Children to report on teachers

In the book of Isaiah 3:12 we read: "As for my
people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them...."
(emphasis added).

As an ex-teacher of 15 years experience, I along with tens of
thousands of other ex-teachers are appalled at the nonsense that has been dished
out under the title "education", in this, our life time.

For example, we read in the International Express,
9-15 August 2001: "BOY, 9, WRECKS TEACHER'S LIFE -– Fury as court orders
her to compensate disruptive pupil. A teacher's unblemished 20-year career lay
in ruins after she was ordered to pay compensation to a naughty pupil she was
convicted of assaulting solely on the boy's evidence.

Humiliated Catherine Brandley was told by magistrates to hand
over Stg100 to her victim for the 'physical and psychological injuries' she
caused him when she ticked him off outside a classroom.

Mrs Brandley, 51, who remains suspended from her job pending
an appeal, was arrested by police after she prodded the nine-year-old boy in the
chest causing him to bang his head against a wall....

At an earlier hearing magistrates at Crewe heard that the
teacher wanted to punish the boy when he began misbehaving in class.

He had been firing staples from a staple gun and then began
shouting about going to the toilet. Mrs Brandley, of Congleton, tried to settle
him but it was claimed she lost her temper when he refused to stand still.

She grabbed the boy by the collar and pushed him against the
wall. The boy, who suffers from an attention deficit disorder, burst into tears
and later went home and told his mother...."

My comment would be this: that for the boy's sake, I'm
glad he wasn't in my class when I was teaching, as he would have got far more
than a prod in the chest.

At this very moment in New Zealand, there is discussion going
on as to whether parents are allowed to discipline their children with corporal
punishment.

It is quite clear that this is not the business of any
government group to legislate on how parents will bring up their children and it
should be made clear by all people in authority that they organise a course to
discuss the difference between violence and discipline.

A beautiful article taken from the Sun Herald, 26
August 2001, headlines: "The odd belt does no harm -– OCCASIONAL, mild
spankings of young children are OK and do not create any lasting harm that is
carried into adolescence, according to a new study.

Such discipline did not hurt youngsters' social or
emotional development, the researchers reported.

Study co-author Elizabeth Owens, from the Institute of Human
Development at the University of California at Berkeley, said: 'A lot of
people out there advocate that any spanking at all is detrimental, and that's
not what we found.

'We're not advocating this is a strategy that should be
used with kids, but we object to people wanting to ban it when we see no
evidence that it's harmful.'

The study was presented at a meeting in San Francisco of the
American Psychological Association."

Any parents wishing to bring up their children with the
wisdom of God should simply read the book of Proverbs, and there, find many
sensible answers to out-of-control children's behaviour.

For example, we read in Proverbs 22:15: "Foolishness is
bound in the heart of a child: but the rod of correction shall drive it
far from him."

It is of interest to note that in the early days of Israel,
if a child was out of control and refused to obey his parents, he was to be
taken to the gate of the city, where he was to be stoned to death by the elders
of that city.

Today's children are extremely fortunate not to have to go
through that and therefore, I have come to the conclusion that any person who
takes on the teaching profession today, should be given the authority
along with the responsibility otherwise they will develop a stomach
ulcer in very quick time.

The latest nonsense that we have just heard on the news was
that in England, there is now discussion about letting children write reports on
their teachers. Words fail me to such a degree that I have nothing left to say.