Wokeness in school!

[Pondy]

Had to share this story, as it really annoyed me:
A 17 year old boy, classmate of my daughter, has been suspended from school with a view to 'permanent exclusion' (expelled in old money) for "homophobic comments".
I know this kid and he has a wicked and very good sense of humour (unlike most of the others who are depressed and talk about suicide constantly). Everything he says is for comedy effect; nothing is malicious and he hasn't said anything directly to anyone who could, or should, be offended.

So the school are potentially going to ruin his chances of getting his 'A' levels and are trying to quash his sense of humour, because someone has decided they are offended on someone else's behalf by his personality. And that is just not acceptable, apparently.

The boy has been in foster care all his life, so has not had it easy. The school is a Grammar school, so he has done well and is (or was) doing three A levels.

Seems being a depressed suicidal teenager is so much better than one with a decent sense of humour these days.

 

[jock156]

Thank f**k it’s my 2 youngests last day at school today! In their school they have a rug muncher as a head teacher and any new staff appointments are LGFBYZZGWAS affiliated. Boils my piss! :x :x :x My son has a teacher who was Mr. XXXX who is now Ms. XXXX who is now just a bloke in drag no matter how you squint!

I also had a builder round yesterday who’s son punched the school bully on Wednesday and is going through similar. Possibly being expelled

With this hot weather and the tan I’m getting I should be able to walk into a TV job as the token black dude! Or grow a pair of moobs and get on TV as a sports presenter!

I hope logic/ common sense prevails for the young lad I know I was a cheeky wee fecker at that age, but never meant any harm!

 

[Pondy]

I hope logic/ common sense prevails for the young lad

Neither of those two things are available or relevant anymore from what I see! :roll:

PS loved some of your phrasing Brian. Made me laugh (which is probably wrong). :lol: :lol:

 

[jock156]

It is wrong (nowadays!) but I was just being the same cheeky fecker and mean no harm. It made you laugh (that was the intention) but in today’s world I’d be expelled

 

[coldel]

I guess playing devils advocate - without knowing the full story and in fact that young adults stories are often told with some creativity around the facts...there is always two sides I guess? A very good friend of mine is a teacher at a secondary school and the stuff you hear...

It does seem on the face of it that going nuclear around a single incident is very strange though. Must be a lot more going on behind the scenes.

 

[Chris_D]

Sad times we live in when we have to live in constant fear of offending snowflakes and 'marginal sectors' of society.

It was totally different back in my day, especially in primary school in the 70's. Racism, homophobic name-calling and marginalisation was all commonly accepted and that was by the teachers!

Just think back to that scene from Scum and that's exactly...EXACTLY what it was like:
[youtube]DGpbcwKHzxg[/youtube]

Unacceptable these days of course but we've plainly gone too far in what's been deemed offensive.


I did a consulting stint at a Dutch company a few years ago where I was required to build some project teams and start hiring in some people. I was given this bizarre pep talk by the HR department who decreed that it was my 'moral obligation to make sure that I was 'inclusive' with my selection of personnel. I didn't understand so I asked them to elaborate.

The CHRO 'Chief HR Officer', a title that she had actually defined and bestowed upon herself, went to great albeit uncomfortable lengths to explain that there policy was to be 'inclusive' as possible when hiring people.
I claimed I still didn't understand what she was getting at, but actually did, which started to irritate me and so I asked her to be more specific as I knew she was skirting around the issue and the bounds of legality.
Out of obvious frustration to my feigned ignorance she then handed off the conversation to an underling who then proceeded to advise me to hire people who were 'non-binary, gender-fluid, transgender, etc'. It was the 'etc' part that really bugged the living sh!t out of me.
I retorted with 'I'll be hiring people based on merit, relevant experience, technical ability, aptitude and enthusiasm. Not whether they identify as a fkg lamp-post, if they wear eyeshadow on their arsehole or if they want to be called DebbieDingDong!'
She scuttled out back to the HR office and I got a telling off from the CEO who strangely had a wry smirk while doing so. I took that as 'Chris, I have to do this cos I've been asked. But I know where you're coming from and it's really no problem.' lol

I hired some truly great people (and by committee with the other project members) and none of them had pink/green hair, had a female name while speaking in a voice 2 octaves lower than my own, or brought a dog bowl into work with them to eat from!

Sadly, if that chap wants to stay in with a chance of gaining his a-levels he'll need to go cap in hand with a grovelling apology I suspect.

Edit: that video may have been removed already. lol

 

[Pondy]

It does seem on the face of it that going nuclear around a single incident is very strange though. Must be a lot more going on behind the scenes.

Don't think so in this case TBH. The lad was a 'house captain' on Wednesday, now this. I would expect if there had been 'incidents' before, they would have stripped him of that or not allowed him the role?

 

[inkey$]

Without knowing what he said and the context, its difficult to say, but maybe he took the humour a little too far? When I was at school in the 80's it was like most of us on here, commonplace, but I remember even then as a teenage inbetweener (friends with some of the cool kids/friends with nerds), feeling very sorry for the people on the other end of the 'jokes'.

 

[Argyll Andy]

I got a phone call from a forum member about something very similar a few weeks back as I work in Education, no not a teacher to ask my view on their situation.

To me, his, along with this one is bonkers.

This is in Scotland right enough but we would NEVER go for straight expulsion unless it involved a serious offence which did or was likely to result in criminal prosecution for a serious offence.

Not categorising the offence but things SUCH as racism, homophobia etc, if serious enough would result in a 1-3 day suspension if “offences” reoccurred within a certain period next one would be 3-5 days and so on. If we look to exclude (not explel) for more than 10 days we have to have approval of our Head of Service. Again this normally needs to be of a serious nature to get to this stage. At this point we would normally seek to educate the child at home rather than remove their education for a period of more than 10 days as that’s detrimental to the child.

To the best of my knowledge, in the 15 yrs I’ve been in this sector we’ve never permanently expelled anyone and I cover 14 schools.

English schools seem to be able to go straight for the nuclear option .

The kid you mention, if he’d been in one of my schools and IF he’d been found to be “guilty”of the accusations he’d have at worst received a 1-3 school days exclusion, then move on, as you were

 

[inkey$]

I got a phone call from a forum member about something very similar a few weeks back as I work in Education, no not a teacher to ask my view on their situation.

To me, his, along with this one is bonkers.

This is in Scotland right enough but we would NEVER go for straight expulsion unless it involved a serious offence which did or was likely to result in criminal prosecution for a serious offence.

Not categorising the offence but things SUCH as racism, homophobia etc, if serious enough would result in a 1-3 day suspension if “offences” reoccurred within a certain period next one would be 3-5 days and so on. If we look to exclude (not explel) for more than 10 days we have to have approval of our Head of Service. Again this normally needs to be of a serious nature to get to this stage. At this point we would normally seek to educate the child at home rather than remove their education for a period of more than 10 days as that’s detrimental to the child.

To the best of my knowledge, in the 15 yrs I’ve been in this sector we’ve never permanently expelled anyone and I cover 14 schools.

English schools seem to be able to go straight for the nuclear option .

The kid you mention, if he’d been in one of my schools and IF he’d been found to be “guilty”of the accusations he’d have at worst received a 1-3 school days exclusion, then move on, as you were

^ this feels like totally the right approach, and one rooted in common sense IMO.

 

[Pondy]

The kid you mention, if he’d been in one of my schools and IF he’d been found to be “guilty”of the accusations he’d have at worst received a 1-3 school days exclusion, then move on, as you were

I think he has been 'suspended' for a few days at present, while the school are trying to 'build a case against him'. My daughter said that the school had asked all of the LGBTTISWAS kids in their year to write anything they had heard about the boy down to be used against him.

It sounds like a witch hunt. All because he says (admittedly some stupid) things out loud to make others laugh. I say a lot of stupid things at 55, I said many more at 17!

From what I hear also, his foster carers are not going to help him much, as they are short-term (Ie he hasn't been with them very long) and look at fostering more as a job than helping kids.

I want to get involved but can't cos it's none of my business and the school wouldn't listen to me.

 

[Argyll Andy]

I want to get involved but can't cos it's none of my business and the school wouldn't listen to me.

He’s 17 and entitled to have someone with him at any subsequent meetings, he could/can say that person is you if he wishes. Doesn’t have to be parent/guardian as he’s over 16

Re the drumming up of evidence from the other kids, you’re perfectly entitled to object to this separately as a parent of a child being asked to participate in such an exercise

 

[buzyg]

I just don't get it. I was so glad to escape much of the growing woke nonsense when I retired. Too many minorities with too much attention. Just get on with your own lives and let us do the same. Nothing wrong with taking the P out of others, it mostly relieves tension. Ok sometimes it might offend, Might cause tension. But mostly it does not, so let it be.

 

[Pondy]

He’s 17 and entitled to have someone with him at any subsequent meetings, he could/can say that person is you if he wishes. Doesn’t have to be parent/guardian as he’s over 16

Re the drumming up of evidence from the other kids, you’re perfectly entitled to object to this separately as a parent of a child being asked to participate in such an exercise

Even if I could I would only make matters worse, as I would lose my temper and start calling the teachers and staff all the names under the sun. I don't have any patience for bull$hit. My daughter would never forgive me as she has got a year and a term left!

 

[coldel]

I suspect having been a teacher myself in a past life, that its a case of repeated issues. And then ignoring any given final warning. There will be guidelines that have behaviours marked down in seriousness and penalties against them. Its a lot more process driven than I think most people realise and teachers generally do not have unilateral power to just toss kids out of school, its a very serious action and requires a lot of process recorded and a consensus reached.

I would think the idea this is 'teacher heard something and is going to kick him out' is unlikely to be the real scenario. But like I say, without all the facts its hard to make any sort of judgement.

The absolute crap and abuse I witnessed at times from parents whose angelic kids couldnt do no wrong was uncalled for. As a teacher I could only follow the process and procedure in place. It was frustrating because most parents complaining would make useless teachers :lol:

 

[IRD]

Had to share this story, as it really annoyed me:
A 17 year old boy, classmate of my daughter, has been suspended from school with a view to 'permanent exclusion' (expelled in old money) for "homophobic comments".
I know this kid and he has a wicked and very good sense of humour (unlike most of the others who are depressed and talk about suicide constantly). Everything he says is for comedy effect; nothing is malicious and he hasn't said anything directly to anyone who could, or should, be offended.

So the school are potentially going to ruin his chances of getting his 'A' levels and are trying to quash his sense of humour, because someone has decided they are offended on someone else's behalf by his personality. And that is just not acceptable, apparently.

The boy has been in foster care all his life, so has not had it easy. The school is a Grammar school, so he has done well and is (or was) doing three A levels.

Seems being a depressed suicidal teenager is so much better than one with a decent sense of humour these days.

My wife and I were both headteachers and comment regularly that we would have been sacked if we had been working in today’s woke climate for refusing to comply. Sure all children need to be protected and respected but they also need to learn how to cope with the knocks that come along in life. It seems these days that the minorities rule. I am horrified that the Headteacher hasn’t just taken the young man aside and had a quiet word with him. That is what I would have done. Any sort of suspension seems excessive unless there is more to the story than we know.

 

[coldel]

Had to share this story, as it really annoyed me:
A 17 year old boy, classmate of my daughter, has been suspended from school with a view to 'permanent exclusion' (expelled in old money) for "homophobic comments".
I know this kid and he has a wicked and very good sense of humour (unlike most of the others who are depressed and talk about suicide constantly). Everything he says is for comedy effect; nothing is malicious and he hasn't said anything directly to anyone who could, or should, be offended.

So the school are potentially going to ruin his chances of getting his 'A' levels and are trying to quash his sense of humour, because someone has decided they are offended on someone else's behalf by his personality. And that is just not acceptable, apparently.

The boy has been in foster care all his life, so has not had it easy. The school is a Grammar school, so he has done well and is (or was) doing three A levels.

Seems being a depressed suicidal teenager is so much better than one with a decent sense of humour these days.

My wife and I were both headteachers and comment regularly that we would have been sacked if we had been working in today’s woke climate for refusing to comply. Sure all children need to be protected and respected but they also need to learn how to cope with the knocks that come along in life. It seems these days that the minorities rule. I am horrified that the Headteacher hasn’t just taken the young man aside and had a quiet word with him. That is what I would have done. Any sort of suspension seems excessive unless there is more to the story than we know.

Exactly - I think there is definitely more to it, going nuclear on some kid just making a joke seems odd as a first offence.

 

[Dark Diggler]

I can't believe this kids education could be scuppered for this. The sensible side of me would recommend the lad engages with an LGTB group or body directly and explain what has happened and that he was trying to make people laugh but realises that it was wrong and seeks to engage with the community to better educate himself and I reckon they would write to the head and it would have an influence on the outcome. Hit it head on and derail the heads plans for permanent exclusion.

 

[tug]

Chris D's post reminded me of my school life in the 70's. One day the games teacher thought it would be a good idea to have a hockey match between english white kids and the west indian kids. The match only lasted for about 5 minutes! 5 west indians needed to be taken to the sick bay and the rest of them ran off, the hockey ball was in the same place as it was before the start of the match. :lol:

Hockey was taken off the curriculum temporarily after this. If any lad showed dainty tendences they were quickly given a slap!!

There is too much APATHY nowadays. :roll: