Laurentius

AVE

From a human point of view:
The teacher's reaction is understandable - the student's defiance and idea of his daughter being raped must have driven him mad.

From an educational point of view:
The student (and his mates) didn't learn anything good from the event. If the teacher hadn't been fired, the student would have learned that conflicts are solved through violence applied by the strong to the weak. However, the teacher was expelled and the student learned that defiance of authority performed just for fun or out of wickedness does not have significant repercusions on the perpetrator.

From a pragmatic point of view:
The teacher didn't settle the matter for his profit. The student can still rape his daughter (if he ever had the intention to) since he didn't het really intimidated by the resolution of this conflict. Moreover, the teacher got fired and has now a reputation of being unable to control this kind of situation.

Anyway, my point is that being a teacher under this kind of circumstances is not in the least an easy job, but acting when you're heated won't do any good.

AVE

Clutch

Are teachers supposed to be superhuman?

Someone who threatens to rape my daughter, and gives me evidence of sincerity by shoving me, is going to get an unholy shitkicking in three seconds flat.

Would this be my considered judgement of how best to deal with the situation? No. Would it represent a plausible tactic for defusing the tension? No.

But, you know, we're kind of built to react that way. Parents don't reach considered judgement about the reasonableness of leaping back into the flames to get their kid out of the burning house, either. Not how we're built. Teachers being human, they are not emotionless maximizers of utility; they have limits, and holding them to a higher standard than most mortals seems perverse.

Don't give this teacher a medal. But don't fire him either. Move him to another school, and *throw the kid out*.

My two cents, as my "Dad hormones" get all twitchy...

echidna

No, I disagree. Everywhere, we learn that conflicts are solved by violence. This is what our armies do. It’s what our police do. It’s how society enforces its morality. Even from our own interaction with other children, it’s a rule which we all learn very early in many forms. Don’t pretend that we can cocoon ourselves in an imaginary world where violence is not necessary. In fact it’s a very important and necessary lesson to learn.

Common sense dictates acceptable modes of social interaction. Children are more than likely to test these boundaries as they learn about social boundaries. The more important lesson if the teacher hadn’t been fired, would have been the social unacceptability of threatening to rape, the stressful difficulty of teaching, and the value of being able to constructively rebuild from a bad situation.

echidna

Another anecdote from last year’s news. 3 teenagers were throwing rocks at trucks late at night until one of them stopped. The truckie got out & intimidated all 3 into his truck, drove them 10 km out of Melbourne & dumped them out of his truck. No violence, but certainly threats of violence. I can only chuckle at the thought of how shit-scared the 3 kids must have been to all get into the truck.

Guilty of kidnapping ? That’s certainly what the politically correct outcry was. Maybe, but I’m guessing they won’t throw any more rocks at trucks, because trucks now contain people who can potentially get angry.

I don’t know what happened to the truckie, but I hope he was just let off with a warning.

echidna

Thanks Clutch, I completely agree.

The young lad telling me the story was a good country kid. Quietly he conceded that the student had “had it coming for a while”. In a schooling system which does not punish or control such behaviour, there is frequently a disappointed and confused reaction from many of the other students who cannot understand why such behaviour is usually tolerated. In the street they’d get belted, but in a classroom they’re king.

Laurentius

echidna

First of all I want to make it clear that sypmathize with the teacher 100%, the more as I'm a teacher myself.

You say that everywhere in the world conflicts are solved through violence. This is an exaggeration. Some of them are solved this way, and most of these are in fact perpetuated by violence. Conflicts are solved by compromise, negotiation, threat and so on. Besides, you can crush and threat, but you can buy the adversaries out as well. Or you can lure them into saying and thinking what you want them to.

Anyway, students can be controlled through coercion. The moment a father hits his son you will know that the man got short of educational means or he has failed as an educator. When a teacher hits a student you will know that he has given up his role as an educator. Therefore, I could even say that the teacher in the story had suspended himself before he was fired by the board.

The student should have been taught a lesson through coercion, yes, but not through violence. Children raised in violence will grow to be violent grownups - it's fact.

AVE

echidna

Exaggeration to an extent, but you say it yourself, maybe society doesn’t resolve by violence, but certainly the threat of violence. Apologies for not being a model citizen, but I don’t speed because I’ll get a fine from the police. I don’t resist the police because I know there are more of them, they are stronger than me & I will lose.

While most parents are good enough that their children do not fall into the trouble-maker category, there will always be a few who will constantly push boundaries, wherever they’re set. I would argue that there is a place to demonstrate (as for my speeding) that forcible coercion is sometimes the only option. Not in an ad hoc emotional way from the teacher, but currently there is nothing & essentially there is no way to set solid boundaries for these kids. I’m told it’s quite frightening for a child to have no boundaries. And very difficult for teachers.

All but 2 of Victoria’s 200 government schools are non-selective, so expulsion is usually not an option.

Non-violent coercion is not always achievable. Ideally it would be, but we don’t live in that world.

As the newspaper articles indicated, to a large extent I think Victoria’s schools have of many occasions run out of educational means when dealing with problem children. I find more fault in the system than in the individuals who fail to the pressures.

Well now isn’t that also a slight exaggeration ? Just about all of my friends were smacked or given a clip over the ear at times. And fortunately very few of them have grown into psychopaths. It’s also about degree.

A little tangential, but the Roman’s motto was “si vis pacem, para bellum”, if you desire peace, prepare for war. There is truth in the value of the threat of violence.

Laurentius

Yes, these things are as infinitely debatable as the issues of death penalty, abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and so on.

As far as I am concerned, I cannot find a satisfactory solution to the problem stated about Victoria’s schools.

I am just concerned.

AVE

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

"I'm gonna rape your daughter!"
Okay, if I had been this teacher, they would be locking MY ass up for homicide. I'm sure a nice, heavy book would be able to break his skull in...
But that's not the point. Good lord, he was threatening TO RAPE HIS DAUGHTER!!! Isn't that a fucking CRIME? Am I living in the FUCKING TWILIGHT ZONE? "Boy threatening to rape man's daughter is smacked--man sentenced to jail, boy set free to rape man's daughter."
I rest my case.

Laurentius

Yeah, that's a good point, of course: what happened to the boy?

Now, had the teacher not hit the student, the public might have focused on the boy's threat. But since the teacher did hit him, the man got all the attention and the board had to do something about it, i.e. settle the matter according to the blamed political correctness rules.

Cruel and unavoidable.

AVE