This is for the continuation of the gloriously weird discussion at the bottom of the Idiots' Guide thread.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Somehow it doesn't seem so much fun when you do it where you're allowed to...

erm, yeah. OK!

and that would be what? ; )



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

it's not as much fun when you're allowed to eat all the pizza u want and not get fat

but is is fun when you're not allowed to...

definitely true :)



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

I think I've run out of weird teacher stories, tho we had a french teacher in senior school who, the rumour had it, wore a wig, (this was a female teacher) and during most of every lesson she tried to teach all the kids were peering at her hairline and throwing little bits of rolled up paper at her head in some vain hope of dislodging it. It was a really unnatural shape for a real hair do.

love it! That was our weirdest teacher but we had some fairly sadistic ones - like the French teacher who, if you did something wrong, would open your desk lid, make you put your hands in it, and slam the lid... We always got our hands out in time, luckily for him - and then there was the gym teacher chucked me downstairs once.

But (although you'll never believe me) it was a great school and great fun (the weirdos were in a huge minority.)

Though I was taught graphics by a man who wore a doormat on his head...



Post Edited (07-22-03 23:06)

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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Splat21 - This was the Scottish education system right? Sorry started to make this post but was being side tracked by a tv. prog about a little girl with behaviour problems but actually its become apparent that its the parents who had the behaviour problems. v interesting.
Side tracked within my own post.
Do I remember reading elsewhere that you were teaching nursery children?
I think kids are scarey from quite young these days, not like when I was a lass.

It was the Scottish education system. I was watching that too - fascinating, wasn't it? Amazing what you can do to children without realising.

Yep I taught Montessori for about 8 years - great fun - children anywhere from 2 to 8.

I think we were pretty scary when young, but no-one expected us to be vile so we weren't. Terribly. If that makes any sense



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Our school didn't have stairs, it was like an enormous old persons bungalow.
I saw a brilliant job being described in an article about different employment opportunities in childcare and it was a 'governess' who actually only had responsibility for these two kids after normal school hours for about, IIRC, two or three hours a day and she went over their school work with them and I think taught music and something else and she earned about £25k and the family provided a car and accommodation.

I think school kids tend to split into two groups nowadays, those who have realised that there is hardly anything the poor teacher can do to discipline them, and those who still think they will 'get into trouble' if they are naughty.

think you're right - mind you I think it was always like that, just there were far more in the second group than there are now.

I want that job!



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Jobwise, get behind me in the queue, shame I don't like other peoples kids, (if anyone reading this has kids obviously yours would be the exceptions)

The kids will probably all eventually be absorbed by osmosis into the first group then school will just be total anarchy then they will have to bring back shutting hands in desks and throwing pupils downstairs, then I'll go into teaching.

hubby has produced coffee and maltesers, I think he wants my company, (how sad!) goodnite all.

Holly - saw that as well. Started off wanting to give the mother a huge slap but at the end felt quite sorry for her and what a difference in the child's behaviour!

Interesting programme.

I've always thought that a child's behaviour to the most part is shaped by that of the parents and I'm sure someone somewhere has stats on this. You see it everyday - parents shout at kids, kids shout back.

There was a letter in the local paper a couple of weeks ago from a single mother complaining that when her two little darlings were playing up in a local supermarket - she said they were running up and down the aisle shouting and "having fun" - she just got tutted at and no-one, not even the store manager, offered her any help and wasn't that disgraceful? Nowhere in the letter did she blame her children for their behaviour not apologise for the disruption they would be causing to other shoppers.

The number of rather abusive letters answering her in the following week's edition (so much happens our way we only have a weekly paper!) was wonderful to see. I myself am not adverse to 'accidently' tripping up little brats who continually run riot in shops with their mother/father/guardian bleating "oh darling, don't do that" whilst not even paying attention to the the disruption being caused.

My mother brought up three children singlehandedly and if we misbehaved, we were told off and if we didn't stop we were smacked. We stopped misbehaving.

I've got no children of my own, but I like them and when I was teaching we always got on well - they have to have respect for you though, to want to obey you, and ideally affection as well. It helps if you respect & like them too, so you don't freak out the second anything goes wrong, which inevitably leads to all sorts of gruesome behaviour. Didn't know who to feel sorriest for in that programme - she had no idea how to cope with the child, got hostile and the child ricocheted off her like a ping pong ball in a hurricane...



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Obviously good parenting skills don't just come naturally. and I think we could all do with a pointer or two at some times, maybe with the breakdown of the extended nuclear family there aren't so many older family members around to offer suggestions. But you do see stuff that makes you despair. At the 'tea and toys' group that I used to take my youngest one to you would see small tots causing mayhem while their mothers seemed oblivious, or they would say something like, 'oh look at him, whats he like', used to have me grinding my teeth.

We had a Q&A session at the school I worked at once, and one of the questions was 'My daughter keeps drawing on the walls, and I don't know if I should stop her in case it interferes with her creativity, what should I do?'... (Answer was give her a drawing pad & crayons, tell her those are instead of drawing on the wall, and don't allow her to do it any more.) But the combination of tentative, unconfident mothers and stubborn bright children can be lethal... personally I think there should be classes for parents - you have to teach someone to teach children and that's not half as difficult as actually bringing them up!)



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

classes would be good though you would find some people might feel a stigma about attending 'parenting' classes. Makes me wonder what sort of up bringing the mother in that tv prog had received herself.

She did say she had all sorts of phobias and couldn't bear being touched. I wondered whether she was just passing on to her daughter what she'd had herself - it's common in child abuse, and maybe that counts as a kind of abuse, I don't know... Ended up feeling really sorry for all of them, but the change was amazing! Hope it lasts.



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Yes so do I, and hats off to them for being so candid.

Back to teachers _ We had a Liverpudlian one, who spoke quite quickly in a strong Scouse accent: Nobody in the class could understand a word that he said (the school in question being in Greater London), so we just copied down what he wrote on the board and hoped for the best. Forunately for use he only taught us for one year, before he moved elsewhere, and that was before we started on the O-level syllabus...

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