By Lindsay Ash
SOMEONE once said that “teachers are well overpaid as educators and massively underpaid as child carers”, and I thought of that quote when I read that a recent survey stated that two out of five teachers in the UK said they had been attacked in schools. We also had something similar suggested in Jersey, with the JEP pretty much telling Rob Ward it’s his problem to sort out. I felt this was a little bit harsh on Wardie, as this isn’t something that’s sprung up in the last year: it has been growing over the years.
Where does the blame lie, then, if it doesn’t lie with Jersey’s answer to Mr Gilbert (Greg Davies)? Well, I think it’s fair to say a fair bit lies with parents and social policymakers. I first came across this some years ago with a Scottish chap I encountered who worked in IT. I asked him if he’d always done that, and he informed me that it was only recently, as he’d previously been a teacher. The reason he’d given up teaching was that a 14-year-old boy had pulled a knife on him. He had reacted by knocking the boy to the ground and removing the knife. The following day he was called into the head teacher’s office, where the boy’s parents were present, having made a complaint. He immediately felt that they probably didn’t know the facts, but yes, they did… their son had pulled a knife and he’d been assaulted. I always remember the Scotsman’s comment because I thought it was spot on: “I don’t care if someone’s 14, 40 or 105, if someone pulls a knife on me, I’m going to look after myself.” He was cleared of any wrongdoing, but he felt if that’s how parents and society were headed, he wanted no more to do with teaching.
There is now very definitely a body of parents, albeit a minority, who believe their children can do no wrong, and this places not just teachers but the police as well in a very difficult position. It can vary from the fairly trivial – that their daughter’s failure to secure academic brilliance is not down to the fact she spends the entire lesson texting her friend and provides no homework, but down to the sub-standard teaching of Miss Tritton – to the justifying of kids with knives. We also have the situation of children going to school without breakfast and not toilet-trained; this again is not, of course, the fault of the parent… No, no, society has let them down, and we will have a gaggle of “experts” explaining why it happens and who is to blame.
I can give you a good example of how complicated things can become for people in positions of authority from when I served as Assistant Home Affairs Minister. There was a group of youths consistently causing trouble and with little in the way of a deterrent were getting more and more emboldened in their actions, so a meeting was convened to discuss how things could be combated.
All the good and the great were present: police, lawmakers, social services, various ministers and the not-so-good or great in the form of myself representing the proletariat. It was detailed how this situation had got out of control and how it could be stopped. The police explained how they were consistently arresting them, the parents didn’t care, and we were on a merry-go-round of arrest and release. The lawyers nodded sagely, hummed and ha’d as lawyers do without committing to any solution. I am sure you know the sort of thing: whether Subsection A Rule 4 was not sufficient or would the Quadrophenia Act SS 9 be more relevant.
The social experts then chimed in for a considerable time on the theme that these kids were victims of their upbringings and it was the government’s fault. I listened, and as no one else seemed willing to challenge them, I said: “I hear all you are saying and, yes, it’s a shame they’ve had a tough time growing up BUT if one of these stabs and kills another child are you willing to stand in front of the victim’s parents and say, ‘Sorry about this, we knew these youths were out of control but they didn’t have an easy start in life, you know, so we did nothing’?” There was a visible unease before one piped up and said: “No, of course, we are not saying that… yes, I agree something has to be done.” Why did no one else question them? Fear of being labelled uncaring and draconian, possibly. Who knows?
These things have of course now become more difficult due to the empowerment of children from an early age, and until recently to question this was to be labelled a child hater from the Dark Ages or worse. We have been expected to believe that it’s perfectly OK for five-year-olds to be told they can decide if they are a boy or a girl. We have been treated to a know-all Swedish teenager telling us that we are destroying the planet and woe betide anyone who questions her validity. We even had someone in the States Assembly suggesting we should ask “What would Greta say?”, to which someone whispered to their neighbour “F*** all of any interest, I expect” (OK, I confess that was me and it caused the aforementioned neighbour to have a fit of the giggles).
Talking of the Assembly, we were then told there was a need to have a junior one, as it was important their views be heard. OK, so this is all fine, maybe five-year-olds are better at determining their sex than doctors, maybe Greta is not an obnoxious little troll and is in fact a miniature Nostradamus with an annoying voice, and perhaps 14-year-olds know more than adults and a Junior Assembly will unearth the next Terry Le Main. BUT that has all been cast into doubt by a fictional BBC programme in which basically a boy becomes unhinged by what he sees on the internet and kills someone. Now this has set all the bleeding hearts off in a different direction, wishing access to the internet severely restricted until the age of 16. Why? Because apparently while able to decide what sex they are, tell us we are b*s for destroying the planet and deserving of a parliament to instruct us what to do they are NOT capable or mature enough to deal with the internet. Great, isn’t it?
Lindsay Ash was Deputy for St Clement between 2018 and 2022, serving as Assistant Treasury and Home Affairs Minister under Chief Minister John Le Fondré. He worked in the City of London for 15 years as a futures broker before moving to Jersey and working in the Island’s finance industry from 2000. Feedback welcome on Twitter
@Getonthelash2.
