A Teachers Tale

Once upon a time there was a primary school teacher in England; a friend of my wife from when they both worked together at the same school. From all accounts she was good at what she did and highly professional. Until the Lie, that is. These are the facts as I know them;

A child, for a reason no one has been able to ascertain, falsely (and I’d stand up in a court under oath and back that up) complained that this particular Teacher had been ‘nasty’ to the child to the child’s gonzo parents. No specifics as to what ‘nasty’ entailed, probably telling child to sit down and be quiet or something ‘damaging’ like that, that sort of thing. No thrown chalk or blackboard rubber, no cuff round the ear or six strokes of the cane (Ah, those were the halcyon days of my youth – Rum, sodomy and the lash). The ‘nastiness’ was probably just a couple of sharp words, if it happened at all.

Male gonzo parent, instead of taking the issue to the head teacher of the school and asking for some kind of explanation, infiltrated the school grounds during school hours and attacked the female Teacher while the Teacher was on playground duty. Male gonzo parent was arrested, having left bruises on the neck of the Teacher. What a brave man, eh? Having a go at a Female primary school teacher in her forties. Tough guy (Not).

To say the least, the Teacher was shocked, and took two days sick leave to recover a little. She returned to work. The Teacher not having properly emotionally recovered from the assault; was also subjected to ‘lesson observation’ (Stress levels of this on a par with taking one’s driving test or high level exam) by her head teacher, and given extra workload to boot. Still being a bit rocky from the assault, the Teacher decided that enough was enough, and after two months of this treatment handed in her resignation. The Teacher’s confidence in her ability to interact with her charges had been shattered.

Talk about a lack of sensitivity. The CPS are currently requesting more ‘evidence’ so they can bring additional charges. The victim (The Teacher) was subjected to high levels of scrutiny to cover the schools arse, and in the meantime the kids have had their education disrupted because their form teacher has been off work.

I don’t know how everybody else feels but it’s high time the system in England stopped punishing the victims and dealt with the malefactors instead. Unfortunately, I don’t think that this will happen soon, officialdom being so in love with the ‘bean counting’ and ‘box ticking’ philosophy where the price of everything is known, but the value of everything is a distraction. Therefore I’m afraid the phrase ‘in your dreams’ has some synergy at this point.

What annoys me most is the way that officialdom assumes that everything a child says has to be the unvarnished truth. Most of the time the children themselves don’t know, and couldn’t tell you either. How many other hardworking people have had their careers wrecked by this PC assertion that the child is always right?

I blame Rousseau’s argument;

“Everything is good in leaving the hands of the Creator of Things; everything degenerates in the hands of man.”

What utter romanticised 18th century nonsense. He was obviously never a primary school teacher or he’d have known better. Children can be deceitful monsters, and he never saw that.