Challenging the school system works

After months of constant meetings and

Attempted negotiations I lost my temper

On Friday when I was asked to collect my

Boy who was confronting a teacher over a

Bag of sweets! I understand that teachers

Have a need to maintain discipline and that

They need to be respected within their own

Environments, but why would a trained

Inclusion officer want to confront a twelve

Year old boy over a bag of sweets that he had

No right to have taken in the first place. The

Sweets had been confiscated the day before

And as such my boy had accepted his punishment

As it was just. What was not just was for

Another teacher to then take these sweets and

Hold on to them under the guise that they

Were not healthy. If you look for a confrontation

With a child surely that is the way to go. Me

Being the helpful person that I am totally

Agreed with the teacher while my son was

Present, but when he was not I let loose and

Went into one and confronted the teacher about

His training and recognising when you need

To give young people the opportunity to back

Down. Twelve is an awkward age where boys

Want to be men and test out there skills and

Abilities where ever they can. So to confront a

Young man is to not be aware of either child

Development of psychological make up which

You would think that an inclusion officer would

Be only too well aware off. The conclusion, yet

Another two days missing out of school, no formal

Exclusion on his record and me even more concerned

Over my young man’s treatment within an education

System that has chosen inclusion over individual

Learning and assistance. I teach kids with behavioural

Difficulties and seeing the way that many students are

Treated within mainstream schooling, I would really

Like to implement a nation wide campaign against

Bullying, not by pupils but by teachers. Teacher seem

To take for granted the power of the written and spoken

Word. How a teacher deals with a student is also reflected

In how that student is viewed and treated by their peers and

All others within the school system. It only needs one

Un-thinking individual to start the process and any child

Can become a self for filling prophesy, “I think you are bad,

I will treat you as if you are bad, I am being treated bad,

I might as well act like I am bad, you are bad and thus we

Treat you bad”. Some so called teachers and others within

The schooling system really need to check themselves to see what

Their own motivation is and consider what it is that they are doing

To the children. I do not for one minute believe that society has got

To the point where it is producing children who are increasingly being excluded from school because they are bad. I think that our children have developed faster than our educational system which is still stuck in it’s Victorian mentality and that the whole system needs a bloody good overhaul to not only meet the changing needs of advancing young people but also to reconsider the requirements of students in an every changing world. Compulsory use of IT would be a bloody good start for the  teachers and then maybe we could look at the students.