A Closer Look at Violence in the Classroom

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

As I sit in my Kailyard I often wonder about the future.

When ah wis a wean ye wid be threatened wi the tawse at the schule.

Recently I had a discussion with some people about violence in the classroom. In the early 1980s there was a decision made to remove physical punishment form the armory of teachers in Scottish schools. Up until then one of the punishments that children faced was to be struck across the hands with a leather belt. In Scots, this was the tawse.

Their opinion was that once the belt had been taken away from the classroom, teachers were left with little disciplinary options and restlessness has led to physical violence in many of our schools. There is little doubt that, in some high-profile cases, there is clear evidence that there is an increase in some forms of violent conduct by children upon other children. I gave an opposing view that violence in the classroom had reduced since the belt was banned.

I did not press my point beyond the initial discussion, but it raised for me the why and where tofore of how we influence our young.

And then Joe Biden, shortly after, stood up to give his second State of the Union address.

What did that say about how we should show our children how to behave?

Now in the UK we have a bearpit of a parliament in London. Westminster prides itself on being the mother of all parliaments but it is filled with ill-discipline, politicians braying like donkeys and the type of outdated tradition that if you misbehave you might get chased down a corridor by a man in tights wielding a sword.

But the lack of respect displayed by Republicans to the office of President simply confounded us.

From over here the Marjorie Taylor-Greene of it all was pitiful. That dress, that balloon, only highlighted that the biggest balloon was holding the string and not stuck on the end of it.

And whilst it may be overly conservative to suggest that her display of petulance may affect the behavior of a 15-year-old in say Brooklyn or downtown LA, the image went global. The rest of the world saw how democracy in a country designed to promote its use in other areas of the world, used it as a means of platforming dissent, of attacking its traditions and showing its petulant and childish sides. If it was meant to be an advert, expect poor sales.

But let’s not be fooled by the official spokespeople who said it was all about China. It was not. It was all about being a running mate. Taylor-Greene clearly wants to be the Vice-Presidential candidate on a Trump ticket. How does she get onto that? By being the one person, you cannot ignore when it comes to Congress. By getting her name on the lips of every commentator in the media. By having an image that transcends the political and goes viral around the world. In short, by being a Trumpian example of fame at all costs.

But the cost to the USA might be transient. We shall forget about it soon and move on. We shall focus on what help is coming to Ukraine and hope that things become quieter in the US soon, whilst the war in Europe gets closer to a final phase. The image of a big daft woman in a big, huge dress shall, hopefully be forgotten. Other things shall take their place, until she rears her head again and people tweet her image and make her a star.

But is the image for our children of how we should behave, she wants to perpetuate? Things like this do not help democracy and do not helps et examples for people – either in countries without democracy or to the kids looking on. The problem for the US is that, as well as the speaker vote, democracy appears to be open to kowtowing to bullying, in America. There appears to be several bad boys and girls in the political firmament who have no discipline and do not want to show it.

There are times when I lose my argument because the adults misbehave and even, I begin to have a fondness for a time when you could belt the bigger kids… And there are a few in need of some form of discipline…

A view from the new Kailyard or, how you look over there, from over here…

(Kailyard n. a cabbage patch, often attached to a school of writing – the Kailyard School – a genre of overly sentimental and sweet Scottish literature from the late 19th century where sentimental and nostalgic tales are told in escapist tales of fantasy, but here we seek to reverse it by making the Kailyard Observations of effective invective comment from that looks not to return to the past but to launch us into a better future by the one Donald worth believing…

Tawse – A long piece of leather which is about the width of two fingers and around 24 inches long, with a cut from the tip to around 9 inches in which meant there were two “fingers” of leather. It was used by Scottish school teachers to physically chastise children until the early 1980s.

When ah wis a wean ye wid be threatened wi the tawse at the schule.

When I was a child, you would be threatened with the belt at the school.

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