Schools Discipline and Parenting
Schools Discipline and Parenting
The debate on radio five this morning was about school discipline, an issue very current for me at the moment as I’ve been asked to make comment on my son’s junior school.
I have strong feelings about this. The state obliges me to give up my children to the ‘education system’ at the age of 4 or 5, unless I want to give up my life to do home education. Therefore I expect the system not only to provide a good education, but also to act ‘in loco parentis’ – in my place as a parent. In terms of discipline, this means it should be fair, reasonable and consistent. Does your school provide this? My children come home talking about bullying incidents, inconsistent and unfair discipline and teachers ‘not hearing’ them when they try to bring it to their attention. I do not want to hand my children every day to people I do not trust to look after them properly.
The education system should be about more than curriculum learning. The state needs our children to be good ‘cogs in the wheels of industry’ or to bring it up to date ‘chips in the motherboard of the nation.’ But most of them will also become parents, so schools should teach about parenting too. They teach about sex and contraception, but little about parenting, which seems to be in crisis. They can teach this in structured lessons like PSHE, but also by example, by providing a model of good parenting. Children would learn from this, and parents would trust the schools more and may even imitate some of the parenting methods, especially if they are clearly explained and understood.
We all know how badly some parents are failing their children; we can’t avoid daily stories of children beaten, starved, sexually abused and murdered in their homes. In these extreme cases schools have a vital role as second line of defence, yet they clearly fail in this. Even in so called ‘good homes’ like mine (I hope) schools should act as good parents.
School discipline should be a model of good parental discipline, and no-one is suggesting we cane our own children. If schools could provide a positive model then parents could trust it and even learn from it. In the long term this would help resolve both the school discipline problem and the parenting crisis.
The debate on radio five this morning was about school discipline, an issue very current for me at the moment as I’ve been asked to make comment on my son’s junior school.
I have strong feelings about this. The state obliges me to give up my children to the ‘education system’ at the age of 4 or 5, unless I want to give up my life to do home education. Therefore I expect the system not only to provide a good education, but also to act ‘in loco parentis’ – in my place as a parent. In terms of discipline, this means it should be fair, reasonable and consistent. Does your school provide this? My children come home talking about bullying incidents, inconsistent and unfair discipline and teachers ‘not hearing’ them when they try to bring it to their attention. I do not want to hand my children every day to people I do not trust to look after them properly.
The education system should be about more than curriculum learning. The state needs our children to be good ‘cogs in the wheels of industry’ or to bring it up to date ‘chips in the motherboard of the nation.’ But most of them will also become parents, so schools should teach about parenting too. They teach about sex and contraception, but little about parenting, which seems to be in crisis. They can teach this in structured lessons like PSHE, but also by example, by providing a model of good parenting. Children would learn from this, and parents would trust the schools more and may even imitate some of the parenting methods, especially if they are clearly explained and understood.
We all know how badly some parents are failing their children; we can’t avoid daily stories of children beaten, starved, sexually abused and murdered in their homes. In these extreme cases schools have a vital role as second line of defence, yet they clearly fail in this. Even in so called ‘good homes’ like mine (I hope) schools should act as good parents.
School discipline should be a model of good parental discipline, and no-one is suggesting we cane our own children. If schools could provide a positive model then parents could trust it and even learn from it. In the long term this would help resolve both the school discipline problem and the parenting crisis.
posted by Firegoat @ 6:20 pm
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