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The Gaffer's Philosophy:
Part 41: Child Welfare:
Abuse and Nurturing, 2:
March 10, 2003:
In my last essay, I discussed the forms of child abuse that occur
in the home. That discussion is far from complete. One other form,
in-home-education, will require a more detailed separate treatment.
I will get to that in time. In addition, we could go into much
more detail and list many specific cases. Fortunately, much of
this work has already been done. For those who want the sickening
detail here is the URL of the site to visit. http://www/preventdhildabuse.org/.
For those who wish to pooh-pooh the notion of emotional child
abuse, I would draw your attention to this site's fact sheet on
the same subject. It happens continuously and it is devastating
to the child.
Now I want to look at the child abuse in our schools. Let's not pretend it is a rare thing. It happens every day and it is not particularly subtle. It is not just the words. Even the way we look at kids can have a devastating effect. I remember the principal when I was in grade school. He was very tall and he would stand with arms folded across his chest. Then he would very deliberately tilt his head and look down his long mean nose at the little kids who came before him. I can tell you, it was terrifying. Let's try to remember, that we are giants and kids are midgets, physically and emotionally.
In addition to the covert actions of some teachers we also have some very sick people stalking our kids in the schools. There are a certain number of pedophiles and thugs in our educational system. These people are exposed quite regularly by our news media. When they are discovered, we must deal with them vigorously. Anyone convicted of victimizing children sexually or physically should be in prison for life.
At the same time, it is not necessary to discard the system of public education. That is the in-home-education solution. It is typical of the extremes of reaction we have come to now. We should try to support the rest of the educational establishment and education in general. I will get to what's wrong and how we fix it later, but we do need public education in our communities. There is no realistic alternative. Once we make it work, we should give it our full support.
We need not do that blindly, as my parents did it. At that time parents gave unconditional absolute support to the educators. As a consequence the thugs got away with some very sick and sadistic activities. Many children were victimized when I went to public school, including me. As kids, we had no recourse. Our parents would not support us under any circumstances. Some of it, I'm sure, was just plain cowardice. Fear of authority, often called respect for authority, was common in the population at that time. This notion of respect for authority no-matter-what is still being imposed on our kids too often.
Here are some personal examples. In my schooldays, I actually witness two different women teachers go mad, completely irrationally temporarily insane, while clubbing children. They could not stop. Exhaustion is what finally stopped them. One of those children was me. The other one was poor little Oliver Tomasic. It is not necessary to give the details of these incidents. The important thing is they did happen and that brutality had long term effects on the victims.
In some of our schools, we now have a complete reversal of that situation. We have the situation wherein the teachers are victimized by thug students with the tacit or explicit support of their parents. That is every bit as wrong. To allow and even encourage our children to be thugs is also child abuse. Kids who grow up with these kind of permissions will invariable continue the behavior into adult life. There, many of them will end up dead or in prison.
We need some balance in this situation. We need to realize that public education is important. We must understand that most teachers are not bad people. Most are people with noble intentions working in a very difficult situation. They need our support, in most cases. This is not just about our own children. We have a responsibility to the community and the culture.
Supporting education is really only about responsibility. It is about being involved in the process. It is about the responsibility of the parents and the citizen and the home. Abandoning public education and seeking bizarre alternatives is a one way road to chaos. If we don't accept responsibility and make it work, we will lose big time.
The entire system of public education is failing. In too many areas, if we do nothing, it will cease to exist at all. Then the state and feds will take over and the situation will really degenerate. Most kids will not have an opportunity for alternatives, good or bad. They will fall through the cracks of the inept state managed establishment. They will end up being beggars and criminals. Either way they will eventually become wards of the state.
To avoid that, we must make public education work. I repeat, the only way to do that is to accept responsibility for it, in the community. If we let the state or feds do it, it will turn just as bad and cost just as much as everything else we abdicate to the state. We must resist allowing the state to do anything at all that we can do in the local community. Our local solution will always be better and less costly in the long run than state or federal solutions.
The federal government has a right and, in fact, a duty to set standards for education. That is one thing. The feds have no right to interfere or to use blackmail to enforce those standards. I don't think the federal government should be financing local schools at all. Neither should the state. That is too high a level. It is not a federal issue. It is a local issue. It belongs to the local community. Setting uniform standards is a federal issue. That's all!
I have not finished with the subject of child abuse in our
schools. I will continue the theme in my next essay.
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