My eye! Sweet Jesus, Ouch!

[Habakure]

What he said.

 

Also, who would watch the video footage all day long to enforce it (Lets say its a big school, thats a lot of class rooms), or of course it would mean everyone sitting there watching the video footage to calrify what happened (And then a person to rule in a persons favour as to what happened in there eyes. It would also have to be a person who was from an independant body, to make it fair and unbiased). On top of that you would need multiple cameras to pick up all the angles (If a person has thiee back to the camera, its hard to see what hand gestures they are doing). Also they would have to have microphones in there as well, to pick up the conversations. Cameras are allowed in problem schools, but only in corridors, they where not allowed in class rooms (Not too sure why, I forget the reason now).

 

Another side note, is that schools could not afford all the cameras and recording equipment/technicians to run them.

[Triggerhappychappy]

...

 

Damn, if it wasnt for you pesky kids I'd have gotten away with it.

 

What about V chips instead?

[Tinkerton]

I had a pretty good experience at school, only really having one issue with a teacher, who insisted on me being put in set 3 out of 5 for English. set 1 for genius', set 5 for people who can't read/write. So, while theoretically it wasn't a BAD set, i was stuck with people who weren't confident reading, OR writing, some had dyslexia (and by no means am i saying people with dyslexia are stupid, the people that were in that set were), and if we're being honest, i was a lot better than that set.

 

I was put in there because my writing is messy, and when i have to hand write things, i'm very slow at it. Give me a keyboard and i can probably do in excess of 140 words a minute, no sweat.

 

For some reason this teacher had it in for me, she didn't like my attitude, even though i was probably one of the best behaved in the class. I'm a quick reader, so when reading something like 'of mice and men' i'd finished by the time had got to chapter 8 or so, because she insisted on having pupils read it out.

 

I then FOUGHT to get put in for the higher paper, as opposed to the foundation which she wanted me to be put in for, which would've meant a maximum grade of a C. I managed to get put in for the higher paper as i'd done well in my coursework (which, shock horror, was typed). I then managed to wangle my way into two of the set 1 revision sessions, and learnt what felt like more than I'd learnt in the previous two years.

 

I ended up coming out of the higher paper with a B. something which i would've been denied had i been put in for the foundation paper.

 

 

On the flip side, my chemistry teacher was fantastic. Something about me and chemistry just 'clicked' (at GCSE, at least) and i understood it pretty much immediately. So we had a laugh, i finished early most of the time, and then spent the rest of the lesson doodling, or chatting with my friend who also had finished.

 

One instance that sticks out in my mind was during a 'revision lesson' for chemistry, while everybody else was making notes, looking through textbooks etc, i was reading a book. He called me out, asked why i wasn't doing anything, me, having a good rapport with him, smiled cheekily and simply said 'but i know it all, sir'.

 

he then proceeded to question me about various things which might come up in the exam.

 

I got them all right.

 

 

I honestly think a lot of the problems with kids today is down to bad, or 'lacklustre' parenting. When i was a kid (10 years ago or so), if i went out every night and got ###### off my head and wrecking things like its widely reported today, i wouldn't be able to sit down for weeks, and would be locked in my room pretty much all day and let out only for school and meals. my parent's would've taken away EVERYTHING fun in my room as well, no TV, no playstation, no gameboy, no books.

 

Teachers need more protection from disruptive pupils and angry parents, but at the same time, the ability to bypass a teacher if they're doing something wrong and complain about it needs to be there.

 

It's a bit of a catch 22, really.

[Stealthbomber]

On the flip side, my chemistry teacher was fantastic. Something about me and chemistry just 'clicked' (at GCSE, at least) and i understood it pretty much immediately. So we had a laugh, i finished early most of the time, and then spent the rest of the lesson doodling, or chatting with my friend who also had finished.

Chemistry.

 

Chemistry qualifies as a rant in it's own right for me.

I just don't get chemistry at all.

Oddly enough, I learned quite a bit about it in my career but at school I just couldn't grasp it at all.

 

I took it as an O-level but that was cos of the way our sylabus (sp?) was designed.

I forget how it happened but I was left with the choice of Geography or Chemistry and I'd already signed up for Geography in preference to some other class so I was left to take chemistry by accident.

 

The teacher was pretty weird though. A charming gentleman by the name of Mr Beagle who used to do odd things like climb underneath the desks when nobody was looking and then move around the classroom underneath the desks then grab students by the leg when they were talking or doing something wrong.

God only knows how much he saw of the girls in the class while he was under there.

 

He also used to do the usual stuff like throw blackboard erasers at kids to get their attention and often deliberately tampered with peoples experiments to demonstrate the need for concentration.

If, for example, you were doing something which involved water and you wandered off to talk to a mate half way through he'd slip powdered sodium (IIRC) into one of your test tubes so that it'd all go violently wrong when you came back to finish what you were doing.

 

What fun!

[Azubi]

 

One instance that sticks out in my mind was during a 'revision lesson' for chemistry, while everybody else was making notes, looking through textbooks etc, i was reading a book. He called me out, asked why i wasn't doing anything, me, having a good rapport with him, smiled cheekily and simply said 'but i know it all, sir'.

 

he then proceeded to question me about various things which might come up in the exam.

 

I got them all right.

 

 

 

I was like that in History. I loved it all, especially the Cold War stuff and could get away with murder in the class.

[Hedganian]

That does sound like a lively class, but putting powdered sodium into anything that pupils were going to put water into is fairly dangerous - the reaction between sodium and water is pretty energetic, not to mention producing sodium hydroxide - a powerful bleach - and could easily lead to significant injuries if uncontrolled.

 

Today's rant - car insurance.

 

Why the hell am I getting quotes over a grand with THREE GRAND EXCESS for my car only worth between £3k and £4k? Last year's quote was £690 with a £200 excess and I thought that was too high - but this is just insane....

[GuzziHero]

Gotta say, I hated school. The curriculum bored me intensely, and I have quite a short attention span so I did the very minimum possible. None of the teachers were engaging, and I didnt find any of the 'lessons' very useful at all. Hell, I took Urdu language as one of my options to try and escape the curriculum. I was also a 'conscientious objector' (my words to the headmaster!) to religious education and got banned from geography for being disruptive. I refused to participate in sports or French.

 

Yet, I was in the top streams for everything I did. I never did understand that part.

 

For me, school was the boring, uncomfortable waste of time between getting up in the morning, and getting home for tea and I bucked the system every way possible. My parents wanted to home-school me and were denied.

[Desolation mkII]

Do you have any idea how much paperwork you have to do to even take a picture of a kid nowadays?

 

Video them?

You're having a laugh.

 

My old highschool had cctv in every corridoor and every classroom AFAIR.

 

Mind you it was a dump.

[Hedganian]

As long as there was no video surveillance in "sensitive" areas such as changing rooms, ablutions and toilets, there should be no legal issue with CCTV in classrooms, corridors and other areas of school for the purpose of crime prevention and the safety of teachers and pupils alike.

 

There are far too many cases of teachers being attacked by pupils or parents and having little or no recourse to protection, much less the barely controlled bedlam that I have personally observed in schools. While I am in no way implying that there are no teachers or non-teaching staff members who do not abuse their positions, I think these cases are less common than the issues where teachers or other staff are victims of outrageous behaviour by children.

[GuzziHero]

A rave, just to cheer the thread up.

 

Just been to Aldi, i have 4 items and 2 checkouts are open. One closes just as I get there. A couple in front of me has a full trolley. Now when I have a full trolley, I always look back to see if theres anyone with just a couple of things so I can let them through first, my parents taught me to do that. Manners right?

 

Well this old codger couple, just like 90% of people these days, have no goddamn manners or consideration whatsoever.

 

Luckily the just-closing till operator is one of the remaining 10%. She checks my stuff out, then goes on her lunch break.

 

Thank goodness for considerate shop staff!

[Hedganian]

It's a rarity, that's for sure...

[Azubi]

Just been to Aldi, i have 4 items and 2 checkouts are open. One closes just as I get there. A

 

Sounds like immigration and border control at Dammam airport. Although they close when they feel like it, even when there is a massive queue to process. The massive queue is probably the reason why they close.

[L4byr1nth]

This just reminded me of something.

 

When I was in first school (really little school, to Americans. Not Nursery, but first proper school), I came home apparently quite upset. I was about... 7 or 8, maybe?

 

We had been tasked to draw our own comic books (ahhh, those were the good old days!) in school. The teacher had then gone through them with each of us to look at spelling and grammar, etc.

 

My dad taught me to read, and subsequently write, from the age of two. The school had frequently called him in - arguing that it undermined their teaching and hampered their lesson plans (although the rate of literacy in their classes was well below the national average at the time).

 

When he saw what the teacher had written on the comic, he drove me immediately to the school. The teacher just dismissed it as another 'misunderstood, overprotective' parent, and she waved him away after 5 minutes.

 

He then started shouting. And swearing. A lot.

 

The headteacher was called, and tempers were frayed, until he produced the comic book I'd written and drawn.

 

The teacher had gone through it, with me stood up in front of the whole class, loudly proclaiming my inability to spell the word 'dinosaur' multiple times. She'd helpfully crossed it out, and written the 'correct' spelling in red ink, about 6 or 7 times.

 

Unfortunately for her, I was a huge Jurassic Park fan, and I'd spelt it right.

 

She had repeatedly corrected me with 'dinosore'.

 

She had to make a public apology to my dad, and an apology to me in front of the class. Then, a week later, she was taken away for 'retraining', and no-one has seen her again since then.

 

Owned. Teachers aren't always right - they're just people. Heck, on Friday, I did my teaching exam... Me... Teaching. HA!

 

Ben.

[Hedganian]

Whoever said teachers are always right?

 

However, it's my experience that they are right more often than not. After all - it is their job...

[amateurstuntman]

To video children you have to get written permission from the parent or guardian of every child who will be videoed.

 

If the video feed is recorded and not just viewed live there are a load more hoops to jump through.

 

Chemistry, don't worry about your chemistry teacher mate, all chemistry teachers are like that. From licking the spoon.

[Habakure]

Hmm

 

I probably will get shot down for this, but shouting and swearing isn't the way to go. There is no excuse for it, regardless of it being in a school or even in the work place (Heck, even my dad had to be brought round to see sense, when he was a forman - use to be a fitter then got moved up - and had to check the work of joiners and carpenters). I reckon that if it was brought to the head teacher(s) or head master in a meeting the same desired effect would have happened (The teacher being pulled up for mis-conduct and for be-littling a pupil, which would be classed as professional misconduct).

 

What happened to L4byr1nth, is completely un-acceptable and a highlight that certain people should not be allowed to teach. Though, having said that, I sometimes find that there are people that just hate teachers, just like certain people hate the police, or doctors, and will go out of thier way to say as much. I had a bad experience when I was little but it has not changed my view of teachers, as that would be a very closed minded approach (I have come across people who have had a bad experience and as such, say that all teachers/lecturers know nothing).

 

Also, I am not saying L4byr!nth, or anyone else on here, that has spoken about wrong doing in a school due to idiotic teachers, is like that (Hating teachers etc). Though one would have to agree, that in society there is a lot of hatred aimed at people who work in the public sector, and especially those who have "control" over a certain aspect of our life/lives (Police enforce the law, Teachers make you do home work when your little etc).

 

There is a flip side to the coin, and that is when a person in the public sector abuses thier profession for personal gain (Marking down work, trying to get a raise out of someone so they can then arrest them etc), or they use there position to make a persons life hell and as such that person gets bad grades etc. School should be a place to learn, first and foremost, not have to defend your self against those put in place to help you learn.

[L4byr1nth]

I'll be the first to say that my dad's not one to usually shout and swear - we're very middle class here

 

It was the audacity of a young female teacher, obviously fresh from university, who had been placed in a position of power, and felt blessed with the authority to shrug off serious flaws in her own methods as minor failings in other people (typical women, eh? ).

 

Still, thanks to substance abuse, I have very little to no memory of anything before the age of about 12 or 13, so I don't really recall the issue.

 

One of the chief observations I've made so far over the course of my 22 year life is this; Nice guys do finish last... If you pardon the double entendre.

 

Hard-working, polite, respectful people often do get their problems sidelined in favour of the scummy underclasses of the world - all because, in practice, they complain louder and with more bad language.

 

This doesn't make it right, and is no way an excuse to treat people badly, but if I need something doing, I'm now more likely to adopt an outright aggressive approach to get it done. It is base, and un-British, but it works.

 

For example, Talk Talk downgrading my internet connection without asking.

 

Dad phones up, 50 + year old man, polite, middle-class accent. He gets nowhere, of course. "Oh, we're working on the lines in your area, it should be back to speed soon".

 

Sure you are.

 

I ring straight back. Why the *fruitcage* have you downgraded my *fruitcage* internet connection? I didn't *fruitcage* tell you to, did I? I'm the one paying the bills, aren't I? Right, I'm going back to *fruitcage* Virgin Media.

 

I am now back at full speed

 

Ben.

[Hedganian]

To video children you have to get written permission from the parent or guardian of every child who will be videoed.

 

If the video feed is recorded and not just viewed live there are a load more hoops to jump through.

 

Security CCTV is hardly the same thing as some sick freak filming the kiddies getting changed or whatever.

 

Make the parents sign the agreement when they enrol their kids. If they don't like it - well, there's the door.

 

Perhaps I'm just asking for trouble - but I have no real issue with surveilance. CCTV - if used correctly the way it's intended - helps prove what happened in a given place at a given time. I don't go around breaking laws or the rules of a decent society, so I have no fear of someone recording me going about my business. I have nothing to hide. The people who whine on about "civil rights" make me wonder - what are THEY trying to hide?

 

For example, Talk Talk downgrading my internet connection without asking.

 

Dad phones up, 50 + year old man, polite, middle-class accent. He gets nowhere, of course. "Oh, we're working on the lines in your area, it should be back to speed soon".

 

Sure you are.

 

I ring straight back. Why the *fruitcage* have you downgraded my *fruitcage* internet connection? I didn't *fruitcage* tell you to, did I? I'm the one paying the bills, aren't I? Right, I'm going back to *fruitcage* Virgin Media.

 

I am now back at full speed

 

Ben.

 

No offense, but that's pretty disgraceful. The part about taking your business elsewhere probably did the trick, there's really no need to abuse the poor phone monkey you're talking to - at least not at first - it's not their fault and they're not paid enough to listen to abuse.

 

Last time I worked a job that involved talking directly to the public, ie "customers", I'd simply hang up on anyone who swore at me.

[Mike_West]

For example, Talk Talk downgrading my internet connection without asking.

 

Dad phones up, 50 + year old man, polite, middle-class accent. He gets nowhere, of course. "Oh, we're working on the lines in your area, it should be back to speed soon".

 

Sure you are.

 

I ring straight back. Why the *fruitcage* have you downgraded my *fruitcage* internet connection? I didn't *fruitcage* tell you to, did I? I'm the one paying the bills, aren't I? Right, I'm going back to *fruitcage* Virgin Media.

 

I am now back at full speed

Oh, yeah. One thing I learned: if you don't shake those lazy gits properly, they won't do jack *suitcase*. Apparently they think that if you're polite and patient with them, you're patient with whatever they *fruitcage*ed up and will politely wait until they get their lazy asses up and do what they were supposed to do.

[L4byr1nth]

I really couldn't care less about the person on the end of the phone, as to be honest, I'm 100% sure they don't give a gnats knackers about my internet connection.

 

But it works every time.

 

Ben.

[scorch]

In an ideal world, you shouldn't have to resort to mouthing off to get people to do thier job.

 

 

Just like in an ideal world, I shouldn't have to spend 3 hours litterpicking on a saturday afternoon.

 

 

But people suck.

[SpoonMan]

Security CCTV is hardly the same thing as some sick freak filming the kiddies getting changed or whatever.

 

Make the parents sign the agreement when they enrol their kids. If they don't like it - well, there's the door.

 

Perhaps I'm just asking for trouble - but I have no real issue with surveilance. CCTV - if used correctly the way it's intended - helps prove what happened in a given place at a given time. I don't go around breaking laws or the rules of a decent society, so I have no fear of someone recording me going about my business. I have nothing to hide. The people who whine on about "civil rights" make me wonder - what are THEY trying to hide?

 

 

In the states at least the biggest fear of CCTV is that it can be misconstrued. For example, when I was teaching pre-school I used to play box with some of the kids. It was fun, they enjoyed it, and no one ever got hurt, however from the wrong angle it could easily look like I was beating the bloody ###### out of one of those kids. Now, if someone were to ever file a complaint or charge against me for abuse, and pulled video of me in the classroom and saw that, from the angle that made me look as if I really was beating him, I would be absolutely screwed. Could this be fixed if people took video within proper context? Sure, but my understanding is that the majority of the time they won't.

[Hedganian]

I'm ###### off. Regardless of the fact that the images on the website show this EOLAD fitted to a 552-type sight, the one I just got out of a box from Hong Kong won't fit on the G&P 552 that I also got out of the box.

 

 

Is the 552 taller than the 551? Are different makes different heights? Or what? I don't understand why it doesn't fit, given that the product pictures show it fitted to a 552. Do I need a different make of 552?

[L4byr1nth]

Did you get them from the same retailer?

 

I hate when they don't have the courtesy to tell you that the two products you ordered won't actually work together.

 

Ben.

[Vice]

Dinosaurs

 

I had a similar experience. I had been given homework in year 10 or so for English, I completed said homework and handed it in, however I had written it in red pen as I could not find blue/black/magenta/w/e. Teacher for some reason goes ape####, has a go at me, gives me a detention and a shouting at in front of the class making up some *suitcase* about impersonating a teacher and not doing my work.. (even though the work was thorough, complete and most likely highest scoring in the class)

 

Now I ###### off goes home and complain to my Dad, who happens to be chair of governors at the school (and a Headteacher at a local primary) and hates kids being mistreated, especially his own. Apparently this teacher had a couple of complaints lodged against her before and my complaint was the final straw. They told us she had moved to a new area and school.. She was fired