4 ms·

> Teaching as a profession is in an awful state, but involving more police is not the solution. This is how much we value teachers a society. The responsibili

> Teaching as a profession is in an awful state, but involving more police is not the solution. This is how much we value teachers a society. The responsibility is shitty and potentially dangerous, so we throw it at the teachers. Because involving police during an assault is not the solution? If someone punches me, I would immediately involve police. Kids who punch others should be punished by law enforcement. Teachers have no authority to punish a kid whatsoever.

waste_monk 5y ago
>Because involving police during an assault is not the solution? >Kids who punch others should be punished by law enforcement. It really depends on the situation - in my jurisdiction the age of criminal responsibility is 10 years old, below that age it is not possible to press criminal charges. And for children aged 10 to 14 'the onus is on the prosecution to prove that the young person alleged to have committed the crime had a sufficient understanding of the criminality of their actions. That understanding must amount to the knowledge that the actions were criminally wrong, and not just naughty"' [1]. Again, it would be highly inappropriate to get police involved except in the most drastic circumstances. For older teens, sure, but they generally have the sense to not brawl on-campus / within the school's duty of care. I'm mainly referring to breaking up squabbles between primary to middle schoolers. Teachers should be compensated more for having to put up with this, but I believe it's an unavoidable part of school yard/classroom management. I will note that here in Australia we don't have a police officer stationed in schools as (many? most? of) the USA does, so maybe the cost/benefit changes if you have a dedicated resource and aren't diverting police from useful work off-site. But I still feel it's inappropriate. >Teachers have no authority to punish a kid whatsoever. What would you do, bring back spanking? I agree with you, kids get away with things that would not have gone unpunished when I was a lad, but you have to remember that the goal of the system is (at least in theory) to nurture and educate children. If you keep excluding or eventually expel students they won't get educated, if you on calling parents in to collect their misbehaving kids they might get punished at work or eventually fired for being unreliable (which certainly will make the child's home life more difficult, and if it's a troubled family may actually result in the child being physically harmed), and so on. It's a very tough problem and I don't have a good answer for it. But I do believe that children need to be taught more discipline at home so that teachers can maintain effective control in class, and that this whole trend of parents wanting to be their child's friend over parenting them effectively is very bad for society. [1] https://www.lawsocietysa.asn.au/Public/Publications/Resources/It_is_time_to_raise_the_age_of_criminal_responsibility.aspx https://www.lawsocietysa.asn.au/Public/Publications/Resource...

waste_monk 5y ago

>Because involving police during an assault is not the solution? >Kids who punch others should be punished by law enforcement. It really depends on the situation - in my jurisdiction the age of criminal responsibility is 10 years old, below that age it is not possible to press criminal charges. And for children aged 10 to 14 'the onus is on the prosecution to prove that the young person alleged to have committed the crime had a sufficient understanding of the criminality of their actions. That understanding must amount to the knowledge that the actions were criminally wrong, and not just naughty"' [1]. Again, it would be highly inappropriate to get police involved except in the most drastic circumstances. For older teens, sure, but they generally have the sense to not brawl on-campus / within the school's duty of care. I'm mainly referring to breaking up squabbles between primary to middle schoolers. Teachers should be compensated more for having to put up with this, but I believe it's an unavoidable part of school yard/classroom management. I will note that here in Australia we don't have a police officer stationed in schools as (many? most? of) the USA does, so maybe the cost/benefit changes if you have a dedicated resource and aren't diverting police from useful work off-site. But I still feel it's inappropriate. >Teachers have no authority to punish a kid whatsoever. What would you do, bring back spanking? I agree with you, kids get away with things that would not have gone unpunished when I was a lad, but you have to remember that the goal of the system is (at least in theory) to nurture and educate children. If you keep excluding or eventually expel students they won't get educated, if you on calling parents in to collect their misbehaving kids they might get punished at work or eventually fired for being unreliable (which certainly will make the child's home life more difficult, and if it's a troubled family may actually result in the child being physically harmed), and so on. It's a very tough problem and I don't have a good answer for it. But I do believe that children need to be taught more discipline at home so that teachers can maintain effective control in class, and that this whole trend of parents wanting to be their child's friend over parenting them effectively is very bad for society. [1] https://www.lawsocietysa.asn.au/Public/Publications/Resources/It_is_time_to_raise_the_age_of_criminal_responsibility.aspx https://www.lawsocietysa.asn.au/Public/Publications/Resource...