Jovial Monk wrote on Nov 14^th, 2023 at 12:33pm:

Finally, let’s not forget the parents’ role as they have the ultimate responsibility for their child’s disruptive behaviour. The school leadership team needs to be having ongoing general and targeted conversations with parents about values, rules and costs at their school, and the requirement that parents play their part in backing up the behaviour management plans. Schools are also an obvious venue for community-based parenting programs to help families better understand and manage disruptive behaviour in the home. The more the adults involved in a child’s life are united in approach, the quicker change will occur.

Aqua you know SFA about what Warrant Officers in the Army are now like.  They are strong, yes, but they are also caring and try to understand their soldiers as much as possible.  I have served with good and bad WOs.  The best only ever had to order me to do something once in 8 years.  A bad WO had to keep ordering me to do things his way because I did things my way.  Guess which was the more senior?  I had done anything for old Bill and I would have done nothing for old Wroble.  Old Bill was a senior WO who had joined before the Korean War, fought through that, fought through Malaya and Vietnam.  He understood his men.  Wroble had fought through Vietnam and he never understood us.  He was another Soren.  Tsk, tsk, tsk... 

A military approach to teaching and discipline would be 'stupid'. It would teach kids to just 'follow orders' and inhibit any ability for the students to think for themselves. Turn them into 'process workers' and nothing else. This would become evident in later years at either Tech for the clever or Uni for the smart - where they do have to think (and act) for themselves.

Jasin wrote on Nov 14^th, 2023 at 5:21pm:



i think a lot of kids will end up being home schooled

if you can afford it, getting private tutors and maybe teaming up with a dozen other local parents in a sort of kibbutz would make a lot of sense.

you want your kids in a social situation and you want them as far out of the reach of leftie intellectuals as possible .

i wonder how the jews educate kids?

268 nobel prizes from a small population would show they are doing things right

and their young people are brave patriots not prone to screeching and sooking

worth studying

aquascoot wrote on Nov 14^th, 2023 at 6:11pm:

Well said Aqua.

...also, I think you or Carl D would make good Moderators for the Health Board. Would you both run for it?

Education has been going down hill for a long time.

The internet has provided us with a wealth of information, but so many people, and this forum is an all too tragic real world reminder, just aren't armed with the critical thinking skills needed to sift through what they want to hear, what they want to believe, and find their way is factual or evidence-based.

Too many people, again this forum is a great example, would rather hold onto a lie than admit they're wrong or worse, change their belief.

These people have built their beliefs into their personality and "individuality" (which ironically has them acting more like sheep in the herd) and go looking for information to prove those beliefs true, rather than the other way around.

What we should all be doing is finding out what is truthful and factually accurate for a given situation and using that to form our opinions, not the other way around.

But from, at least in my experience, the 90's onwards, unless you've had any sort of tertiary scientific training, it's all too easy to fall victim to the internet's echo chambers.

And it shouldn't be that way.  Our sense of curiosity should be encouraged but not just to get an easy answer, but the correct answer.  This should be strengthened throughout our entire education.

But it's not.

Not anymore.

Valkie wrote on Nov 16^th, 2023 at 6:45pm:

MEASURING EMOTIONAL WELLBEING
PRIMARY SCHOOLS
44% cannot calm down quickly when they feel bad
44% cannot control how nervous they get
32% feel bad for long periods of time
BOY V GIRL DIFFERENCES
Girls: 53% Boys: 36% say they have their feelings easily hurt
Girls: 48% Boys: 39% cannot calm down quickly when they feel bad
Girls: 39% Boys: 29% think they’re stupid when someone teases them
POSITIVE ELEMENTS
I am a happy person. 92%
When I grow up. I will have a good life. 91%
I like the kind of person I am. 88%

SECONDARY SCHOOLS
I have a hard time controlling how worried I get: 56%
I feel very stressed: 53%
I lose my temper a lot: 32%
During the past six months, I have felt so hopeless and down almost every day for one week that I have stopped doing my usual activities: 21%
BOY V GIRL DIFFERENCES
I feel very stressed: Girls: 64% Boys: 41%
I have a hard time controlling how worried I get. Girls: 68% Boys: 44%
During the past six months, I have felt so hopeless and down almost every day for one week that I have stopped doing my usual activities. Girls: 26% Boys: 16%
I feel lonely: Girls: 29% Boys: 20%
POSITIVE ELEMENTS
I am a happy person. 88%
I am very hopeful about my future. 82%
I like the kind of person I am. 79%
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/the-kids-are-far-from-all-right/news-s...


Bernard found a range of areas where the wellbeing of primary school-age kids had significantly worsened since 2018.

“Children finding it hard to calm down quickly or struggling to describe their emotions have shown a rise,” he says. “So, too, the percentage experiencing hurtful feelings and those having prolonged periods of anger.”

A major contributor to these challenges is that “a growing number are refraining from talking to someone else when they feel bad”, he says.

Stress has increased significantly since 2018, when 46 per cent of secondary students said they felt very stressed.

Many can’t find a way to express it. Fifty-five per cent say they don’t find someone to talk to when they get stressed out and 31 per cent say they lose their temper a lot. More than 70 per cent say they “could do a lot better” in their schoolwork.

Bernard puts this down to a delay in the development of socio-emotional strengths they need to navigate an increasingly demanding curriculum, attributes such as tolerating frustration, and time management. He says a telling 2023 data point is the proportion of high school students, more than one in five, who say that at some point in the past six months they felt so hopeless and down almost every day for a week that they stopped doing their usual activities. For year 12 girls it is one in three.


Bernard says it’s important for parents not to shield children from disturbing world events or other life events that may be discomfiting. “There is evidence to suggest that overprotective parenting can contribute to lower resilience and higher stress levels in children,” he says. “Excessive efforts to shield children from potential harm, failure or discomfort can lead to underdeveloped problem-solving and social skills, reduced independence and delays in the development of self-confidence and persistence.”