The best posts on this whole thread are from convert.
Anyway back to the issue of resilience.
In our small cul de sac there are a few families. The children of 3 families who aren't spoilt, don't have the latest phones, don't have gadget filled bedrooms, who play out with others in the road, do chores and generally are well mannered and respectful of others are definitely the types to have resilience. IMO Parenting and grandparenting (or good guardians) are the key to this.
So imagine it WAS a test match, if you wish - shouting "sort it out" still doesn't help.
As mentioned above, I'm leaving my previous argument as not to let the thread descend into any (more) pettyness.
However, just to anecdotally add to the encouragement (or distinct lack of) conversation. I remember to this day my last day at primary school, so around 12 years old and some 42 years ago.
I shone at primary school (not so much at secondary school) - had to compete against the year above at PE or sports days, as it was deemed unfair on my year classmates - I think it was simply that I had long legs, so could run faster. Anyway, maths was my other strong point - I finished the SMP boxes 2 years early, didn't misbehave, my house team won the most stars every week, etc, etc. The words of my headmistress on my last day goodbyes to go to secondary school still ring in my ears - "if you don't buck your ideas up boy, you'll never achieve anything in life". I remember thinking WTF! Whether that encouraged me or not, I don't know, but it's stuck with me and I've always thought f*** you, you old cow, when I've achieved something
I could give you all the challenges I faced as a child in the 70s/80s, and all the challenges faced by my kids now (with diagnosed neurodivergence), but in the end they amount to a sample size of one, which therefore has a high probability of not being representative of the experiences of many.
For a better look at the challenges faced by millenials, and how measures such as mental health are changing across the generations, a good place to look is the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at UCL. Here at least the measures of physical and mental well being are taken on a large population and take into account the potential for artefactual explainations for trends and data bias and so on. The research is publicly funded and ultimately published with peer review. The interim report on the Millenial Cohort Study (19,000 people born in 2000-2002) is quite stark. One in five of the sample have: high psychological distress; a longstanding mental health condition; high depressive symptoms; and report self-harming in the past year.
The best posts on this whole thread are from convert
Which is probably because convert has worked for many years with kids in the 14-18 age range so has a better idea of the range of problems they face.
CLS.UCL.AC.UK Boomers / Gen X are quick to wax lyrical about how great it was in the 1960s/70s/80s(*) and then in the next breath bitch about the future generation because they've got it too easy.
Rolls eyes…
The words of my headmistress on my last day goodbyes to go to secondary school still ring in my ears - "if you don't buck your ideas up boy, you'll never achieve anything in life". I remember thinking WTF! Whether that encouraged me or not, I don't know,
I shone at primary school (not so much at secondary school)
🤷♂️ QED?
the generation before mine and I just wonder how on earth today's kids would begin to cope if god forbid anything like that were to ever happen again .
They’d fly drones
the children of the blitz were closer to living in Victorian Britain than today’s children are to living through the blitz.
there seems to be a whole load of manufactured intergenerational friction on social media. It’s part of the culture war that probably being waged on us by hostile nation states.
and, the players are under 13 and Playing for fun. It’s great that you were engaged (you) oldfart (wink), but they are children either there under duress or to have some fun. Let them be. Times have changed.
and, I suspect that coaching from the sidelines is discouraged not to save the children’s feelings but because adults started getting into fistfights at school sports events.
The words of my headmistress on my last day goodbyes to go to secondary school still ring in my ears - "if you don't buck your ideas up boy, you'll never achieve anything in life".
I remember my headmaster telling me that I seemed to know everything already so he didn't think there was much they could do for me. I've tried to live my life in accordance with his inspiring words.
I remember my headmaster telling me that I seemed to know everything already so he didn't think there was much they could do for me. I've tried to live my life in accordance with his inspiring words.
I remember most of my high school teachers saying I wouldn’t amount to anything, a few years after leaving school there was a careers day. I made sure I went along to promote the ambulance service and make a point to visit each one who said that and thank the one who was supportive. This was before I gained a degree let along qualify as a paramedic.
Well all my teachers - primary and high school - said i'd be a great success. So I set out to prove them wrong. Look who's laughing now.
My school, Northicote High, early 1980's, the career advisers were more general, and oddly honest if somewhat sexist.
"Dad works in a factory or on the market? You will be fine as he will get you a job on the production line or on a stall. Dad works in an office? Uni for you lad, or the typing pool lass. No dad? Dole for you."
I was (and still am) in the no dad camp. Took me 5 years and a 100 mile move from home to land my first full time job, working on an assembly line in Wales making washing machines. Only got that as my middle name is Welsh FFS, and I removed my first name on the application form.
Such is life.
Watching grandsons Under 13s cricket match last night . A couple of the lads got themselves in a pickle and nearly got one of them run out . Seeing it coming I called out quick hurry up sort yourselves out .
The " officials" keeping score didn't take kindly , our daughter saw that and told me to keep quiet they weren't happy.
There then followed an explanation, apparently you aren't allowed to say anything negative any time it has to all be positive 🤔One of grandsons teammates said to him " Don't swing at the ball you idiot" that had to be reported back ????
Parents/spectators (even teammates) shouting unsolicited advice and/or negative comments is just them being a dick. Children thrive on encouragement, they learn by making their own mistakes and having positive support to develop at their own pace. A kid with a passion for Cricket at 13 might be technically terrible but nurturing that enthusiasm can easily turn them in to very competent, even excellent player within only a couple of years. However, affirming their insecurities with your negativity can completely kill their desire to play. TLDR - shut up and clap politely.
Same in school apparently it's all you've all done very well even if you haven't .No checks and balances for bad behaviour.Im so out of touch it would seem, forum name checks out . But if kids are shielded from reality right through their schooldays is it any wonder when they leave the world outside comes as a shock , some minor " bump in the road" they clearly aren't expecting and boom anxiety triggered .
'Apparently?' Nonsense, of course schools have procedures for dealing with bad behavior. What they can't control are the parents/extended family undermining their work outside of school.
I'm reminded of the recent programme " Children of the Blitz " the generation before mine and I just wonder how on earth today's kids would begin to cope if god forbid anything like that were to ever happen again .
This is just utterly crass.
My school, Northicote High, early 1980's, the career advisers were more general, and oddly honest if somewhat sexist.
The entirety of my careers advice in the mid-80s went like this:
"What do you want to do?"
I don't know... something to do with computers?
"Um..." checks notes "... uh, do that then. Next!"
Nonsense, of course schools have procedures for dealing with bad behavior
You say that, but what those procedures are varies hugely and what 'dealing with bad behaviour' looks like is correspondingly variable. In fact it's variable to such a degree that the way it's 'dealt with' in some places looks an awful lot like it's not being dealt with. See the recent news articles about the massive rise in violent and aggressive incidents in Scottish school over the last few years as evidence of bad behaviour not being dealt with.
I'm going to get up on my soap box for a bit on this idea of how behaviour is dealt with in schools because I think we've gone down the wrong route in some ways and I think we'll look back on this period at some point and shake our heads in disbelief.
For those that don't know, I'm a secondary teacher in Scotland. I'd also like to be clear that I'm not advocating a return to 70s style discipline.
One of the key phrases in the ideology underpinning behaviour management in Scottish schools is that 'all behaviour is communication'. This is basically meant to be understood as any disruptive behaviour is the result of an unmet need or trauma. I think it's good that we consider the possibility that this might be the cause of some poor behaviour but I have sat through presentations where we are told that all disruptive behaviour should be viewed in this way. What this does is to pathologise an awful lot of normal behaviour (kids being kids, pushing boundaries etc) and such behaviour then needs to be dealt with differently from how it might be tackled if you hadn't pathologised it.
The upshot of this is a real split between how many teachers (and not just the older ones) think most disruptive behaviour should be tackled and the agenda being pushed by the Scottish Government and many school leaders.
"agenda" is a multifaceted word, now. Tell us more?
The agenda that all behaviour is communication.
If you take that stance then it changes how you deal with behaviour. If you think a kid's behaviour is the result of an unmet need or trauma then things we have used in the past to manage behaviour like rules and boundaries and consequences and even sanctions like detention or exclusion become less appropriate. In lots of schools they've essentially been ditched completely.
As I've said, sometimes the behaviour is communication and that needs to be dealt with differently from the day to day disruption but this agenda has removed many of the tools we formerly used to manage the day to day, kids being kids behaviour and that's made everyone's lives more difficult.
What they've tried to replace these with is a 'relational' approach where the focus is on building positive relationships with pupils. There's not a teacher in the land who would deny that relationships are important but there still need to be systems in place to deal with situations where that doesn't work. Those systems have been dismantled in many schools and we have not been given adequate resources or training for the systems suggested to replace them.
Mrs Pondo was a secondary teacher in England, worked at the same school for 14 years and didn't have much of an issue with behaviour, even as it deteriorated across the school and consequences for bad behaviour became less and less over that time. She left there a few years ago as she got fed up with management nonsense and the shockingly bad academy management, just wanted to be a teacher in a different school. She lasted 6 days before having a breakdown - goodness, I've never acknowledged that before, we just joke about her "going mad", but that's what it was. She's now at a 6th form college in the city centre, kids are mostly good but again there's zero consequence for bad behaviour so the muppets just keep on muppeting, but there's few enough of them that she's ok with it. She'll never go back to secondary again.
Mrs Pondo was a secondary teacher in England, worked at the same school for 14 years and didn't have much of an issue with behaviour, even as it deteriorated across the school and consequences for bad behaviour became less and less over that time.
This illustrates the failure of the relationships approach to behaviour rather well. Where you have the relationships and suitable systems, i.e. in your classroom it's not too challenging to maintain good discipline. Step outside that environment or move to a new school and that's where you need the frameworks of whole school procedures which have been so eroded in so many schools.
As I've said, sometimes the behaviour is communication and that needs to be dealt with differently from the day to day disruption but this agenda has removed many of the tools we formerly used to manage the day to day, kids being kids behaviour and that's made everyone's lives more difficult.
It's probably me being dim but I'm still not understanding what you mean here by "agenda." What you're describing sounds more like "policy." Does it have a specific meaning in education that I'm unaware of?
Mrs Pondo was a secondary teacher in England, worked at the same school for 14 years and didn't have much of an issue with behaviour, even as it deteriorated across the school and consequences for bad behaviour became less and less over that time.
This illustrates the failure of the relationships approach to behaviour rather well. Where you have the relationships and suitable systems, i.e. in your classroom it's not too challenging to maintain good discipline. Step outside that environment or move to a new school and that's where you need the frameworks of whole school procedures which have been so eroded in so many schools.
Exactly that, I think. As an established teacher with a reputation, she didn't have much of an issue with discipline at the old place, with a few outliers as the exception. As an experienced teacher at a new place... Well, she's never spoken about it except to very vaguely hint once or twice that discipline was an issue. Anyone who's got into teaching in the last ten years or so has my utmost, heartfelt admiration.
