[Tubby Isaacs]

Has had a bit of a time on Twitter.

First this bit of homespun strawmanning- because everybody else is arguing for schools to be like Summerhill or something.

You might also notice this famous champion of rigour has let her standards drop.

Who's the best Lord though, Katherine? Rings, Flies or Dance?

She's apparently in favour of forced smiling in school. A chap, who seems to like some of her stuff, points out that he didn't much fancy smiling as he was bullied. She puts him straight with her legendary empathy,

She moves on to employment law and business.

Where's this all leading? Yep,

[Andy McDandy]

Far as I can see, she's another Oxford cunt with Strong Opinions who knows she's right about everything.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Far as I can see, she's another Oxford cunt with Strong Opinions who knows she's right about everything.

In one.

Darling of the Tory Taleban.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Just seen this cracker from Wiki.

"Teachers would tell them all the time they weren't part of the country - they say what country are you really from? Let's do a cultural thing where we all bring in our flags. The people who are doing this think they're being nice. They think they're being respectful" but that children "didn't get taught about Shakespeare and Dickens - or that they were part of their country."

Lefty liberals famously like to ask minorities where they're "really from". And how long does this "bring in the flags" stuff last? Long enough to have read Hamlet?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

What a load of bollocks.

[Samanfur]

I haven't checked, but I'm guessing that the original thread was started by this.

[Cyclist]

Kee-rist! Having read that Mirror article I can see why the parents are up in arms. That woman is insane and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a school, certainly not making the rules. It looks like she's modelling her school on a 1950s military correction centre.

[Andy McDandy]

Yeah, she came out in support of the head there.

I can just see these rules being tested to destruction by any student with half a brain in the first few days of term.

[RandomElement]

When I read this the first thing I thought of was the Doctor Who story, Happiness Patrol. https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Happ ... (TV_story)
I not much of a whovian and don't what it often, but this story has always stuck in my mind.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Cheers. I assumed Birbalsingh was bringing it in at her own place. There's another place like this?!

[Andy McDandy]

Melton Mowbray.

Looked at her biog on wikipedia. Yeah, another Gradgrind, all "teach kids facts, not how to learn". Great for pub quizzes, not so great for life.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Melton Mowbray is pretty affluent, isn't it?

I'm not sure the parents there will be like the ones at Birbal's schools who probably think they're lucky to be there.

[RandomElement]

Geez, It would have been terrible for me. The best way for me to listen to the teacher, was to look out of the window and relax my eye and just listen. As for looking the teacher in the eyes; I still find it difficult to look at people in the eyes now, I'm in my mid forties. As for smiling all the time, No, just no.

ETA, how exactly is this meant to get kids ready for life, what job has that kind of rigidity, a part from perhaps the armed services.

[Tubby Isaacs]

My teachers used to tell people off for looking out of the window sometimes. They didn't make a song and dance about it like this. Sounds like the teacher could end up wasting a lot of time on this. "Miss, Tomkins is looking out of the window, that's against school rules!" (says Tomkins' mate for a laugh).

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I remind the Common Room once again of Köhlberg's Hierarchy of Moral Development:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_ ... evelopment

Kohlberg's six stages can be more generally grouped into three levels of two stages each: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional. Following Piaget's constructivist requirements for a stage model, as described in his theory of cognitive development, it is extremely rare to regress in stages—to lose the use of higher stage abilities. Stages cannot be skipped; each provides a new and necessary perspective, more comprehensive and differentiated than its predecessors but integrated with them.

Kohlberg's Model of Moral Development
Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
(How can I avoid punishment?)
2. Self-interest orientation
(What's in it for me?)
(Paying for a benefit)

Level 2 (Conventional)
3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(Social norms)
(The good boy/girl attitude)
4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(Law and order morality)

Level 3 (Post-Conventional)
5. Social contract orientation
6. Universal ethical principles
(Principled conscience)

As you can see Burblesingh and that other head are training pupils to go no further than Level 1.1.

Others, such as m'self, have worked to get as many pupils as possible into the Post-Convential stages. But to do that you have to model moral maturity (hard for Burble) and allow much freedom, and discussion.

For a mature, educated, egalitarian and just society it is vital. Therefore the Furies of the right don't do it.

[Watchman]

I remember walking along the bottom corridor at secondary school, couple of my mates had just got caught pratting around and I was grinning my face off, deputy head came out of his office and gave me a bollocking for grinning

[Malcolm Armsteen]

The man was clearly under-employed.

[Cyclist]

ETA, how exactly is this meant to get kids ready for life, what job has that kind of rigidity, a part from perhaps the armed services.

It isn't. It's to enable small-minded tin-pot Hitlers to feel powerful. It's not about discipline and respect, it's about power and control, and should have no place in a place of learning.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Absolutely.

It's an obsession with the weak to control like this.

[Andy McDandy]

And it plays well with thick people who did shit at school but respected Mr Nutcracker because he didn't take any shit. And who think anyone younger than them is getting it too easy.