Just read through this thread.

I am afraid the problems raised are not simple.

I have a great respect for you as a performer Strolling Johnny, but I can tell you (as an ex teacher myself and as someone who keeps in contact with former friends in the profession) that you are mistaken if you think there is a single reason for the problems in some of our schools, or a simple solution.

I can tell you, when I started work as a teacher in '71 - corporal punishment was already a busted flush in the really tough schools. It wasn't the teachers or airy fairy educationists who decided against it. It was the parents, they taught their kids gurerilla warfare! I can remember one kid telling me, my Dad says if the teacher comes near you, you pick up a chair or a desk and throw it, then see what happens......

I tend to think in the kind of places Stephen Fry attended, they never really needed it anyway.

The problems will be solved by the professional skills of teachers, and by ourselves when we start taking seriously what we want our schools to accomplish, and how we want our children raised.

The recent Jamie Oliver series of programmes about school meals was very interesting. An Infant School noted that the behaviour of small children improved the moment we stopped feeding them poisoned shit.

I can remember in the 70's when A.E. Tansley the Inspector of Remedial Education in Birmingham opined than more than 70% of children in the city were having their bodies and brains damaged by environmental factors. Many of those who heard his conclusions ridiculed him.

I suppose we all thought about Spaghetti junction and the lead emissions from cars, we never thought about the crap we were stuffing into kids mouths. Children are so tiny and vulnerable when they are young, and once they have learned bad behaviour is the norm......

There a million other factors, but we have to work them out. We have first of all to believe they are important.

all the best

big al whittle