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Last updated on August 9th, 2017 at 07:26 am
A 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.
- 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
- Everything is rocket science if you’re a nanny state leftist.Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 10 02 at 09:15 AM • permalink
- 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
- 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.
- 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?
- 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
- 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.
- 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.htmlI prefer “insufficiently sane” myself. “Crazy” is so judgemental…
- But they’re overtaking the Poms in other areas. 😉
- 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
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
- Why don’t they ask the students?Posted by andycanuck on 2006 10 02 at 02:42 PM • permalink
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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
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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.