our children who have no way of living up to us. Some of them manage in quiet desperation, some of them let it out and show the world they aren't happy. It's the latter group that I really feel for, the ones who get it at home and then get it again at school. The ones who struggle to get up in chaos and find something to wear, something to eat, if they're lucky and then get to school to be told that they need to go home and change out of their trainers and into shoes.
How can you cope with this? How can you manage your anger? How can you learn to respect the system when it takes no account of how hard you have tried - even if no-one saw it?
No wonder teachers get the 'f*** off' from kids these days.
I read an article from First Eleven in NEWS, VIEWS & OPINIONS for independent schools and took note of the content as it made sense. I wonder if it hit other readers the same way it hit me?
Melanie Reid
Britain has a perverse attitude towards children at risk says Melanie Reid. We wept over Baby P, but reacted with hard-hearted disgust to the news that thousands of “feral brats” are disrupting our children’s classrooms each year. Yet these difficult youngsters – an astonishing 1200 pupils aged four or under were excluded from schools in 2007 – are simply the Baby Peters who have survived.
The way to deal with their disruptive behaviour is to give them the proper care. Excluding them from school merely “perpetuates the abandonment” started by incompetent, abusive and drug-addled parents. Moreover, money well spent in the early years “saves billions in the long run in welfare payments and prison costs”. Take “nurture groups” – special classes of up to 12 children within mainstream schools, which address social and emotional development as well as academic work.
This successful model is not yet standard practice in Britain.
Until it is, thousands of abused children will continue to disrupt our schools.
I know we haven't got time to deal with all of this, you might say, we're not social workers, you know. But we do have to deal with this and we do need to take care and help, even if we have no time. We really do.
Christmas has always bought home the reality of their reality to me. It's just not the same reality they live in and we need to have some sense of what it is they have to manage, before we issue our compliance techniques, detentions and exclusions.
Just something to chew on when you tuck into the beef or turkey on Xmas day
The TV has its role to play - I have just watched a little of Kirsty Alsop making presents and baskets of food for her friends. The table should contrast the red and white of Christmas with the blue of my kitchen. She says her house hasn't celebrated Christmas for 40 years and I'm sure many of our kids haven't ever celebrated in the proper sense.
What must it feel like to be in a chaotic and disjointed house at Christmas. Any money in the house may be spent on drinks and fags. Being left alone to look after younger siblings, little in the way of festive food - I think you get the picture.
Having watched 'Freedom Writers' last night, it made me think how we, as teachers, apply our middle class values and expectations onto the shoulders of our children who have no way of living up to us. Some of them manage in quiet desperation, some of them let it out and show the world they aren't happy. It's the latter group that I really feel for, the ones who get it at home and then get it again at school. The ones who struggle to get up in chaos and find something to wear, something to eat, if they're lucky and then get to school to be told that they need to go home and change out of their trainers and into shoes.
How can you cope with this? How can you manage your anger? How can you learn to respect the system when it takes no account of how hard you have tried - even if no-one saw it?
No wonder teachers get the 'f*** off' from kids these days.
I read an article from First Eleven in NEWS, VIEWS & OPINIONS for independent schools and took note of the content as it made sense. I wonder if it hit other readers the same way it hit me?
Melanie Reid
Britain has a perverse attitude towards children at risk says Melanie Reid. We wept over Baby P, but reacted with hard-hearted disgust to the news that thousands of “feral brats” are disrupting our children’s classrooms each year. Yet these difficult youngsters – an astonishing 1200 pupils aged four or under were excluded from schools in 2007 – are simply the Baby Peters who have survived.
The way to deal with their disruptive behaviour is to give them the proper care. Excluding them from school merely “perpetuates the abandonment” started by incompetent, abusive and drug-addled parents. Moreover, money well spent in the early years “saves billions in the long run in welfare payments and prison costs”. Take “nurture groups” – special classes of up to 12 children within mainstream schools, which address social and emotional development as well as academic work.
This successful model is not yet standard practice in Britain.
Until it is, thousands of abused children will continue to disrupt our schools.
I know we haven't got time to deal with all of this, you might say, we're not social workers, you know. But we do have to deal with this and we do need to take care and help, even if we have no time. We really do.
Christmas has always bought home the reality of their reality to me. It's just not the same reality they live in and we need to have some sense of what it is they have to manage, before we issue our compliance techniques, detentions and exclusions.
Just something to chew on when you tuck into the beef or turkey on Xmas day