Re: A perfect day to blow up the nanny state

On Fri, 7 Nov 2008 08:53:53 -0000, "AndyW"
<Andrew.whitelaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"MM" <kylix_is@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:d2o6h492d3cnhshjrcojiv44iuk7bbohgo@xxxxxxxxxx
For instance, you may feel that if a teacher leads a school trip into the
mountains of Scotland, he should choose whatever path he thinks best,
based
on his common sense, and if he should lose a few children along the way
(falling into rivers, or down cliffs) it should be regarded as part of
life's rich tapestry and he should not blame himself and neither he nor
the
school should face any prosecution or civil suit.

What teacher ever did that in the past?

Sadly it has happened on several occassions that I can recall in the past.

Two teachers taking kids out in the eastern cairngorms took the wrong track
in mist and got lost. hypothermia claimed 2 of the kids.
In Snowdonia a group of teachers/scout leaders (?) took too large a part up
Snowdon and lost control of the party, one kid walked off the edge of a
cliff and they did not notice as noone was in control or head-counting (when
I take kids away I am head count almost to the point of obsessiveness.)

The biggest problem with these cases is that, generally, the party leaders
broke the rules/laws. The reaction seems to be to increase the laws, rules
and paperwork to be seen to be doing something.
My main gripe with the ever increasing laws and regulations is that it
overloads the law abiding party leaders to the point where we have so many
forms, rules, reg and guidelines that we are increasingly likely to miss
one. Meanwhile the people who ignored the simplers laws continue to ignore
the complex ones.

Just a couple of years ago 2 teachers shadowing a party of kids on a DofE
expedition in the Cairngorms called out the mountain rescue for a full scale
search as the kids got lost. Amusingly it turned out that the kids were not
lost at all and were safely camped at the correct location, the teachers
were in the wrong place. The resulting change in the guidelines have the
teachers shadowing the party even closer to ensure that control is kept over
the party despite the fact that the party was never lost! The real loss in
this case is that the kids are so closely watched that they no longer have
any feeling of independence and risk. I know of one school who had the
teachers walking with the kids reducing an exercise in independence,
self-reliance, self-confidence and self-respect to a couple of days
following a teacher.

We no longer allow kids to make mistakes and learn from them. Getting lost
in the Cairgorms was one of the most important experiences of my life, it
shook me into realising just how important navigation and hill skills were.
After that I became more serious and responsible when walking; navigating
and route following became a point of pride with me, still is. I take pride
in being able to navigate to within about 20 metres by map and compass
alone. As it happened my venture scout leader was shadowing us and let us
get safely lost for this very reason. Having a teacher in sight at all times
removes the feeling of abject panic (I discovered that it is still possible
to crap youself with fear while simultaneously having your bowels clench
tight enough to make diamonds) when you realise that you do not know where
you are because you know he is right there.

The most important sentence from the above is:
"We no longer allow kids to make mistakes and learn from them."

Instead, we are wrapping children in so much cotton wool in order to
"protect" them that the next generation will be lost completely
without constant guidance from the Nanny State. If, say, a future
crisis occurred, or rather, when it does, the next generation will NOT
be as well equipped to deal with it because it won't have any
experience at all.

I imagine a scenario in which there is a major disaster and volunteers
are coming forward to rescue hundreds, maybe thousands, of people,
including, of course, children.

But at the edge of the catastrophe government representatives are
blowing whistles and alerting the police, as none of the volunteers
will necessarily have been CRB checked and there is utter panic among
the social workers and the child protection industry, who are outraged
that MEN are walking into the crisis situation and saving children,
picking them up, lifting them out of the wreckage, pulling them out of
the water, whatever, and nobody can stop this from happening!

Help! Please help! Comes the self-important cry from the social
workers.

And then, after several MEN have been accosted at random by especially
zealous social workers and been read the riot act so to speak, e.g.
touch another child without us first confirming your CRB status,
matey, and you'll be for the high jump! After then, all the
volunteers, including the WOMEN, decide it's safer to withdraw whilst
observing the cries and screams of those unrescued as they succumb to
their awful fate. Well, all will have been well conditioned by then!

Meanwhile, the social workers and the child protection industry are
now enthalled that their insistence on CRB checking has worked!
Children have been protected, though, sadly, they had to die as a
consequence.

Today we hear that tots as young as three years old are being excluded
from, presumably, nursery school for violent behaviour because
teachers are unwilling to lay a finger upon them, not even to pick
them up and separate them from the current playground fight, for fear
of being prosecuted. Of teachers contemplating resignation 47 per cent
cited pupil indiscipline as the reason.

We reap what we sow, and, boy, what a human jungle we are in the
process of growing!

MM
.

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