Who'd Be A Teacher These Days?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27193638
Knife weilding savages running around. What's it comming to?

[anotheoldgit]

jno

/// can't think why the rabid right are so quick to forget, but serious crime is falling quite sharply ///

Try telling that to the family and friends of this late teacher.

[corylus]

I had a knife at grammar school in the 60s, for sharpening pencils and crayons, I also had a set of various scalpels and scissors for dissection in biology and a cut throat razor for taking cross-sections of plant parts in botany. Quite a lot of us were well tooled up. And on 'Thinking Day' any
Girl Guides were allowed to come to school in their uniforms complete with sheath knife fastened to their belts.

Nobody ever got hurt though.

[Zeuhl]

/Try telling that to the family and friends of this late teacher./

the family's understandable distress doesn't alter the facts about the overall crime situation.

or excuse an irrational and silly remark on a serious subject

[corylus]

I was just making a point about how times have changed.

[Zeuhl]

I wonder if aog would take issue with the factual statement that:

Murder by GPs is very unusual

after all ...

[Zeuhl]

after all ...

/try telling that to the family and friends of Dr Shipman's victims/

[askyourgran]

My neice and nephew attended this same school, admittedly ten -fifteen years ago. It was regarded as a good Catholic school. They will be shocked by this. I cannot comprehend how children have the sheer nerve attack anyone let alone their teacher. Respect was the byword when we were children, the cane and detention for the unruly, and the parents were shamed by their child's actions in the community. I hope the toe-rag gets a long long sentence.

[Peaspeculiars]

Not likely. I trained as a secondary school teacher in Leeds during the nineties and have never regretted not joining the profession. I witnessed chairs being thrown at teachers, threats & verbal abuse from the students like I have never heard before (and I was no shrinking violet), and parents undermining every bit of discipline by storming the headmasters office in front of their children and telling them to 'eff off'
Although, in one of the schools I did teaching practice in it was the other way round - a teacher was so incensed by a pupil that they tried to run him over at the school gates. Would I ever be tempted to teach? in a word, no and I applaud those who do.

[Ken4155]

Despite being appalled by the news, it did not shock me. Nothing does these days which, sadly but surely, is a sign of the times.

[ladybirder]

Good school, nice boy according to other pupils, I'm shocked.

[Zeuhl]

/Good school, nice boy /

It happens very very occasionally

at least we aren't awash with guns like some societies

[naomi24]

How sad this is.

[ToraToraTora]

well it seems odd, in this discussion, the skinny latte brigade play it all down as nothing new and those that have been or considered being teachers paint a very desparate situation in our schools. Odd that the former seem to think they know best.

[Orderlimit]

Absolutely Tora, but at least we aren't awash with guns

[ToraToraTora]

As ably demonstrated here orderlimit, guns are not necessary for murder.

[Elina]

Anarchy tora,tragic & so sad.

[Old_Geezer]

I'm sure the little darlings were just expressing themselves and should be left to do so.

I trust this is just a single exceptional case of a mentally troubled individual, and an incident which could have happened in any generation: or else there is an absolute disaster in the offing.

[Ellipsis]

What a cowardly attack. Stabbing a 61 year old woman in the back while she was doing the job, teaching children, that she'd done for generations of the same families for over 40 years.

Definitely not easy for teachers these days. Admitted "only" one death every twenty years or so but that says nothing about the scale of physical and verbal violence perpetrated against teachers both online and offline on a daily basis while they are given very little in the way of support, let alone defences, to offer back.

[Tilly2]

Not anarchy, but definitely a tragedy.

[pixie373]

Of course it is, og. A teacher was stabbed and killed at my stepdad's secondary school (about 1955). Very sad, though.