School 1977 vs. School 2007

[Barry_White]

Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.

1977 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up mates.

2007 - Police are called, Armed Response Unit arrives and arrests Johnny and Mark. Mobiles with video of fight confiscated as evidence. They are charged with assault, ASBOs are taken out and both are suspended even though Johnny started it. Diversionary conferences and parent meetings conducted. Video shown on 6 internet sites.


Scenario: Jeffrey won't sit still in class, disrupts other students.

1977 - Jeffrey is sent to the principal's office and given 6 of the best. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.

2007 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. Counselled to death. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra funding because Jeffrey has a disability. Drops out of school.


Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his neighbour's car and his Dad gives him the slipper.

1977 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.

2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang. Psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mum has an affair with the psychologist. Psychologist gets a promotion.


Scenario: Mark, a college student, brings cigarettes to school .

1977 - Mark shares a smoke with the school principal out on the smoking area.

2007 - Police are called and Mark is expelled from School for drug possession. His car is searched for drugs and weapons.


Scenario: Mohammed fails high school English.

1977 - Mohammed retakes his exam, passes and goes to college.

2007 - Mohammed's cause is taken up by local human rights group. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that making English a requirement for graduation is racist. Civil Liberties Association files class action lawsuit against state school system and his English teacher. English is banned from core curriculum. Mohammed is given his qualification anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.


Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers, puts them in a model plane paint bottle and blows up an anthill.

1977 - Ants die.

2007 - MI5 and police are called and Johnny is charged with perpetrating acts of terrorism. Teams investigate parents, siblings are removed from the home, computers are confiscated, and Johnny's dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.


Scenario: Johnny falls during break and scrapes his knee. His teacher, Mary, finds him crying, and gives him a hug to comfort him.

1977 - Johnny soon feels better and goes back to playing.

2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces three years in prison. Johnny undergoes five years of therapy. Becomes gay.

[DavidG]

Unfortunately this should not be in the jokes section.

[funkychicken]

Interesting thing about the first one is it kinda happened at my school

Boxing gloves are brought to school, Spars are held, videos are filmed, Students are caught, put on internal suspension, Videos (phones and a camera) are confiscated. All the boys get a big talk..


No... I'm completely innocent

[Optimark]

In 1963 in my school, there were two form 6 boys constantly fighting over something or other.

Usually they ended up in the principals office.

After a real decent bout of fisticuffs behind the bike shed, the sports teacher said enough is enough.

He proposed that the two boys should, along with a select group of other boys, be properly taught to box and that they should be pitted against each other in the ring.

Well the idea took off, during the next term, quite a few of the form 5 and 6 boys were in training. At the end of the term, actually 1 week prior to allow for injuries to heal before they went home, the competition started.

It was a very interesting outcome, six boys were allowed to compete against each other on a weight and age basis.

There were no knockouts, in fact there was very little damage done.

All competitors wore leather bicycle helmets, and cricket guards in their pants.

The fights were conducted in the school hall and the entire school was there, including the gardener.

By turning the whole thing into a legitimate competition, the sports teacher stopped schoolyard fighting and gained some quite enthusiastic boys to teach self defense, which was the official sport the boys were playing.

This was a wonderful year at school for me.

It was a boarding school, in case you were wondering.

Mick.

[BobL]

I was a high school teacher around thirty years ago.
In just one year;
- a 15 year old female student threw a knife at me while I was writing on the black board. The knife stuck into the wooden black board frame about a foot above my head. This student ended up later doing a stint in women's prison later in life.
- a student let off a fire extinguisher onto the back of a student's head and the student suffered from cold burns and lost their hair.
- One kid tried to set the school on fire using metho but only succeeded in giving them selves 3rd degree burns.
- While teaching drive ed a student ran off the road doing about 70 km/hr and froze at the wheel. The Auxilliary brake on the instructors side collapse under my foot and by the time I went for the handbrake and stopped the car we had mowed down two small street trees and ended up about 2 m from a big gum tree.
- The male principal was found by the cops inside a wardrobe with another male teacher during a raid at a fancy dress party. The principal wearing a pink tutu and spaced out on "some tablets that had reacted badly with the wine he had been drinking".
I don't think much has changed really.

[underfoot]

.
The principal wearing a pink tutu and spaced out on "some tablets that had reacted badly with the wine he had been drinking".
I don't think much has changed really.

Yep, thats how I remember school

[Batpig]

Brilliant Barry, brilliant

Great riposte Bob, but I'm not so sure that nothing's changed. Teachers are not only NOT allowed to give the Little Buggers a kick up the R's anymore, but they're flat out even giving them a detention either - if the parent(s) decide that it interrupts their own little routine too much...

I also hear plenty in the Press from time to time about the little Wanka's having too much homework and assignments to do! Well, I've talked to my nephews and nieces at length about their assignments, etc. and it dead-set wouldn't even amount to a third of what we had to do! Fact of the matter is, they're out of time because they're too busy watching on the Net, downloading MP3's, or Texting each other about what "She said He said" or vice-versa...

The relevance of this decrease in discipline and homework to Barry's post: an ever-decreasing ability by the students to apply themselves to anything that requires a longer attention-span than the time between scene-changes on a modern video clip... Who's gonna pay for that: you and me - and we already are. Next time you read a post on this forum written by the victim of some absolute Piece Of Garbage tradey that knows more about his F6 Tornado ute (which means he's also overcharging) than he does about his trade, or you hear in the Press about some unbelievable case of Road Rage or Parking Rage or whatever, then know that you are just seeing the Tip Of The Iceberg - ie. the ongoing and ever-increasing effect of a year-by-year advancing of the average birth-date of the population moving further and further away from your generation, and obviously closer to that of the new generation...

God help us when They are looking after Us...

Rant Off (but only because I could go on forever...)
Best Wishes,
Batpig.

[wheelinround]

Brilliant Barry, brilliant


God help us when They are looking after Us...

Batpig.

They won't be OH&S won't allow them to and besides they'll be working till they are 80+ still paying off their mortgages, even tho they have lost their homes and paying rent.

[BobL]

You can reminisce all you want about the "good old days" but I didn't think it was all that good.

I still remember being humiliated in the first week of grade one by being tied up by a piece of baling twine to the teachers desk for almost a whole day for "showing off" that I could already read the grade two reading book. When I was 3rd year high, one kid farted in class and wouldn't own up so the teacher caned all 52 of us - which he did regularly. If you were seen by a teacher on the way home with your blazer unbuttoned you could get an afternoon detention. Second offence was afternoon detention in the school gym where the headmaster practiced his bagpipes (especially badly) for an hour! There were never any subsequent offences after that.

In the late 70's I was a year master so I had caning rights. Other teachers could bring students to me for punishment. In this school they thought the cane solved everything. One teacher brought a kid to me for the cane because the kid did not say hello back to him. Another kid was caught assaulting another kid in a toilet so "cane him" was the proposed solution. What came out a year or so later was that both kids were being abused at home. One by his father and the other "an uncle" who was one of his mums boyfriends. Tell me again how the cane solves these sorts of problems?

In terms of learning and homework, fact is that most of the homework we got was busy work that was a complete waste of time and did not endear us towards school or help us in learning. I'm all for meaningful homework but enforcing it being done by caning or punishment is a waste of time. What is not in fashion and should be is standards, standards should be set early and enforced, and kids should not progress until they meet standards.

There is no way I'd like to see a return to the good old days but I do agree we seem to have slipped a bit too far the other way.

[Wood Borer]

Many of the disputes at school especially amongst the boys I think is a natural way of determining the pecking order. If you mouthed off to someone bigger and tougher you were normally warned, if you didn't heed this warning you learnt the hard way. In a similar way, if you picked on someone defenceless, you were put in your place by other kids.

This is what happens in nature and has been the behaviour of humans since year dot.

The current response of softly softly and over reaction is not just limited to the school yard but to society in general be it in the workplace, at home or on the street.

I am not supporting bullying or brutal abuse but I do support learning and knowing your place by respect.

If you are not strong or tough, don't pick fights. If you are not all that bright, don't have cry baby episode if you don't top the State in your year 12 assessment.

If you don't like your place in the various pecking orders then get off your backside and improve yourself for a challenge, if you don't want to put in the effort then get used to being on the bottom rung.

No different to our woodwork. If you are a beginner who knocks up rough boxes using butt joints and nails, you can't expect your work to be respected like someone who is experienced and does strong, accurate and pleasing joinery.

If there are serious background issues like abuse at home, born a half wit etc, then they need to be addressed, if not, learn your place in life along with the knocks and the pats on the back.

[Allan at Wallan]

Great post Bazza - and so close to the truth unfortunately.

In my latter days of employment I drove a school bus
and one day a kid threw a plastic bag of water at me
whilst I was driving.

I was drenched and the windscreen was a mess.

I reported the kid to the assistant Principal and
suggested the lad be denied bus travel for a few days.

The assistant Principal's reply, "I will look into the
matter and establish who the victim is".

There could have been many victims if I had
crashed during the incident.

Allan

___________________________________

You can't teach an old mouse new clicks.

[Pheonix]

Thats called progress?

[Poppa]

I went to a pretty rough school. We had teachers knifed. One had his face crushed by a 13 yr old (the kid was about 6' 2" and 5 stone!). There were a lot of school yard fights, and I was in a few of them. With some of them they did more good than harm, but even then there were kids that didn't know there were lines and not to cross them. In those days, knives were carried. These days it is guns. My nephew has gone through his entire high school life without getting into a fight once, but only because his karate teacher said that if he fought at school he wouldn't teach him any more. The boy is a black belt and seriously skilled, so it is just as well he never gets into fights.

I saw a lot of kids bullied. At times I was one of them, until I learnt that a bully never stops until he is stopped. Bullying is a bad thing and needs to be discouraged, but not by legal action. And not with guns either. Difficult to find a middle ground in today's society where everyone wants to sue and it is a criminal offence to give someone a knuckle when they absolutely deserve it.

I tend to just try to avoid dealing with people as much as I can these days, which means the chances of running into folks who make me want to adjust their attitude is reduced. It is a crazy stupid world we live in, and for most of the moronic things in your post Baz, we have the yanks to thank... The days of Aussies being so independent that we sort out our own problems are pretty much gone...