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Emperors Faithful wrote:
How would humiliation work in this regard? If the classmates have the same maturity as matty they piss themselves laughing and that will only increase the kids standing and set an example.

I teach a lot of intro (and therefore required) classes at the Uni I'm attending right now, and believe me, there are always ways; especially for women.

"I've felt bigger." immediately comes to mind. Of course, that would be followed by laughter, which should elicit "I bet you have too."

dogma wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:
How would humiliation work in this regard? If the classmates have the same maturity as matty they piss themselves laughing and that will only increase the kids standing and set an example.

I teach a lot of intro (and therefore required) classes at the Uni I'm attending right now, and believe me, there are always ways; especially for women.

"I've felt bigger." immediately comes to mind. Of course, that would be followed by laughter, which should elicit "I bet you have too."

If this was a one time thing (which I think would still be serious) and if this was in a university where they students are somewhat more mature, maybe. In that sort of environment, and the likelihood that this is a culmination of harrasment from the pupil to the teacher then I don't think that approach would work at all, and might in fact encourage his behaviour.

I'm willing to bet this wasn't the first time he's done something innapropriate (calling the teacher a slut just within earshot, leaving derogotary notes where she'll see them are some examples of what happened at my old school). This is probably either the only single act which would allow grounds for expulsion or the first time someone noticed that the idiot was posting this on facebook.

Blame the victim.

That's just plain vile of a student to do. I did pull some pranks in my time, but this is just idiotic.

And amusing as though it might sound, humiliating a student in class for that isn't education, and definitely not the answer for a prank like that.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
If this was a one time thing (which I think would still be serious) and if this was in a university where they students are somewhat more mature, maybe. In that sort of environment, and the likelihood that this is a culmination of harrasment from the pupil to the teacher then I don't think that approach would work at all, and might in fact encourage his behaviour.

Sure, but so might expulsion. The web we weave is very tangled.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
I'm willing to bet this wasn't the first time he's done something innapropriate (calling the teacher a slut just within earshot, leaving derogotary notes where she'll see them are some examples of what happened at my old school). This is probably either the only single act which would allow grounds for expulsion or the first time someone noticed that the idiot was posting this on facebook.

My freshman (high school) bio teacher was also a masseuse, and very attractive. The mockery/flirtation was heavy, but she soldiered through with skill and insults.

You are right though, without the full story w can't really comment.

Amaya wrote:What exactly is the point of expelling a student unless they're a physical threat? This was just a stupid prank. Suspend or give him detention for eternity.

We don't know the background of the pupil.

Expulsion normally follows either an incident of gross misconduct, such as serious physical assault, or a long term pattern of lower level misbehaviour.

If a pupil has proved himself incorrigible, there is no incentive to keep him in the school. There is every incentive to use a good excuse to get rid of him, and improve your exam results.

In this case I would guess it was long term misbehaviour.

Avatar 720 wrote:Indeed, you've basically ruined their education by having a permenant mark stamped on their record, so they've got limited options as far as re-entering education goes, with colleges and unis possibly taking a dim view of it too, not to mention furture workplaces ("The boy got expelled? Oh, don't want him working for us.").

I think it's perfectly right, like feth do I want him working in my office. "Hey Gaz, fancy a brew?" "No thanks, scummer."

If this "prank" occurred in a work place there would be no other likey course of action but dismissal.

Destrado wrote:Blame the victim.

That's just plain vile of a student to do. I did pull some pranks in my time, but this is just idiotic.

And amusing as though it might sound, humiliating a student in class for that isn't education, and definitely not the answer for a prank like that.

Wangers on the glass at the Alano Club?!?

That just ain't right!

dogma wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:
If this was a one time thing (which I think would still be serious) and if this was in a university where they students are somewhat more mature, maybe. In that sort of environment, and the likelihood that this is a culmination of harrasment from the pupil to the teacher then I don't think that approach would work at all, and might in fact encourage his behaviour.

Sure, but so might expulsion. The web we weave is very tangled.

Honestly I don't see the train of thought occuring here. Unless I've missed something and getting expelled is the new thing.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
I'm willing to bet this wasn't the first time he's done something innapropriate (calling the teacher a slut just within earshot, leaving derogotary notes where she'll see them are some examples of what happened at my old school). This is probably either the only single act which would allow grounds for expulsion or the first time someone noticed that the idiot was posting this on facebook.

My freshman (high school) bio teacher was also a masseuse, and very attractive. The mockery/flirtation was heavy, but she soldiered through with skill and insults.

You are right though, without the full story w can't really comment.

I don't know how she'd react to this incident. But I doubt she'd respond just with insults and wisecacks, there would likely be a formal action that could very well end up with the student in question being given the boot.

Chibi's example regarding work holds up here. Sure, he's a kid. But he's a high school kid, not 3.

It's blatant gross misconduct! How can people argue AGAINST his expulsion? That's mad! I was suspended for several days for just being caught smoking. I had a mate who got suspended for having a shaven head, ferchrissakes!

It's definitely an expulsion, no question. If he didn't want to work in McDonalds for the rest of his life, he should have considered his actions more carefully. Tough gak. We need more discipline in schools urgently.

Logic dictates I agree with Albatross. The teachers I think have to assert that this style of 'prank', regardless of how amusing it was, is disallowed. Otherwise, there is a good chance (well over the 50% mark) that things like this will continue to occur, those instigating the acts sinking to lower and lower depths. I don't think I need to offer any approximations of % chance to convince people that this will negatively hamper school work, and thereby exam grdaes; reflecting badly on the school as a whole.

I'm confused as well. For some I guess they're trying out the role of Devil's Advocate, but the stance on others is really blindsinding me given their normal look on things.

I'll get the acid.

Humor wouldn't work in this case. She found out about it after the fact, and the
impact of an embarrassing comeback would have been much much less. Hell,
it would have been ineffective.

For those of you who think expulsion or suspension is too much, how would
you treat a health care worker doing something like this? Or someone who worked
in food preparation?

What if some guy teacher (not naming names now, *wink wink*) stuck his
junk in some students drinks before they drank from it? What if the student
was really young?

Why is it acceptable for this to happen to a teacher? I have teacher bias, of
course, but even though you're the scum of the earth I'd never want to hear about
a colleague of mine doing that to somebody, even to a student who is most
deserving.

As for fun punishments you could never carry out, you could bring in a cup of
tea everyday and have the student drink from it. If they don't drink, they're
expelled. Leave an insect at the bottom of the cup the first day. Make them sweat
the rest of the year when you bring that cup.

As a side note:

I wonder what's happening to schools that have honor codes in the wake of
social networking sites. An honor code is one in which you are required to report
wrongdoing that you have knowledge of, or risk suffering an equal punishment.
Honor Code + Facebook = Everyone Expelled all the time, right? Or every problem
gets reported. Either or.

The use of humour would only serve to condone an unacceptable act imho

LLF makes a point. The tendency is always to outdo a previous act so apart from liertrally nipping it the bud *wince*, he had to go.

Good post Malfred.

I'm surprised no tea-bagging jokes have been made yet.

Well, this is a complex issue for me, being as I am generally pretty right wing and I agree with alby that we need more discipline, and obviously I really think that this was a prank that was deserving of punishment, but I do think that teachers need to man up and sort their fething lives out. I am presuming that he is a consistent offendor and that is why this action was taken. It does seem harsh though, in my five years at high school only one kid was expelled, and this was for a proper assault on a teacher, followed by hoying chairs at the other ones who came to restrain him etc. This is when an expullsion should be mandatory, an actual physical assault. I laughed out loud at the "in the states this would be assault" comment though.

Assault with ballbag!

Anyway yeah, i agree with both sides here, and Im not saying the lad didnt need punishing severely. YMMV of course, and im pretty sure he will have been a persistent offender. Im just annoyed with the teacher taking "leave" due to this issue.

Regards MMs "offence" I have long had a bee in my bonnet about the entire public sector, we have policemen who are afraid of their own shadows, nurses who wont nurse anyone, and firemen who wont go near a fire. But most of all my ire is for teachers, after i watched this panaorama and read some subsequent stories relating to it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s8kpv

Brace yourselves.

Only 18 teachers have been struck off for incompetency in the past 40 years. Panorama investigates why.

Thats right lads. 18. I know a bloke personally (was in my year at school) who shafted a student in his class (aged 15) got her pregnant, and was MOVED to another school.

You can get offended all you like, the facts speak for themselves. 18 teachers, in 40 fething YEARS!

It is an absolute, utter disgrace. In 40 years we must have had thouands of kids shafted (both physically and literally!) by our teachers, and we have had 18 sacked. The rest get moved to another school to hump somebody elses kids, i mean, i suppose its only fair we all pitch in with out daughters, fairs fair!

You cant sack people in this country if they work for the public sector. Ok, you CAN, but they have to seriously screw up. My mate Muzzy is a lawyer and as I have a bee in my bonnet over this issue we talk about it regularly, and some of the stories i hear are staggering. There was a bin man from Redcar who he was representing, after he used the keys to the company store and returned on a night to burgle the place and steal alod of tools to sell. He was convicted of this, but only given a written warning, and then a month later he was rearrested for turning up at work with a tazer and threatning his boss with it. This is classed as a firearms offense by the way, and Muzzy said he is now awaiting trial, but has only been suspended for work on full pay!

And then there is the guy last year who crashed his truck on the freeway while under the influence of narcotics, but couldnt be sacked as he had to be given "help" for his problem instead.

The public sector is sick. The figures prove it. We need Maggie to come back and crush them under her iron boot heels. If you dont like your job, go find another fether. And lets not be pandering to the fething strikers like Blair and his pals, Dave Cameron has started relatively strongly, a bit too namby pamby for my tastes, but its 2011 and I suppose shooting rubber bullets at any disenters is a bit strong these days eh?

Albatross wrote:It's blatant gross misconduct! How can people argue AGAINST his expulsion? That's mad! I was suspended for several days for just being caught smoking. I had a mate who got suspended for having a shaven head, ferchrissakes!

It's definitely an expulsion, no question. If he didn't want to work in McDonalds for the rest of his life, he should have considered his actions more carefully. Tough gak. We need more discipline in schools urgently.

If there was more discipline in schools there would be less expulsions. Not because they kids wouldn't act up anyway, but because they'd actually discipline the kids instead of refusing to educate them. Expulsion is a cop-out on the behalf of the school that either cannot hire competent teachers (that'd be fair enough - I know well that there are shortages of teachers in some areas of Aus.) or refuses to enforce social rules effectively. Social skills and acceptable behaviours should be a part of any developing person's education.

A suspension for shaving one's head is an impressive case of WTF, unless there was a specific school policy in place. Suspension is still a cop-out. A humiliating wig would be effective.

Suspension for smoking is not uncommon from what I've seen. On the other hand I was 'returned' to school by police several times in junior high school for a bit more than merely smoking... and I was never suspended for it.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:If there was more discipline in schools there would be less expulsions. Not because they kids wouldn't act up anyway, but because they'd actually discipline the kids instead of refusing to educate them. Expulsion is a cop-out on the behalf of the school that either cannot hire competent teachers (that'd be fair enough - I know well that there are shortages of teachers in some areas of Aus.) or refuses to enforce social rules effectively. Social skills and acceptable behaviours should be a part of any developing person's education.

A suspension for shaving one's head is an impressive case of WTF, unless there was a specific school policy in place. Suspension is still a cop-out. A humiliating wig would be effective.

Suspension for smoking is not uncommon from what I've seen. On the other hand I was 'returned' to school by police several times in junior high school for a bit more than merely smoking... and I was never suspended for it.

As i said, i can agree with both sides of the argument, but I definately agree with Arctik here, Im confident a better teacher could have sorted that kid out without the need to expel. I had some great teachers, and some absolutely dog gak ones. The great ones would have sorted his issue, and i know this for a fact because some of my crowd in school were proper little bastards. We had a great Science teacher called Mr Bye, he was excellent, he always maintained discipline, he allowed us some rope, everyone liked him, he nurtured an interest in science in even some of the bad lads and we never once played up with him. I will never forget the bloke.

But we also had many incompetent teacher's, I recall one called Mr Wood, and we all used to torture the bloke. My mate leaned over his desk and twatted him over the head with a rolled up poster, at this point we all burst out laughing, then started chanting "riot! riot! riot!" and banging the desks. At this point he fled the room in tears, the headmaster turned up ten minutes later and instantly silenced us with his fury. He finished the work and cracked on, but Mr Wood just cracked on teaching as usual, and every time we had him, we abused him and took nothing away from the lesson.

I am presuming this is what its always like. Id say my school was decent in that 75% of the teachers werent incompetent. But i lay the blame at the feet of both the horrible children and the teachers.

So all teachers are rubbish and all public sector workers are lazy gits?

You can always come up with anecdotes of incompetence, public or private sector.

How many of us haven't had abad experience with a private call centre at some point?
Are all call centre workers imbeciles?

Again most teachers are hard working and dedicated.
I see first hand how badly people are being treated currently in the public sector and still strive to give their best for the public that they serve, while struggling to make ends meet. Some of them do so while having to put up with thiis sort of behaviour and hostility such as your own.
If you don't like the job get another is a facile remark.

Your thread and I guess it's up to you to go OT but to use the story of a schoolboy's disgusting behaviour against a public servant as a pretext for attacking public sector workers is pretty poor.

Public castration should sort this out.

Possibly with a rusty spoon.

Chibi, ive never liked your childish attitude mate, why so upset? Heres an idea. Why not read my posts properly.

I just said 75% of my teachers were good. Some of them were fantastic and i will never forget them. Read it.

When did I ever say "all teachers are rubbish"?

Seriously, there IS a problem. Watch that panorama. Its the same in my job, if there is a useless bloke, everyone knows he is useless, the manager knows he is useless, the staff know he is useless, but they upper echelons of management are simply resigned and say "we know, we know, all we can do is pass him around, try and give him less work etc etc"

All I am saying is that clearly, this is wrong. Its wrong. And you cant get around the facts. I absolutely loved some of my teachers, but the fact remains that grossly incompetent ones are still not being fired even though everyone at the school KNOWS they are incompetent!

Thats how its working, its a problem. Accept it and crack on, no need to get so personally bloody offended mate.

As I said, there is a problem. My point is simply that If you are utterly useless and everybody knows it, then you should be sacked. But thats not what happens.

Well I'm certainly not saying that public sector workers are somehow inferior to normal people. I'm quite willing to say that they are normal people.

That is to say that anyone can grind through a Bachelor of Education (hell, I did, although I don't presently have any interest in teaching) but only some people don't have the strength of personality to actually lead a class. It's not just a job you rock up to and do as little work as possible until your shift is over. You can't teach acceptable social behaviour if you're unaccustomed to dealing with variably developed social elements.

mattyrm wrote:As I said, there is a problem. My point is simply that If you are utterly useless and everybody knows it, then you should be sacked. But thats not what happens.

If they did that in some of the places I worked there would be almost no one left...

How can teachers compete with behaviour that is being reinforced at home?

Teachers should not teach social behaviour. Parents should teach social behaviour.

You should also need a license to have children, but that's a tale for another time.

Medium of Death wrote:How can teachers compete with behaviour that is being reinforced at home?

Teachers should not teach social behaviour. Parents should teach social behaviour.

You should also need a license to have children, but that's a tale for another time.

+8.

I come from a family of teachers (luckily I saw the light and avoided that particular bullet ) and it is scary just how much teachers are expected to do that parents should be doing, or that teachers try and do which is completely destroyed by bad or absent parenting at home.

Medium of Death wrote:
You should also need a license to have children, but that's a tale for another time.

Hey, I agree entirely mate, I also think you should have to pass an IQ test before your allowed to vote, but that doesnt change the fact that grossly incompetent teachers still want sacking!

If the teacher is unable to establish a discipline that enforces order allowing the class to learn, then the teacher is incapable of leading their class. This is unfortunate, but some people simply don't have the right skills. Doing it successfully instills social norms by default - bloody well doing what you're told by a positive authority figure!

I don't teach professionally in the strictest sense but I work with a lot of kids every day. They're all different. If we discount serious mental illness as a factor in behavioural problems or learning difficulties, a diverse group of kids can be easily dealt with as a group if you have good leadership skills.

I guess the question is; 'What is a fair way to rate the merrits of a teacher?'

I'm off to watch that Panorama program now good sir. When I return we shall solve this issue once and for all.

Then we can crack on the Child License and the Voting I.Q. Limit...

Emperors Faithful wrote:
Honestly I don't see the train of thought occuring here. Unless I've missed something and getting expelled is the new thing.

If discipline is a sign of popularity, then expulsion is surely the ultimate endorsement.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
I don't know how she'd react to this incident. But I doubt she'd respond just with insults and wisecacks, there would likely be a formal action that could very well end up with the student in question being given the boot.

Why not? Isn't England beyond sexism? Shouldn't she have a stiff upper lip?