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| Originally Posted by [b Quote[/b] (Gavin Yates @ Nov. 12 2003,07:36)]I agree with the above sentiments Bren but the blame for this lies not with the yoof of today(well it does too) but our own generation and the one before.
How did we breed such monstrosities?
It can't be some kind of wholesale virus as there are some delightful young people (I'm sure you've met one or two), some who see the value of society, are tolerant, respectful, even helpful.
So, it's the government then? That ugly spectre of totalitarianism that has corrupted our young people? No if that were the case then it would be enveloping all.
No, it's stupid freakin' parents ... "Go and play on the motorway, there's a good boy, if you eat your KFC then you can have some more drugs, I'm so pround of you, the high score on the Playstation ... well I never."
So if we think today's young people are bad ... just think what's coming in five years, ten years, fifteen years ...
God it's depressing. |
Hey Gav,
I wasn't apportioning 'blame', per se; and I wasn't, to paraphrase the Bard, attempting a "a pox on
all you houses" type approach. And yes, I have met some wonderful children who give me nothing joy and hope for the future. Nor am I advocating a 'hang-'em-n-flog-'em' dispensation.
But when state schools and teachers (by respective and successive governments) have been used, by turns, as both political footballs (National Curriculum, anyone?), accepted as 'holding pens' for the nations' hood-wearing pregnant 13 year olds (and their younger inseminators), and who generally put teachers in mortal fear of scrotes whose soul response (because they've been told and taught that they can) to any form of admonition or correction of their hellion ways is to trot out, by rote, the stock defence "I'll get mi dad up to you!", and
then have the 'system' back the actions (disgraceful as they are) of the child, then where and to whom, in a profession once considered a vocation, is a teacher supposed to reach for support or any validation that what they are doing is either worthwhile, or proof that they are making progess in passing on the values of respect for self and others, discipline, morals (yes, that whoary old chestnut) and responsibility. A large number of decent teachers (and we all know this to be the case) simply give up the ghost and bin the job - leaving the nations' kids in the hands of a second rate shower whom specialise in generalities and non-specifics. The result for those being 'taught' being what? Diassaffection? Lethargy, on the grounds that 'well if the teachers are crap, what hope have we got...?'
Couple this with some parents' list of stock responses to a child's request for help with homework of either: "don't ask me, that's what your teachers are for"; "go and play on your Gameboy"; "go and watch TV or a video or summat" etc. ad nauseam. TV and broadcast media then taking the key role of 'baby-sitter and teacher by proxy'. Nature-Nurture? Shit in, shit out?
Under these conditions, from where is a child supposed to acquire nuture, support, direction, correction or a sense of involvement leading to responsibility for his actions? If it's not instilled into him/her, you might as well ask him/her to translate Ovid or the Illiad; explain how a Wankel Rotary Engine works; order a meal in Swahili - but don't be surprised when they can't do any of these tasks; why should they be able to? They've had no instruction in same.
But hey, as long as Blair and his cronies send all
their kids to private or selective schools (Diane Abbott, anyone?), whilst leaving the nations' finest to disolve in a sea of state educational sub-mediocrity, how can the parents form any bond of trust with those who 'rule' them?
The other worrying thing about the slide is that it creates mass dissaffection, frustration and resentment amonsgt kids and parents - and with the clarion cry of the hard right groups only a Daily Mail sound-bite away, then the dissaffected can easily find themselves in the welcoming arms (and swelling the ranks) of groups who advocate racist agendas and converstations (nay, policies) of repatriation and deportation. And we know where that leads....precisely everything that folks died fighting against in the two wars and else where.
And all because no one had the courage to try and strike a balance. Kids and their education (streamed and suited/appropriate to the child) is
the most precious thing we have. To squander it (at any level, be that parents, government or in schools) will mean that history will be our judge - and if we don't learn the mistake of history, then we are sure to repeat them.