Unruly pupils must be taught a hard lesson

I NEVER fail to admire teachers. My uncle Rab was one (until he retired to the golf course), and he is a marvellous man, giving his life to the cultural improvement of the masses by teaching art at some of the toughest, roughest, but most rewarding schools in Edinburgh.

I know many others of similar dedication and I know many young people who are, bravely, entering the profession – not for the pay, not for the holidays but for the idea, that marvellous idea, of trying to pass on to future generations not just knowledge but their experiences that might make us all richer in spirit as a community.

So just why is it that we do not give them the protection that they should be entitled to in the classroom? Why do we continue to accept the growing levels of violence that they have to put up with as if it's a given, that it goes with the territory and they knew what they were getting into when they signed up and should just learn to live with it?

I for one don't accept it and never shall. If Rudy Giuliani can use zero tolerance to reduce the crime level in New York to a level that is lower than other smaller cities then why do we not employ zero tolerance of violence in the classroom to show that being fair and good is rewarded and being snidey and evil is punished?

This week we learned that attacks on teachers are still on the rise. They have been on the rise for as long as I can remember – certainly more or less since statistics were kept.

Peter Peacock, a man I liked but a politician I detested, used to say as education minister it was the way we kept statistics. As if it would level out to some acceptable level. Rubbish. Utter and unequivocal rubbish.

Teachers bear the scars – the physical scars from head butts, kicks and scratches – and the emotional scars from tirades of abuse and threatening behaviour. And pupils, especially the weaker pupils, go on to suffer from the same unruly bullies that learn how to get away with their violent behaviour.

Any violence in the classroom should result in immediate expulsion and the right of the teacher to refuse to teach that child in the future. If the violence comes from a rogue teacher, then that too should be dealt with in a similarly robust manner.

Until we address this issue head-on, give the teachers a violence-free classroom, we can never expect the Cowgate or Lothian road to be all peace and tranquillity.


City's traffic mismanagement turns full circleIF there's one thing I don't miss when driving in Africa it's roundabouts with traffic lights. One or the other I can put up with, but the two together are a recipe for driver frustration. I'm thinking of course of Sheriffhall – my least favourite junction that has just been christened one of the "scariest" junctions in the UK. Actually, driving through the Avon Gorge on a sleety dark night is far, far worse – but I agree just how difficult this road rage outrage is.

Now can I just say to my many hip, ecologically correct, right-on friends (I have catholic tastes) that think the evil car and its (ever diminishing) pollution requires us to halt road improvements in case it encourages us to drive more, that Sheriffhall is a pollution-generating monster. It should have a flyover or an underpass so that the city by-pass traffic moves unhindered and the four other roads that join it can gain access with a semblance of decorum.

Its designers should be asked to live in the middle of Sheriffhall for a whole month, without any breathing apparatus. The congestion caused by having six roads converging at one spot is worse than anything in Princes Street. And of course, people like me who take every back road known to man to avoid it, probably generate more pollution than if we were to just drive slowly but certainly through it, were it designed properly.

Now, to cap it all, there's a park- and-ride for 500 or so cars being built on the wrong side of Sheriffhall – so commuting drivers have still to traverse to park. Why not put that on the outside rather than the inside of the by-pass?

Sheriffhall is not scary, it's just a folly. A monument to the public sector's unwillingness or inability to deliver what the customer wants and pays handsomely for – a roads system that works.


Happier without these studies
I COULD even hear the stomping of feet and grinding of teeth of demoralised Scottish social scientists from out here in deepest Botswana this week. Oh how they must have been crying into their muesli or choking on their freshly squeezed alfalfa juice as they read that one of their very own had found in a study, that Scottish children are – wait for it – happier!

Not enslaved, impoverished, deprived, demonised or alienated – but happier. In the latest study, when asked how they felt, a stonking 49 per cent declared themselves "very happy"!

Did no-one stop to think of asking them if Hibs-supporting pupils were happier after winning the League Cup, or that or that girls were sadder because, er, well, because Atomic Kitten split up? Blast, we'll never know. They didn't bother to ask!

It's only a year ago some other team of researchers was telling us that British children endured the most appalling lives in Europe and we should all be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves, but then these research studies do have a tendency to generate findings that lead to more research – and so the circus moves on.

That's what makes this announcement so different. If kids are happy and getting happier do we really need these studies to continue (if we ever did in the first place)?

Maybe if we were to fund and hold a study of social science researchers themselves we'd find that in December 2007, in Scotland, these professional navel gazers just got literally and metaphorically, a lot, lot sadder.