Those who the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
Ample evidence of the madness that is engulfing our country can be found all around us, not least in the hysteria whipped up by the media and dog whistle politicians over the "dangers" of photos being taken at schools during plays and performances etc.
This hysteria manifests itself in various schools, including Applecroft primary school in Welwyn Garden City. Here photos taken of the school's pupils that appear in the school yearbook have the kids' eyes redacted by a crude black line (except for the kids of the parents to whom each book is given - ie each yearbook is customised and manually edited by the teachers for each parent!).
Additionally, parents are banned from taking pictures in school, in case the pictures are then superimposed onto obscene images for later distribution.
Parents of pupils at the school are fed up with this nonsense, and want it stopped in time for the school's nativity play.
The policy was introduced 3 years ago via a 17 page "photography policy":
"The proliferation of internet web pages and social networking sites has given rise to increased concerns that images will be misused and that a child's face or body could be used to represent matters wholly contrary to the wishes of their parents."
Needless to say, the damage that this policy has on the relationships and trust between adults and children is incalculable. I dare say no one has bothered thinking of that.
Those who the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
As a country we must be mad, stark raving mad!
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Once again I find myself wondering exactly what legal basis this "policy" has? What is the school going to do if all the parents turn up with cameras and just barge in? Any legal beagles here care to comment?
ReplyDeleteThere is a technical term for teachers like this:
ReplyDelete"Brain-dead morons", look it up in any good psychology textbook.
Have power; will use.
ReplyDeleteThat is the fundamental problem. Some people just love to exercise a percieved power just because they can.
When my son first went to visit his school before starting, the head suggested we take some photos so my son could look at them and feel more confident about where he was going on his first day.
ReplyDeleteWith me so far? Okay, so my wife is taking pictures around the school and all is well, until we get to a class in the hall doing PE. Then we're instructed not to take pictures of the kids...
Now here's the irony, the school has a website featuring class pictures and pictures of individuals at play etc. So why couldn't we take pictures?
Even more daft, is that in year R, the whole class is photographed and the picture put in the local paper for all to see.
Does any of this make any sense to you? It doesn't to me, that's for sure.
Sadly, I would say that from my experiences of primary school teachers, they're lovely people and dedicated teachers but seem a bit dippy and easily taken in by political correctness and health and safety paranoia.
It seems to me that primary schools in particular appear to have a problem where there are too many touchy feely women and not enough (or even any) logical men to balance things out.
This is pretty much the opposite problem to most workplaces where there are too many back-stabbing hard-hearted blokes and not enough caring ladies!
Mr Potato Head.
ReplyDeleteI think you make a good point regarding the lack of males in teaching in general and especially in primary education; with so many single parents, many boys will have no contact with male role models until they enter the work place. We are seeing too much of a feminisation of the population.
I fear that the PC brigade confuse the terms equality and "the same." One can be equal for example under the law but, we will never all be the same.
It's only a matter of time before minors, male or female, are required to deck themselves out in head-to-toe burkas in order to avoid titillating whatever imagined paedophiles (or however the fuck you spell it) cross their paths.
ReplyDeleteSheer lunacy, to the nth degree, and yet these twats are paid to develop such policies. Future anthropologists are going to have a field day figuring this stuff out.
I agree Tonk, even some self avowed feminists that I know have told me that things have gone way too far in favour of women, to the detriment of us all.
ReplyDeletePerhaps this is the natural over-swing of the pendulum as it goes from one extreme to the other before settling somewhere sensible in-between.
"Needless to say, the damage that this policy has on the relationships and trust between adults and children is incalculable. I dare say no one has bothered thinking of that."
ReplyDeleteQuite agree, Ken. And I'm sure it works wonders for fostering a good relationship between parents and teachers too (not)!
Surely there doesn't have to be a reason - it's simply enough to declare; "This is to make children safe"?
ReplyDeleteIt looks I've got the answer to my question earlier - "Breaching The Peace"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336139/Father-Lee-Ingram-broke-photo-ban-school-play-threatened-arrest.html
What's the point in such a policy when so many people put their kids photos on facebook?
ReplyDelete