Teachers, Cyber Space and Astonishing Stupidity

I'm sorry, but have I just woken up in an alternate reality? I know I'm 30, and live a life of seclusion from the modern iPhone'd-up-to-the-max-world, and I still see electric windows in cars as something of a cool novelty, but what the motherfuck has happened to this moron-infested pit of a geek-hole, cuntfesting country?

Please tell me. Please. Someone tell me what the fuck is going on here?

Today I read a piece by Jon Henley in the Guardian entitled 'Blurred boundaries for teachers'. It's a cracking bit of comment (some Guardian writers are capable of this) following from the Helen Goddard sex scandal (Ms Goddard is a teacher at a school recently convicted of having a sexual relationship with a 15 year old female student).

Mr Henley directs his discussion towards the phenomenon of internet contact between teachers and pupils, including the growing problem of 'cyber bullying'.

The piece shocked me to my core. Because it told me things that are happening in the realm of education that I did not realise were happening. I just assumed, what with schools being what they are, and teachers being who they are, that things like 'Facebook' and mobile bloody phones were things the kids did, while the teachers either taught, or had gone home to do their thing.

Oh, no. But no, no. You see, if you didn't know this already, it's a totally different world out there to the one of say, 10, 15, 20 years ago.

When I was at school in the '90s, if you wanted to talk to your mates about stuff, you either got off your fucking arse and went to visit them in person, or you picked up the phone. Now, not only does every fucking 12 year old oik have a mobile (seriously, are their parents that retarded?) but they are all hooked on the god-fucking-awful fucking waste of oxygen 'social networking site' called 'Facebook'.

But as the piece explains, the teachers are now part of this bizarre, almost macabre, state of affairs.

According to the piece, Alastair, a teacher at a private London secondary school said: 

"...and while schools are creating web portals and actively encouraging online contact between staff and pupils, there are all sorts of guidelines warning us never ever to use Facebook with students, or to give out our personal mobile phone numbers or email addresses. The trouble is, it's very easy for the lines to get blurred. Public and private space get muddied."

Actively encouraging what?! Actively fucking you fucking what?! Why you cunting retarded spanner-headed prick-faced twatheads? Why? Why 'actively encourage' that shit? It can only end in tears, and the net benefit will only ever be minimal. Isn't this fucking obvious, you mongs?

I just don't get it. If people could quite happily go through their school years with something approaching a fair, appropriate and balanced relationship with their teachers without the aid of the fucking internet, why is it so important that teachers get stuck in now?

And how, pray, is it 'very easy for the lines to get blurred'? How can 'public and private space get muddied'? How? How? You are a teacher, they are pupils. You have the choice whether to engage outside of school and in your own spare time you geeky little weirdos. So here's a handy tip to avoid those pitfalls and perils. Don't speak to fucking kids on Fuckbook. Got it yet?

Idiot.

Here's a corker from 'Mike', a London teacher, who in Henley's article is purported to have stated:

"There's a school mobile phone for occasions like this (in reference to teachers who go along to school trips)," he says. "But it can easily happen that somebody else has got it when you want it. So what do you do? You don't want to risk losing the kids, so you give them your own mobile number. I've done that. And once that's happened, once a number is out there . . ." Texting, Mike says, "is a very intimate medium. And emails, too; I've sent personal emails to sixth-formers wishing them luck with their exam the next day. You can't be a jobsworth these days."

This reminds me of a bloke who goes to the bookies with a wallet full of credit cards. "I went along with £20, but that was my last £20, and I wanted to ensure I had enough funds to bet on the last few races. So I took my Barclaycard and my Platinum fucking Amex, and low and be-fucking-hold, once those cards are in my hands, that's it. You can't be a tight cunt, these days. Speculate to accumulate...".

Cunts.

No, 'Mike', you didn't need to give out your fucking mobile you shit bag. It's your mobile, you are paid to do a job, if the school gives out one fucking mobile and you don't have any other means of staying in contact (though quite fucking why you desperately need one, no-one had mobiles on my fucking school trips and no-one died) then that's their tough titty. It's not your responsibility, and as you clearly predicted the ominous outcome to your actions, you are as docile and mongtarded as Clive the degenerate gambler.

But my favourite weirdo teacher quote of all comes from 'Alison':

"My school bars Facebook contact between teachers and pupils. But I think teachers should be active online; it might even help prevent some of the things children can get up to, the very sexualised pictures they post of themselves online, for example. Banning us is almost insulting; it's like saying: 'You can't be trusted.' And texting is a far better way of getting hold of a child when you need them than a note in the register. Schools have enough absurd rules. We should be in that cyberspace arena."

I love that! 'Banning us is almost insulting'. And then she shoots her libertarian ethos to pieces with her ridiculous and utterly insane remark "...I think teachers should be active online; it might even help prevent some of the things children can get up to..."

Because, you know, that doesn't reek of self-regard and patronising, arrogant 'I don't trust you' authoritarianism at all.

I am truly amazed at these attitudes. This sort of thing must be rife. Teachers, who take it upon themselves (out of altruism?) to banter about with their pupils online after work. As if that will at all be of any benefit or purpose whatsoever. As if the teachers have juristiction or moral rights over what is said outside of class. As if they are in a position to take the moral high ground on anything. As if they are able to defend themselves against the shittier kids, or take them to task. As if this will at all improve discipline or appropriately handled relationships in the classroom.

Fuck off! What the hell are you doing, out there? Don't you realise the grave mess that can and will occur if you start fucking around with the pupils on 'social networking sites' after class?

And how is texting a better way to contact a pupil? Ever heard of the school 'timetable'? Every kid has one, you ask their form tutor as a last resort to find out where they are, and send a kid as messenger to go get him/her if it's that urgent. Don't fucking text them, for fuck sake! They're not your fucking mate, you daft prick.

I give up. I really do. I thought things were getting silly with peoples' addiction to these things, and the new, affordable Blackberries and iPhones. But it's leaped twenty lightyears into shitsville and beyond, hasn't it?

To the point where it takes a Commie Union leader in Chris Keates, the General Secretary of NASUWT, to hit the nail firmly on the head:

"Used appropriately, advances in technology have transformed the working lives of teachers, and the learning experiences of young people, no doubt. But they've thrown up new pressures and concerns. For a start, they've changed expectations of teachers – there's a real expectation in some schools now that teachers will basically be available at the convenience of the pupil. There's also, with email, an expectation of a more or less instant response. And these forms of communication are far more informal, in style and content. You respond in a way you never would in a letter, or face to face."

This comment addresses the all-too-predictable crisis out there at the moment of 'cyber bullying', where, funnily enough, more and more teachers are falling victim to taunts and aggressive online bullying by pupils. Of course, this might not be so much of a problem, if the cunting teachers didn't cross that line into no-man's land.

Here's the Union policy:

It has called for any school policy that requests or requires teachers to disclose their mobile numbers or email addresses to pupils to be banned; wants new legislation to outlaw teachers being named on websites; would like strategies to prevent all use of mobile phones when school is in session; and has even demanded that pupils' phones be classed as potentially dangerous weapons.

I don't believe in banning things, so my instincts are to disagree with the sentiments of the Union position. However, given we are talking about minors here; people not of adult status, there is a firm case for a tougher stance on this bollocks.

Though, to be fair, if teachers want to be idiots and stray into that territory of looking cool and connected with kids, then they deserve all the shit they get.

Fuck me, what a weird old world this is becoming.