Tories show their true colours at last

… and ex-military in the classroom is not uncommon.

As posted above, many retire from the services at a young age with another career in front of them. My maths teacher was ex-Navy, and he was a bloody good teacher, mainly because he knew man-management and how to get on with people…

However, ex-military in the class room are first and foremost, not ex-military, they are current qualified class teachers. Fine if DC want to get more ex soldiers into teaching, can't see anything wrong with that, but the ethos and standards of behaviour that they bring to the profession will need to be those of the teaching profession, not of the military. They will be constrained by the same beaureacracy (child protection, depending on your viewpoint)as any other teacher.

…..do they really think the teacher's unions will allow this militarisation of schools?

How did you read that into it?

They aren't talking about having uniformed members of the armed forces working in schools routinely, they're talking about encouraging people leaving the military to consider taking up teaching, transferring skills they've developed during their service to the education system, same as current the private sector to teaching program is.

And no I don't mean skills such as how to play soggy biscuit, how to iron your trousers or how to strip and clean an L85!

Yeah this really sounds like something the BNP might come up with…. Oh look

It gets better and better – the modern form of Reductio ad Hitlerum. Can I invoke Godwin's law for mentioning the BNP nowadays?

the troops to teachers thing isnt really a bad thing is it , it doesnt mean they are gonna get drilled and beasted on the yard . dont know why hes focused on troops tho what about anyone how would make a good teacher

my brother in law was in the army with me and he is now a teacher at a very good school and he doesnt hit them or anything 😉

Mr_A – Agreed in part, I don't think the Tories are going to achieve anything very radical. But to be honest, the idea that the national curriculum does not evidence some sort of "agenda" is suspect. When I was doing GCSE biology, the only thing we were definitely, positively supposed to know was how osmosis worked. Someone in Whitehall had decided that this was an incredibly important thing we ought to know about. It was pretty odd.

You dislike Vardy on the grounds that he is a creationist, presumably? I'm not wildly comfortable with this sort of thing either, but it doesn't seem necessarily to be a major disaster. I was taught by people who were convinced that Jane Austen was the greatest English author ever. I survived this pitiful attempt at indoctrination. 🙂

As I recall using former military personnel as teachers or as teaching assistant was proposed by the government as a way of instilling disciple in schools

That's all we need – as well as the kids – the teachers running riot with an AK47 when the voices tell them to

😉

You Weren't There, Man

on the flip side my english/pe teacher was a very troubled ex para that used to be quick to use the back of his hand . tho i kept us quiet 😉

It gets better and better – the modern form of Reductio ad Hitlerum. Can I invoke Godwin's law for mentioning the BNP nowadays?

OK why not debate the issues then rather than just insulting people and linking to Wikipedia?

Maybe you think rich evangelists using their wealth to promote creationism to the detriment of science is a good thing?

Plenty of ex soldiers out there in need of a new career, minus a few body parts – seems to hit a lot of the relevant characteristics too, disability employment, positive male role models for young people etc.

Indeed, this was common after WW2, demobbed troops becoming teachers, and a lot of people I know regarded, and still regard, these old boys as their greatest teachers, as they won respect from even the worst kids

OK why not debate the issues then rather than just insulting people and linking to Wikipedia?

If you look carefully you'll see I'm actually attacking your argument, not you. If you take that as an insult then maybe you shouldn't be on an internet forum. Meanwhile the wiki link was simply to help out those who might not understand what I meant – do you prefer having to go and look that up yourself (or is it that you don't like me making it so easy for everybody else to understand my point)?

To come back to my point, do you deny that suggesting something is bad because it's similar to something the BNP says is an association fallacy, hence "reductio ad BNP"?

it doesn't seem necessarily to be a major disaster. I was taught by people who were convinced that Jane Austen was the greatest English author ever. I survived this pitiful attempt at indoctrination.

I think the point is that if you go off to seek a career in science thinking that the world was created in 7 days, you are going to be at a crippling disadvantage. At least if you understand osmosis you can probably get a job operating a centrifuge somewhere. On the other hand, if you have been brainwashed to think that Jane Austen is the bee's knees, that isn't necessarily going to torpedo your literary career. Although you may have to have a sex change. 🙂

Re the military personnel in schools thing, part of me completely agrees with S&J's post. On the other hand, I remember the ex-military teachers at my school as disciplinarian knobbers rather than engaging pedagogues.

And, coming in the middle of a speech peppered with catchphrases like "dumbing down" and "political correctness", it's obviously meant to be interpreted by its target audience of reactionary dimwits as being the first step towards the reintroduction of national service.

If you look carefully you'll see I'm actually attacking your argument, not you.

Was talking about you calling people 'uninformed' – while offering no actual opinion of your own other than posting links to wikipedia, well done.

You didn't attack my argument – posting a link to a wikipedia article and invoking Godwin's law isn't attacking anything.

I'm happy to accept that there are many ways to skin a cat …..

Not when it comes to providing universal eduction there isn't. A state monopoly is always the solution to good universal eduction. In countries where the state has very little/no involvement in education, the results are not good. And I don't consider them to be very civilised societies.

But anyway, if the state shouldn't have a monopoly in providing universal eduction, why can't that be applied the armed forces too ? We could have private armies competing for contracts to control Helmand Province for example.

Kwik Army Solutions PLC could be awarded the contract on the basis of being 10% cheaper than anyone else and having the quickest completion date. They could lease tanks etc, off the government. Why not ? Save money and get quicker results, no ?

Because it's bollox, that's why. And the Tories talking about the removing state monopoly over schools is also bollox. And they are wasting time (as we are) talking bollox. There's real issues which need to be tackled. Instead of trawling through the gutter for Daily Mail votes.

they're talking about encouraging people leaving the military to consider taking up teaching, transferring skills they've developed during their service to the education system, same as current the private sector to teaching program is.

And no I don't mean skills such as how to play soggy biscuit, how to iron your trousers or how to strip and clean an L85!

applause.
However, other than how to play 'freckles', what additional skills are there?

– Ties and blazers for all pupils.

Can I ask exactly what is wrong with that? The primary school I attended demanded that pupils wear ties and the secondary school demanded a blazer also. These schools were both in Motherwell which is about as working class and left wing a town as it is possible to get. My schools weren't out of the ordinary either as all the other schools in the surrouding areas demanded a similar dress code.

Well, contracting out military activity to private companies is widely done, and fairly effective in some ways. But the parallels are hardly exact. 😉

Can I ask exactly what is wrong with that?

That's it's a cheap attempt to pander to Daily Mail readers prejudices and offers no real solutions to anything?

AndyP – You're a filthy person.

Freckles!

I don't want to know what "freckles" is, do I? 🙂

It's what keeps our brave boys going in the face of so much adversity, or something.

Bollocks. I hate Google. 😯 🙂

Apparently…

Army drinking game. This version played as follows: Guys sit round a table, paper plate on the table. Someone 'curls one down'on the plate, and puts a second plate on top. Plate is slapped hard, resulting in shit flying everywhere. The shit particles; the 'freckles' are counted on each person. The one with the most buys the round of beers.

Well it did seem to engender a certain amount of pride in the school (although this can be taken too far), makes trouble makers far easier to identify outwith school, helps with the demarcation between school time and leisure time, and can help reduce some forms of bullying.

I'm not saying that it will instantly solve all problems but it isn't an inherently bad idea.

Are you still talking about "freckles", gonefishin?

Err no uniforms. I should probably have included some of grumms post.

You didn't attack my argument – posting a link to a wikipedia article and invoking Godwin's law isn't attacking anything.

OK – suggesting that an idea must be dodgy because it's similar to something the BNP said (that was what you were doing?) is association fallacy, and much the same as suggesting something must be dodgy because Hitler or the Nazis did it, which is also known as "reductio ad Hitlerum", and what led to Godwin coming out with his famous law. Is that better – hadn't realised I had to spell it out in quite such a longwinded fashion?

Freckles is for fiends though unbelievable not as bad as 'soggy biscuit'.

Our local secondary school has no uniforms, and still gets good results / no major problems with discipline etc.

Apparently when the inspectors went round last time, they didn't approve of this at all, and tried really hard to get the pupils to say that they'd rather have a uniform, or that they felt that not having a uniform caused problems, with no success.

Joe

OK – suggesting that an idea must be dodgy because it's similar to something the BNP said (that was what you were doing?) is association fallacy, and much the same as suggesting something must be dodgy because Hitler or the Nazis did it, which is also known as "reductio ad Hitlerum", and what led to Godwin coming out with his famous law. Is that better – hadn't realised I had to spell it out in quite such a longwinded fashion?

Not really because it still isn't a defence of the vacuous crap that both the Tories and BNP are coming out with. While the fact that the BNP also say similar things isn't in itself a reason to dismiss it, it also doesn't change the fact that it's vacuous crap.

Again, why not talk about the actual issues instead of paraphrasing wikipedia articles?

Well, you've moved from asserting it's vacuous crap because the BNP think it to asserting it's vacuous crap because it's vacuous crap . Which certainly makes the case all the more compelling. 😉

Well, you've moved from asserting it's vacuous crap because the BNP think it

When did I say that?

Oh sorry, were you comparing it to BNP policy as an endorsement? 🙂

Can I ask exactly what is wrong with that? The primary school I attended demanded that pupils wear ties and the secondary school demanded a blazer also. These schools were both in Motherwell which is about as working class and left wing a town as it is possible to get.

You say that like left wingers are against uniforms

Uniforms sounds like something the Nazis might come up with… oh look

…not that I'm suggesting uniforms are vacuous crap.

your posts on this thread are certainly vacuous crap. 😉

Hmm. This shadow minister who I haven't heard of until now firstly says remove state monopoly over schools, then mentions they can opt out of local authourity control.

But by opting out of local authourity control, they will have to be funded from somewhere, apart from a few Vardy's around, who's going to do that? Are they talking about opting out of local authourity control only, but the local authourity still funds them or complete removal? Which would mean they would be funded by the Government DIRECTLY.

State monopoly anyone?

I'm sure that there are plenty of Ex-soldiers in education, but this minister does specifically say "imposing discipline."

Apart from the discipline required to be a soldier how would this translate into the classroom?

Apart from the discipline required to be a soldier how would this translate into the classroom?

If pupils are misbehaving they bring in a soldier to shout at them?

Bimbler – Member

You say that like left wingers are against uniforms

Where those two kids wearing uniforms in your picture Bimbler ?

It didn't look like it to me. But then I couldn't read what it said underneath. Did it say "here's two children wearing uniforms " ?