Society can't function without some degree of trust

Alan Scott

Well done, Mr Gove!
It is a terrible indictment of what our society has descended into when it is necessary for a Minister to issue such a letter to Associations (allegedly) dedicated to teaching and the transfer of our culture and heritage. It is a salutary indictment of what we have been duped into by the Marxist/SWP etc nexus.

Nicholas

I realised that there is something very, very wrong with the way these people think when I read the (modern) caption to a 1945 Air Ministry film which included a sequence about RAF Spitfire pilots "adopting" orphaned Chinese boys as squadron "mascots" in 1945 Hong Kong:-

"Though a modern viewer might look askance at footage of boys being encouraged to box, or be concerned by the apparent familiarity of the airmen with these children, the propaganda value of this film is nonetheless readily apparent."

http://tinyurl.com/359ofu9

The Colonial Film project which included this film was created by united universities Birkbeck and University College London and the archives of the British Film Institute, Imperial War Museum and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. The word missing from their peculiar caption is "some". "Some" modern viewers may look askance. Whilst others who can remember more innocent, trusting times might look askance at the workings of the mind(s) who wrote the caption.

Britain has a problem and it is going to end up alienating all children from all adult men if this sort of hysterical nonsense is not stopped.

Baron

come on, James, the NSPCC should be applauded not criticised for the effort except that the advice should have gone much further, I reckon.

the teacher’s standing far too close to the pupil, the danger being he can easily groom the pupil verbally, then meet him later in a park or somewhere safe for abit of touching and stuff. Why not placing the teacher in the room next door, relate the instructions via a video link, the taxpayer funding the required gear, of course, and a newly created quango, also funded by those in a job, enforcing such arrangements, improving on it in conferences, seminars preferably in countries where they could observe how others lag behind our progressive thinking.

better still, the teacher could be miles away to prevent him entering the room with the pupil, and another video camera should also be installed to watch over the teacher giving instructions in case the instructions are worded in an inappropriate way.

even better still, why not anticipate the mistakes the pupil is likely to make and pre-record the instructions hence eliminating altogether the possibility of any potentially damaging intimacy between the pupil and the teacher. A whole industry could be created around such an arrangement given the many and different mistakes pupils make.

sadly, my Alzheimer infected brain lacks the depth of imagination to improve on the video further, but I hope the NSPCC may find the few hints inspiring, will think again and come up with a new, improved advice. It’s a joy to live in a society that goes the extra mile to protect its chidren.

Jeremy

As it stands, this video is already very amusing (especially the first half). But given the attention of a television satirist (and the merest tweak, here and there) I think it could be worked up into something of a comedy classic.

Andy H

Watching the film makes me realise that this is clearly an issue that needs a new law.
I mean, what was the child doing in a room on it's own with this man? Clearly this older man must be a sexual predator that has lured a child into a one to one situation. We must ban all teaching of single pupils and place everyone in a classroom with cameras, with a minimum of two ethnically and sexually diverse teachers that have been trained in the correct way.

David Ossitt

The NSPCC have had their last £1 out of me.

They are sick.

Liberty

There is big money available for parents who think they could bring a case against a teacher, even if there is nothing in it and they settle out of court. It is also ridiculously easy for children with a grudge or seeking some fun to accuse a teacher of sexual harassment, etc. Either way, it could ruin a teacher professionally and personally. Gove must tackle the problem of easy litigation and over-sensitive LEAs before teachers drop their guard.

Colin

I think you'll find this has more to do with protecting union members from kids, rather than the other way round. The irony is delicious, when you consider that it was the unions that bankrolled the vile regime that did so much to create this evil (yes, I meant to use that word) state of affairs in the first place.

Richard

Er, could someone explain the connection with Marxism and the SWP?

salieri

Note how these films - do watch them all - start from 2 fundamental premises to which the Left is inseparably wedded.

First, let's not be judgemental. Let's talk of "inappropriate behaviour", because inappropriate only means wrong, but it would be wrong to say 'wrong' because that would mean making a judgement about wrongness, in the same way that instead of 'appropriate', 'right' would also be wrong, er, inappropriate.

Second, let's not allow for judgement at all, i.e. common sense. We shall tell you what you can or can't do - sorry, what's appropriate or inappropriate - so that no individual can decide for himself (sorry, themselves) and thus exercise judgement in any given situation, which would itself be judgemental as well as deviant behaviour.

And let us finally ignore the fact that no competent violin teacher would ever tell a pupil, twice, that his wwrist and fingers were in the wrong position without simply showing him what the position ought to be.

The film is wilfully patronising as well as moronic, vile and dictatorial. I'm only surprised the list of sponsors didn't include the BBC.

Archibald

You're all being very flippant. Surely it is a well known fact that paedophiles spent many years learning the violin, then continue learning to a standard good enough to become teachers themselves, as it's widely accepted that all the best looking kids play the fiddle. That's where the name 'kiddie fiddler' came from, I think you'll find.

hexhamgeezer

Another small front in the war to dismantle society.

Fergus Pickering

I stopped giving money to the NSPCC when I found out they were campaigning against grammar schools.

When I was at school I was quite often offered a lift, which I always accepted, from my English teacher, a man of about sixty. Actually he wasn't even my English teacher any more. I suppose if I had been prettier there would have been no end of rumpy-pumpy. But all we did was to chat about this and that as if we had been two quite normal people.

Jeremy

"If you keep your fingers - ah! - and wrists in the right position - oh! - then you'll find it much easier and - ooh! - you won't even have to think about it...Mmmm!..."

Alternatively, he could probably get the hang of it by just looking at a copy of the "Guitar Lesson" by Balthus: http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/balthus.php

Frank Sutton

I only hope no children were harmed in the making of this film... I assume the "child" involved in the "inappropriate" teaching behaviour was played by an animatronic dummy.

John Goode

When I was at school, there were occasions when I got patted on the back particularly if I had done well at sports.

I did not feel it was innapropriate in fact I did not see anything in it at all. I was not traumatised in any way. In some societies, (e.g.) Italy I noticed people regularly touch other people when they speaking whatever the age group. This seems entirely normal.

I think most of us know what innapropriate touching is. This puts a dangerous weopen in the hands of children who can make a teacher's life hell.

Kat Gutz

Of course violin teachers are peedos - they don't call them fiddlers for nothing!
Let's just call time on the unacceptable abuse of teaching inappropriate "music" to vulnerable kiddies.
I'd rather see that pour little mite in the video sniffing gleu than being abused by that vile lechererer.
Come on, this is the 21sd centurie! lol

chris

I worked for a term as an instrumental teacher and had to give a mock lesson before being employed by the LEA. I was criticised for placing the fingers of the "mock" student on the guitar fretboaord after he pretended he didn't know where to place them. I thought it was a joke. With over 30 years in Australia and Hong Kong, chiefly in the private school sector, and have higher degrees in the subject I thought I"d come across most things in my line of work. Not this though.

Of course then I had to get clearance to work with children and as I was new to the UK it caused all sorts of problems with the powers that be! References from numerous schools in other countries cut no ice. God the memories! I was granted one after a few months though. I think I was too hard to categorise!

Glad I didn't stay as the bureaucracy of the LEA was unbearable. I also had to teach students who had no interest in learning, no instrument to learn on just to satisfy some functionary that arts were open to the masses! The administrators were often arrogant and felt as though you were on the bottom rung of the organisation.

yank

Well thank phuck somebody is finally doing something about the scourge of predatory violinists, lurking in music studios everywhere. Nothing could be more important.

I know. Let's just record all the violin music anybody could ever want, then burn them all. No violins... no violin teachers. Problem solved.

TomTom

Like the USA TRUST has disappeared from everyday life here and everything must be validated. Speaking of which do all Imams obtain CRB checks with reference back to the Police in Pakistan ? Or do they run their after school clubs with public funding without such checks ?

Nicholas

Interesting insights Chris, thank you. But they read horribly like something that might have happened in East Germany or Communist China. They demonstrate just how far this country has capitulated to authoritarian socialism of a particular type and how far political ideology has been allowed to secure control over Academia.

Nicholas

Just to add, the swathe of "unbelievable" stories which have emerged from the likes of the Daily Mail over the years and which have been roundly and contemptuously dismissed by the authoriarian socialist amongst us as "Daily Mail foaming hysteria" are just the smoke not the fire. But you know what they say about smoke and fire.

Cynic

I suspect part of the problem lies in the sexualisation of children. They don't seem to have a childhood any more, they go from being a baby to sexually aware (hardly surprising with the sex education they get). Whereas people of my generation (born in the '40s) wouldn't give sexual connotations a second (or even a first) thought, it's what immediately leaps to mind these days.

Frank Sutton

Jeremy: re http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/balthus.php
Interesting to notice that the guitarist in that picture is left-handed - an example that we could all heed in fighting inappropriate dextrasupremacism and unacceptable sinistraphobia

Stewart

Sounds as though we need to have another airing of Chris Morris' brilliant Brass Eye special on child abuse. He's talking 'Nonce Sense'.

Ian Walker

Note that the MU have stated that the video takes into account the current state of the law, and that if Mr Gove wants to change the law, they'll be more than happy to change their advice.

It's not just music teachers either. What Mr Gove forgets is that school teachers actually have much more freedom to contact children than the legions of private and voluntary teachers and coaches who make sure that the kids of this country actually get the childhood that the left is constantly trying to deny them.

As a children's rugby coach, I have a problem trying to teach the second row of the scrum to form up properly - a skill required to avoid potentially serious neck injury. The easy way would be to grab the two backsides involved, shove them together and say "Like this," but I am specifically not allowed to do that by the RFU for 'child protection' reasons.

Trampoline coaches have it even worse - if a child is hurtling upside-down towards a concrete floor from 15 feet up, you are not allowed to catch them with your hands in case you make 'inappropriate' contact. You have to try and catch them on your forearms.

In both cases, apparently, a broken neck is preferably to the lefty horror of an adult hand on a child's bottom.