Expert opens mouth and all shit comes out.

Read this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7811315.stm

 

As you may expect, I have issues with this. Ms (that’s right ‘Ms’, says it all…and she was speaking the Guardian, I rest my fucking case M’lud) so-called Gilbert reckons that children behave badly in lessons because the teacher is boring. Really? Her solution seems to be that all lessons are highly entertaining, ‘good’, and at the same time educational. Has she stepped into one of those dreadful teaching ads where some science teacher holds a bunch of hormonal teenagers under their spell by watching smoke go round in a fucking box?

Point one: Teachers have been making lessons ‘interesting’ since time began. Yes, some teachers are boring cunts but on the whole I think we go balls-out to make our lessons interesting.

Point two: how ‘interesting’ does she want us to be? I could try and inject some verve into my lessons by turning up dressed as Coco the bastard Clown and juggling during my delivery if she wants.

Point three: at some point during a lesson the main learning intention has to go into the children’s heads, and they must learn something. While hot-seating, role play and all that stuff play a huge part in my lessons there comes a time where every single child will have to practise something mundane, like using a full stop or spelling something correctly. This can be a bit ‘boring’. One of the little girls finds almost everything boring in my lessons but that’s because she’s quite thick and only likes ‘the telly’.

Point four: there’s loads of reasons children misbehave in school, too many to name in one post (and I doubtless don’t know them all)…

• They’re children and from time to time become little bastards. Children do that. It’s in their nature.
• They have no behavioural boundaries at home and therefore haven’t developed the skills needed to control their behaviour anywhere else.
• If they misbehave at home they get beaten shitless or have spicy root vegetables shoved up their arse. School is the only place they can be silly without fear of grievous bodily harm.
• Some are, to be frank, mental.
• Current behaviour management techniques are, quite often, shit. Many teachers feel the appropriate response to bad behaviour is to have a circle-time where the class discusses ‘making the right choice’. I don’t care what the experts say, it doesn’t fucking work. Circle time has a place but there comes a time in a child’s life where it has to be told that it’s acting the twat and be treated accordingly. I have a funny feeling Ms Gilbert’s of the ‘let’s talk about our feelings’ club.

Yes, if a teacher delivers a dull lesson behaviour will deteriorate. You don’t need to work for OFSTED to work that little gem out. I’m sure we can all remember a boring teacher when we were at school who everybody ignored and fucked about during their lessons. I’m also guessing that if you had a very, very boring teacher who experienced no behavioural problems it was because they were an utter bastard.

So Ms Gilbert, here’s Mr.Chipz guide to good behaviour in class:

Make your lessons as interesting as possible and if you can; fun. Don’t fret if you can’t always do this, sometimes learning something can be a little bit boring. Make it absolutely clear to your class that behaving well during your lessons will bring rich rewards such as their teacher being nice to them, but if they make ‘the wrong choice’ and behave badly they will quickly learn that it’s much, much better to be on the right side of teacher. Because this teacher can be a horrible, raging tyrant. (My kids love me by the way and behave brilliantly…my method works.)

* personal: Mr Chipz has decided to get married.