Tachers stopped

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Last updated on August 9th, 2017 at 07:26 am

letter to the SMH:

About four weeks ago at our school, Mount Annan Primary, the crossing guard was sick for a week. The first day, there was some confusion. The second day, teachers assisted children and parents at the crossing. The crossing guard is employed and trained by the Roads and Traffic Authority but it could not supply a replacement.

I was surprised on Friday of that week to see a police car out the front of the school. Because of the litigation-fearing bureaucracy that runs our governments, the police were there to warn the teachers they would be fined if they persisted in helping with the road crossing, because they are not trained crossing guards.

The police stayed there until the children went into school, to make sure no teachers assisted …

I know that teachers—or tachers, as they now refer to themselves—are thought of as, well, a little hopeless when it comes to practical issues, but I wasn’t aware that perception of their inabilities had reached a point where armed authorities would stop them helping children across a street.

UPDATE. Reader (and teacher) Greenpike:

If you’d like a look at real teachers in action check out the discussion forums at Plato WA. This is an anti-hippy-outcomes organisation and is single-handedly demolishing the WA government’s attempts at education hippification. Wonderful times over here in boom town.

Posted by Tim B. on 10/02/2006 at 08:36 AM
    1. The crossing guard is employed and trained by the Roads and Traffic Authority……..the police were there to warn the teachers they would be fined if they persisted in helping with the road crossing, because they are not trained crossing guards

      What, precisely, is the training required to be a crossing guard?  What classes are involved?

      Looking both ways before stepping into the street 101 perhaps?

      Proper glare techniques 302?  (For use against miscreant motorists who don’t slow down properly)

      I’m confused.

      Posted by fclark on 2006 10 02 at 08:45 AM • permalink

 

    1. Used to be that the riders on the short, “special” buses were students, not their teachers.

      Posted by SoberHT on 2006 10 02 at 08:56 AM • permalink

 

    1. This does seem heavy handed. Surely it’s not rocket science to stop the traffic and let the kids cross the street.

      Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 02 at 09:08 AM • permalink

 

    1. Crossing guards at our local school are volunteers, whose only qualifications I’m aware of are an ability to recognize when traffic is coming, and to hold up a stop sign.

      Using the police to stop teachers from assisting seems a misuse of resources to me.

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 10 02 at 09:11 AM • permalink

 

    1. Everything is rocket science if you’re a nanny state leftist.

      Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 10 02 at 09:15 AM • permalink

 

    1. WC Fields, I think in _The Pharmacist_, got in a lot of trouble helping a blind guy across the street.  It’s trickier than you think, without proper training.  There could, at any instant, be sudden fire engines and traffic after you check it’s clear.

      Tachers are not trained for this circumstance.

      Posted by rhhardin on 2006 10 02 at 09:23 AM • permalink

 

    1. The Safety Patrol when I was a kid stopped kids, not traffic.

      The advantage of being in the safety patrol was you got out of class 15 minutes early.

      Posted by rhhardin on 2006 10 02 at 09:25 AM • permalink

 

    1. The position of crossing guard doubtless now requires a college degree.

      Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 10 02 at 09:26 AM • permalink

 

    1. Oi! We teachers spell goodly most of the time, Tim. Most teachers are decent human beings who do their best to educate and spell correctly. Some are lefty morons but thankfully this is a vocal minority – like decent countries at the UN.

      If you’d like a look at real teachers in action check out the discussion forums at Plato WA. This is an anti-hippy-outcomes organisation and is single-handedly demolishing the WA government’s attempts at education hippification. Wonderful times over here in boom town.

      Posted by greenpike on 2006 10 02 at 09:27 AM • permalink

 

    1. Sure things are pretty crook in the state of New South Wales. A stinking filthy stew of nanny state spawned forms to be filled, out of control legalism everywhere except in the courts, Sydney sinking under the weight of lawyers from the bush and several brigades of red tick police prowling the state in search of form-crime.

      One of these days I’ll tell you how Health and Safety Inspection Officers behave on building sites. My guess is many will not believe it.

      But I’ll still need to see another account of the Great Unqualified Help To Young Kids Trying To Cross The Road Felony, before I take it at face value. How about something from the school? They are required to report cases of suspected child abuse. Doesn’t this qualify?

      Posted by geoff on 2006 10 02 at 09:32 AM • permalink

 

    1. Maybe people would question their competence less if the school didn’t have the same name as the nitwit in the U.N.

      Posted by JDFlanagan on 2006 10 02 at 09:36 AM • permalink

 

    1. o/t Congratulations to Americans Andrew Fire and Craig Mello who have won the ‘o6 Nobel Prize for Medecine.

      Posted by crash on 2006 10 02 at 09:37 AM • permalink

 

    1. Why don’t they just cancel school until the crossing guard gets well. The kids would love it!

      Posted by paco on 2006 10 02 at 09:39 AM • permalink

 

    1. Another classic example of over-credentialisation: everybody has forty-two degrees but can’t tie their friggin’ shoelaces.

      Posted by murph on 2006 10 02 at 09:45 AM • permalink

 

    1. #12
      dumb merikuns

      Posted by murph on 2006 10 02 at 09:45 AM • permalink

 

    1. Cops ‘n’ dobbers.

      Posted by crash on 2006 10 02 at 09:48 AM • permalink

 

    1. #15 dumb aussies got it last year

      Posted by KK on 2006 10 02 at 10:07 AM • permalink

 

    1. Before I’d started school, I took my brother’s orange safety patrol belt and directed traffic in front of the elementary school. Seeing through the windshields the faces of adults stopped and waiting for my command unnerved me though, and I bailed.

      That’s why that job was for steely-nerved fifth graders.

      Posted by Donnah on 2006 10 02 at 10:27 AM • permalink

 

    1. The Poms still have you boys beat:

      Police chiefs have sparked fury by banning the word yob — in case it “alienates” teenagers.

      Senior cops have ordered staff to find a more polite term for troublemakers when writing crime sheets.

      The move — backed by Scotland Yard chief Sir Ian Blair — was branded “crazy” last night by rank and file cops and anti-crime campaigners.
      http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006450621,00.html

      I prefer “insufficiently sane” myself. “Crazy” is so judgemental

      Posted by mojo on 2006 10 02 at 10:39 AM • permalink

 

    1. But they’re overtaking the Poms in other areas. 😉

      Posted by Donnah on 2006 10 02 at 10:44 AM • permalink

 

    1. Don’t tell me, let me guess: the tachers were violating union rules, right?

      Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 10 02 at 11:11 AM • permalink

 

    1. #19 Next they’lle be banning the term “fuckwit” to describe politically correct politicians

      Posted by jlc on 2006 10 02 at 11:45 AM • permalink

 

    1. BTW and OT, I just spent a week in Pommieland.  First visit in nearly 25 years.

      Wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, but London is fucking expensive.

      Posted by jlc on 2006 10 02 at 11:46 AM • permalink

 

    1. jlc

      it’s not so much the politicians as the fuckwits in the civil service.  they simply ignore the jurisdiction and intent of the parliament and its laws.  if you or i were PM we still wouldn’t be able to move these twits.

      Posted by murph on 2006 10 02 at 11:50 AM • permalink

 

    1. I prefer “insufficiently sane” myself. “Crazy” is so judgemental…

      Don’t you mean “reality challenged”, mojo? (There goes any potential MSM editorship for you.)

      Posted by andycanuck on 2006 10 02 at 12:30 PM • permalink

 

    1. #19,25:

      The proper term is Realityness Compliant. If you’d show up at the meetings, you’d be proper in your thought and speech. I must report you now, it’s for your own good.
      BTW, I am told that the barracks at the re-education facilities are quite comfortable now.

      Posted by Grimmy on 2006 10 02 at 01:55 PM • permalink

 

    1. Why don’t they ask the students?

      Posted by andycanuck on 2006 10 02 at 02:42 PM • permalink

 

    1. Tiny little unionized minds don’t have to think about anything.  It just makes life so much easier if we’d all go along with their decisions.  Look at how well the tiny little minds running the EU are doing!  Forget the unit economy of universals!  Memorize all the particulars of the tiny little minds.  E.g., no more worrying over the proper size and curvature a banana ought to have.  Since memorizing every single particular is impossible for any individual to accomplish, we must follow the division of labor determined by the tiny little minds.  Otherwise you’ll have people thinking for themselves and breaking rice bowls right and left.

      Repeat after me:  Yazza massah.

      Posted by saltydog on 2006 10 02 at 03:29 PM • permalink

 

    1. Tim, these stories are getting really close to the truth in relation to education.

      What planet are they from?

      They collude, they are corrupting the system in australia. Take a look at the Chinese Rote schools here promising success overseas if they come here, it’s all corrupt and greedy.

      It’s all an illusion Australia, and we’re corrupting the society by this style of thinkers we’re producing or they are producing.
      They might as well tell us that 1-1=41, just like the banks do.

      Posted by 1.618 on 2006 10 02 at 06:07 PM • permalink

 

    1. back later.. gtg…see ya later in a bit lovely infidels.

      Posted by 1.618 on 2006 10 02 at 06:09 PM • permalink

 

    1. Wouldn’t it have been more useful for the police to simply assume the crossing guard’s job if they insisted on hanging around the place anyway?

      Posted by PW on 2006 10 02 at 06:32 PM • permalink

 

    1. Oh, duh…that’ll teach me to RTFA, the letter writer made the same point.

      Posted by PW on 2006 10 02 at 06:33 PM • permalink

 

    1. Don’t feel too dumb, PW, I was about to ask the same question.
      This too has been said before, but I’ll say it again anyhow: This shit is beyond parody.

      Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 10 02 at 08:17 PM • permalink

 

    1. Now if we could use the police to stop the teachers giving political lectures to the students…

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 10 02 at 10:29 PM • permalink

 

    1. Not being terribly educated in these things but having a HUGE “cynic” gene, I’d just about bet that the cops couldn’t fill in due to some sort of union regs. “Not my job” is such a nice little phrase, isn’t it.

      Posted by KC on 2006 10 03 at 05:46 PM • permalink

 

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