Thursday, May 13, 2004
The school where play is banned . . . except when it's "Please Father Robinson"
I don't think that Williamstown's Father Barry Robinson can be termed a paedophile; his crime was with a 16 year old, and so, while he is an icky person in many respects, the good parents of St Mary's primary school may be over-reacting a tad with this. In other words, sorry for the tabloid headline - I just couldn't resist.
That said, I can partially understand the parents are going for straight for the faggots and firelighters this time, what with the Banning of Play debacle from only a few days earlier. By coincidence (it would seem) the school's Principal, as the person who came up with this genius of an edict, has just resigned.
I suspect that Principal Lorraine Buntz's hand may have been forced as a result of publication in Tuesday's Age of this shocker of a letter (scroll to end) from one of the school's teachers:
"My colleagues and I have a right to have our classes start each day in a calm manner".
It is a reasonable assumption that the "calm" Tanya Travers refers to is not that of her own mind (or body). If she can't deal with the ordinary behaviour of young kids (and boys, in particular, needless to say), then I reckon she is in the wrong job, period.
Indeed, the brazen confidence with which teacher Travers asserts her "right" makes me wonder just how such a personality could effectively run a classroom. Father Robinson may be a hideous old lech, but the casual cruelty implicit in Tanya Travers's words would worry me even more, if I was a parent of kids at that school.
I don't think that Williamstown's Father Barry Robinson can be termed a paedophile; his crime was with a 16 year old, and so, while he is an icky person in many respects, the good parents of St Mary's primary school may be over-reacting a tad with this. In other words, sorry for the tabloid headline - I just couldn't resist.
That said, I can partially understand the parents are going for straight for the faggots and firelighters this time, what with the Banning of Play debacle from only a few days earlier. By coincidence (it would seem) the school's Principal, as the person who came up with this genius of an edict, has just resigned.
I suspect that Principal Lorraine Buntz's hand may have been forced as a result of publication in Tuesday's Age of this shocker of a letter (scroll to end) from one of the school's teachers:
"My colleagues and I have a right to have our classes start each day in a calm manner".
It is a reasonable assumption that the "calm" Tanya Travers refers to is not that of her own mind (or body). If she can't deal with the ordinary behaviour of young kids (and boys, in particular, needless to say), then I reckon she is in the wrong job, period.
Indeed, the brazen confidence with which teacher Travers asserts her "right" makes me wonder just how such a personality could effectively run a classroom. Father Robinson may be a hideous old lech, but the casual cruelty implicit in Tanya Travers's words would worry me even more, if I was a parent of kids at that school.
