Contemporary thinking needed …

Teacher-training institutes will be asked to improve training in behaviour management – apparently.

Several decades ago my Teachers College class asked to visit St Mary’s in Hanmer – not for us to dry out but for us soon-to-be-teachers to learn something about kids with addiction problems, and alcohol and drug abuse. We were told we had to learn about multi-culturalism. We rebelled and went anyway and were stunned to learn just how many kids were abusing drugs and alcohol and how young they were.

A fellow trainee asked a tutor what we should do if kids are having a punch-up. She said, ‘get yourself physically in-between them because kids won’t hit teachers’ which might have been right a hundred years ago. We need some contemporary thinking applied to teacher training.

We’re in the kid industry. Kids can be brats sometimes. Often it’s genetics and very often it’s because of appalling family circumstances. Sometimes it’s because the lessons are woefully inappropriate. Come on, think… circle geometry, Lord Byron’s poems, covalent bonding, transitive verbs…

Whining in the staff room or crying in a staff meeting doesn’t help. And sending naughty boys to the Deputy Head isn’t such a good solution either.

For the recidivists we should have reform schools that mix hard-core physical challenges with counselling, healthy food, books and early morning swimming in the sea. And if that fails, we have cheap flights to Australia.

But for most kids, all we need are well-trained teachers – loaded with patience and energy and time to deal with rooms full of kids.

Training teachers means teaching them about the psychology of kids – it’s kids’ behaviour that we’re talking about after all. Motivation theories, conformity and obedience studies and simple child development –these should all be in Term One at Teachers College.

I’d add a chunk of Health Psychology too – so that all teachers are able to teach kids about substance abuse, body image, eating disorders, and stress management. (I’m not talking about vanilla-scented candles and bowls of sea shells psychology here.)

And teachers should all be taught ‘the look’ – the one that Mr Wilson at Central Southland College did in the 1980s, the one that could stop a brat from on the stage during an assembly, from the staff room window out across the garden to the bus stop, or on the far side of the footy field.

Right, that’s that sorted. I think I’ll make chocolate lamingtons for tomorrow’s morning tea. They’re symbolic – time consuming to prepare, messy as hell, good fun to eat, and I like coconut and chocolate. I’m not sure what they symbolise, but they’re delicious.

— Peter Giddens