[lit-ideas] Re: English Pubic Schools
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 08:55:05 -0500
> [Original Message]
> From: Judith Evans <judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 2/16/2006 1:43:09 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: English Pubic Schools
>
>
> --- Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > I suppose technically it's important.
>
> It certainly is.
>
Technically warms the hearts of lawyers. Never mind.
>
>
> > I don't know about our private schools, > they're
> probably still
> > backward in terms of physical discipline, or more
> > backward anyway than our
> > public schools.
>
> (As of 2003?) "Every industrialized country in the
> world now prohibits school corporal punishment, except
> the U.S., Canada and one state in Australia."
>
I don't understand this statement. I am a product of our school system. I
also watch CNN and have a relatively, I think, good understanding of what
goes on in this country. Periodically we have the story about the children
who die because CPS (Child Protective Services) again dropped the ball.
But I have never in my life, never not once ever, heard a story about
anyone getting hit by a teacher. I did hear back in the 80's the principal
in the high school of my town grabbed a teenager by the collar and pushed
him against a wall in some display of Marlon Brando-esq superiority. He
was fired. It's definitely the anomaly if it happens. Schools are
actually safer than homes. Kids will bully each other, and in many areas
that's being addressed. But never have I heard about a teacher hitting a
child. It's just not done. Not in my experience anyway, not even in
Texas, but maybe somebody in Texas can tell me I'm wrong. I can imagine it
in the sharecropper South, but the South is the Hell of the country. In
Hell lots of things are considered acceptable, like killing somebody for
having more melanin in their skin that someone else would like. Hell won't
change any time soon. The South fought a Civil War for the rigiht to live
in Hell. I'll accept it if that's what you're referring to.
> 27 states had banned school corporal punishment.
>
>
> 1999-2000 School Year: US Public Schools: data
> released February, 2003
>
> "In the U.S. as a whole, 342,038 students were
> subjected to corporal punishment. This is a drop of 7%
> from the previous survey two years earlier [taking
> enrollment increases into account], continuing a
> steady trend. Total U.S. public school enrollment was
> 46,306,355 students in '99-2000. Twenty-seven states
> and the District of Columbia now have prohibited all
> corporal punishment in public schools"
>
I can see it in the private schools, the religious schools. I think half
the time that's why parents send their kids to private school, so the
teachers can "keep them in line". They think it's good parenting,
seriously. But I suspect it doesn't happen much there either. Where are
you getting these numbers? And what does corporal punishment in an
American school look like? Sorry, I simply can't imagine a teacher hitting
a student.
> I read that most US non-Catholic private schools
> disapprove of corporal punishment.
>
That's better. Catholic schools are notorious for the nun with the ruler.
But even Catholic schools nowadays hire mostly regular teachers. In fact,
I heard a story a long time ago that nuns are a dying breed. There are so
few people going in to be nuns that there's no one left to take care of
them after they retire. There's an organization supposedly called SOAR,
Support Our Aging Religious to help them. As far as I know, there's really
not much difference between Catholic and public schools here, except that
Catholic schools teach religion.
> "Since 1995 when this website was founded, spanking
> has become a high-profile controversy in North
> America....
>
> ...The Department of Health and Human Services and the
> New England Journal of Medicine estimate that 1,000 to
> 2,000 children die every year in the U.S. from
> corporal punishment that has escalated to a lethal
> level. They estimate that 142,000 are seriously
> injured annually."
>
>
That sounds right. Spanking is barbaric; it's done by parents. I heard
the U.N. was going to promote non-violence toward children. I don't know
if they have or not. I imagine in the U.S. it'll be thought of as an
infringement on parental rights.
>
>
> > > and physical punishment by parents is also an
> > issue.)
> > >
> > >
> >
> > That's the big one. The one place that's supposed
> > to be safe is the place
> > where most hitting and terror takes place. It's
> > considered domestic
> > violence against women, but not against tiny people.
> > So weird.
>
> Oh it is considered violence here.
>
Is it against the law? Are people actually prosecuted? Or is it just
considered violence?
> >
> >
> > If something as painful as the birch was outlawed
> > only in 1948, there
> > should be a lot of biographies that talk about it.
>
> That is *very* different from your statement, which I
> countered by saying that it most certainly is possible
> to read an autobiography of an Englishman without
> encountering the kind of accounts you allege exist in
> every such autobiography (and not because the other
> autobiographies are lies).
>
>
I suppose anything is possible. I don't see the distinction either, but
that's fine. It doesn't matter.
> > > In the BBC
> > > > 1980's production of The Singing Detective
> > >
> > > not an autobiography
> > >
> >
> >
> > Not science fiction either. It's based in reality.
>
> Yes but to what extent?
>
We all like to think it's pure fiction and that people aren't really
capable of something like that. But then we see a tape ...
> >
> >
> > I couldn't understand the kid at all. I had to
> > watch it with subtitles.
>
> It was set in the Forest of Dean.
>
>
I don't know. It sounds like it's somewhere between Wales and England.
"The Forest of Dean lies between the rivers Wye and Severn, in the western
part of Gloucestershire, and on the borders of Wales and Herefordshire."
http://www.visitforestofdean.co.uk/
> >
> >
> > One likes to think they draw the line at royalty.
>
>
> This *one* likes to think they do not.
>
I think they'd better stop broadcasting all these bio shows on American
cable television. That's where I get my information about royals.
> > He endured emotional
> > beatings in school
>
> He was bitterly unhappy at Gordonstoun
>
And nobody cared.
> and was essentially an abandoned
> > kid,
>
> that is a different point; boarding schools vary
> enormously.
>
Not so different. All children need two parents. He had no parents.
Presumably he had the best boarding school. His father was also
emotionally abusive from what I understand. That's why Charles was so
crushed when Monte (Blanc?) was killed by the IRA. He had been his mentor.
The royals have a hellish life. That's my opinion. If you disagree,
that's fine.
>
> along with all the
> > other royals.
>
>
> Andrew really liked Gordonstoun. I believe Anne liked
> Benenden.
>
I don't know. By definition to be sent to boarding school is, from the
child's point of view, to be rejected by the family. The parents don't
care enough about the kid to keep him around. You know more about their
education than I do.
> >That doesn't make for happy people.
>
> Many things make for unhappy people.
>
>
Not true. People who are grounded in feelings of safety and acceptance can
weather just about anything throughout their lives. If you don't agree,
that's fine.
>
>
> > >
> > > we gave up executing children long long ago, of
> > course
> > >
> >
> > We're still working on it.
>
> Somewhat slowly.
>
Change comes slowly. Ironically, people who are hit are the ones who will
cling to hitting others. We like what we know, plus getting hit breeds
fear which leads to more hitting. Lots of people think violence of one
sort or another is the answer for just about everything.
> **I am aware of the former brutalities of certain of
> our public schools -- to which I am anyway opposed --
> and of the unhappiness caused to some children sent
> away from home so young. My objection is to your
>
> " British. That
> makes
> sense. They used to do something short of that in
> their public schools
> (seriously). Hopefully things have civilized up a
> bit."
>
> so ill-informed, so crass.**
>
>
I can see that it would make an English person bristle to be reminded, but
it is not ill-informed. Crass, mmm, maybe. But so is the fact that the
tape happened, and that English public schools were in fact veritable
torture chambers for a lot of kids. That's history in any case. What
matters is what's happening now.
>
>
> But this isn't a
> > contest.
>
>
> You wrote as though it were.
>
And/or you read it as though it were.
>
>
>
> Judy Evans, Cardiff
>
>
>
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