Children are Being Dumped on Schools for up to Ten Hours a Day
As is so often the case with this kind of thing, the implication is that the parents are bad parents, who don’t spend enough time with their kids, because they work too hard… Yes, they do work too hard… but whose fault is that? It could be their fault, or - more likely - it could be the fault of their employers, who are putting too much pressure on them to work harder and harder and harder. They could be workaholics, or they could feel they have to be workaholics in order to get on in their careers, lives, etc. Yes, there are always choices, but the perceived pressures of modern western society make those choices very hard to make - pressures such as the Protestant work ethic, which is still very much evident in 2008… which says… that working hard is good!… that we are defined by our work… that wanting to do less and slow down is lazy and… well… just wrong. We could change these attitudes individually, on a personal level, which is all well and good, and will often be enough… but what about the employers? The big corporations, the companies, who own us with their rules and regulations, which are perceived by the unthinking masses as being strict and unbendable (or virtually unbendable) moral codes?… The media, in telling these sorts of stories (children being left at school for too long, etc) do tend to focus, directly or indirectly, on the workers, the parents, the “workaholics” themselves, who are committing these crimes of neglect, but what of the bigger picture? What of the bosses, the companies, the immense social pressures to conform and keep up with their competitive peers? The media is powerful, but it does have a habit of using that power to attack individuals and the relatively powerless social groupings. Here’s a thought… how about using that power to attack those who actually make the rules, who pile on the pressure, who benefit (or think they do) from over-worked, over-stressed parents? How about using that power to attack the powerful, rather than piling the guilt onto those who are probably already drowning in an ocean of the stuff? Just a thought…
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Bad Teachers Could be the Difference Between a Pass and a Fail
Well duh!
