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Pioneering “feel good” lessons

Good to see that Cllr. Foreman is still able to wave his magic wand over the educationalists in South Tyneside as he sets new standards in well being and enabling children to reach their potential with a pioneering scheme, the result of his transatlantic trip to research ways to banish depression before it even appears.

South Tyneside Council’s Chief Executive Irene Lucas said;

It was as though “pixie dust and magic” had been sprinkled on South Tyneside.

Readers may find it odd that I am not lambasting these establishment figures for their air headedness or their ability to spread fairy tales amongst conferences of educational professionals in London. On the face of it you would think the whole idea of a “resilience programme” for our children was totally out of the box and barmy, and talk of depression amongst school children should not really concern our teachers. I can hear you screaming that they should be teaching and improving standards of educational achievement, ensuring that pupils leave school with a barrow full of certificates and qualifications.

Yet there is a point to some of the nonsense spoken in the Gazette’s article, it is true that our children these days spend less time out of doors playing, they are less adventurous than we were thirty or forty years ago, they have less independence and are more dependent upon indoor activities, the internet, and video games to fill their time as they experience the worst of marital break ups, or a stream of male partners to some single mothers, perhaps none of whom play a leading role as a father figure. I’m sorry but this is the case with some children, and we need to face up to that reality, just as we need to face the fact that there are insufficient male teachers for our younger children, a point to which I shall return later.

By the age of eleven or twelve some children in South Tyneside already feel alienated, with poor social skills, an inability to form meaningful relationships, and a misunderstanding of what the world holds for them, I’m sure IDS with his social investigations for the Conservatives is well aware of this, so any “out of the box” thinking which results in a more engaged participatory section of the community is to be welcomed, especially if it improves the pupil’s interest in education.

I know that the rot started years ago, I know that the current generation of many parents bears a great responsibility for their inability to allow children to develop many of these social skills, they have read too many media reports of paedophiles lurking around every corner or outside of school yards, there are insufficient father figures to take Johnny to the park to play football, and mummy no longer knows how to teach Mary how to cook, even less how to make a dress. I know too that many of those living on the dependency of state benefits in South Shields somehow manage to have a 42″ plasma screen on the wall, Johnny has his games consol, and Mary sits upstairs tapping away on MSN Messenger, both kids kitted out in £70 track suits and £90 Nike trainers. So life goes on, sat at home, with nobody thinking of going to work, and the only experiences of the outside world are with similar youngsters hanging around outside the nearest “offy”, or mum driving the kids to school in the boyfriend’s super fast Corsa.

Yes, that is a general charicature of life for some families, not all, but it illustrates much that is wrong with society, material possessions coming too easily, nothing earned, nothing saved, hard work shunned, easy credit, insularity, insecurity, and “why can’t I have it now?”. No wonder the kids get depressed and don’t have a leg to stand on when we ask them to stand on their own two feet.

The trouble is, nothing changes if we do nothing, and if resilience and a more positive attitude helps in any way improving the academic abilities of our children then I say it’s worth a try, anything at all which is proven to increase the academic potential and achieve educational success is worth a try, and God knows this generation needs a big hand up as we face some of the most challenging economic conditions that many of us have ever faced.

Keep sprinkling the fairy dust Jimmy.

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