Spend a year teaching kids and you’ll experience in some form the phenomenon of parents behaving badly. If you’re unlucky, you’ll experience it first hand. If you’re a little luckier or maybe have a knack of keeping them on side yourself, you may only experience it second hand, which can be disturbing enough. Fortunately I’ve managed to get through seven and a half years so far without coming face to face with a fuming, angry and generally belligerent parent. I’ve been fairly fortunate. The worst I’ve had is one pair demanding to know at a parent/teacher interview what I was doing about a boy being bullied (while both boys were happily playing together outside the window, I might add!) and the odd parent asking why their child should stay inside for two minutes after school with the rest of the grade (because the whole lot of the little buggers were acting like a right pack of pills all afternoon!). As I said, I’ve been lucky.

It can be rather sad in many cases too. More often than not, you’ll find that the kid in question is often quite a nice, decently good kid. You’ve got to tread a little carefully for the kid’s sake, as (at least still in primary school level) the kid probably really enjoys being taught by you. You enjoy teaching the poor little bugger yourself too, but there’s always that spooky shadow of the ‘ugly parent’ somewhere nearby just over the horizon – and the wind’s blowing your way.

I found an article from the Age newspaper on the staffroom table after work tonight. I don’t read the Age myself (I’m not clever enough to fold it all back together again), but the ‘Challenging Parents: A Spotter’s Guide’ caught my eye and I gave it a look. I actually had a bit of a laugh at it because the list hasn’t actually done a bad job covering the various types of difficult parent you can face. It was pretty true to form.

The rest of the article, The Parent Trap, is an intriguing read as well, and I recommend you give it a look if this topic is of importance to you in any way. It is fairly lengthy, but it covers a lot of interesting points. We’re always under pressure to find ways to rein in the apparent endless bullying that goes on through schools, but the other side is rarely given air time. According to this article one in two teachers are bullied by parents regularly to various degrees. That wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest, but as I said, I’ve been one of the fortunate ones.

Either that or I’ve been too preoccupied or ever so slightly laid back to actually realise it! That’s always a possibility.

The six categories of difficult parents are listed at the end of the article on the sixth page. I’ll list them here for posterity anyway, just keep in mind they’re not my work, eh? I don’t want to get into trouble!

Challenging parents: A spotter’s guide

- Overprotective – always hovering, wanting to know everything about their children. It only takes one story from their child for them to be on the phone and in the principal’s office, often without checking facts.

Want all problems fixed in their child’s favour.

- High maintenance – short-sighted parents who believe their child is perfect and should be the centre of the school’s universe.

Often make a fuss over minor issues. Tend to create a vacuum that sucks in principals who have a strong wish to help others.

- Power trippers – those who use bluff, bluster, threats or power to get their own way at home and work. A bullying parent who can sense fear or weakness and will tackle a tentative, young teacher rather than going to the principal’s office.

- Angry parents – can be aggressive or withdrawn. Can generally be heard before they are seen. Can escalate their anger and be unpredictable. Won’t listen until they calm down. Anger centres on gaining control or damaging others.

- At-risk parents – those going through turbulent and vulnerable times such as a marriage breakdown, business problems or experiencing difficulties with their children. This group includes violent, mentally ill or addictive parents.

- Disengaged – the opposite of the helicopter parents. They don’t come to school, parent-teacher interviews or school events. Often have an immature view of child-rearing and will look to the school to care for and discipline their children.

I recognise all six varieties from my own experiences, but let me also say this. Most of the parents I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, working with and sharing the lives of their kids have been great. I actually enjoy the interaction and a bit of friendly banter between myself and the parents and I think it probably speeds up any issues of trust they may have when you teach their kids for the first time. Here’s just a quick run through of my experiences with parents. As I said, I don’t consider them all that scary in the least, but I’ve probably been lucky.

Every year, usually for the first three weeks, I get lots of parents wandering around, poking their heads in every now and then to see what’s going on in the room. I think these three weeks are that ‘okay, he’s doing a decent job, let’s go home and have a cuppa from now on instead‘ cooling off period. After that, I barely see them anywhere near the room except for when they turn up to tell me about a doctor’s appointment or are dragging their son in by the ear to change his reader before he goes home to play the X-box.

Other than that, I rarely have many issues, but I think that has a lot to do with actively going out to speak with the parents and share a joke with them. Often at their child’s expense! I also enjoy winding down after work some days by cheering some of the kids on at the odd sports game. I’m pretty sure that reputation has passed through the grape vine over the years (although I don’t broadcast it myself!) and I think that aids in the trust issue too.

If there’s one piece of advice I could give on this issue then, I suppose it would be to think about sharing a laugh or two with these parents as a deterrent to any major ‘ugly parent’ incidents in the future. One final example would be this. Several years ago, I taught one particular boy who had a bit of a reputation, as did one of his parents. They turned up at the parent teacher interview but I was ready. When his mum asked ‘Well… tell me about Johnny’ (they’re all called Johnny, eh?), before his old man could draw breath to fuel any rage, I just answered ‘well… I like him at least!’

That sort of knocked any wind out of his sails and he barely said a word for the rest of the interview!

While the following little comic is based on true events (see The Easter Ferret and The Ferret Song entries!), I wouldn’t recommend an approach like this though shown below. Miss Conway can pull something like this off. I don’t think I’d have the guts!

Related Posts: Parents drunk at school events, Scoring for basketball… leads me to drink, The Easter Ferret, The Ferret Song

Here’s a little poem that’s been a favourite of mine for a while. It was written by one T.S. Watt in the Manchester Guardian, which I assume is a newspaper from Manchester. As to the date, I don’t know. I’ve got it published in a hard cover book about the crazy language of English. It probably works best if you read it out loud – but be warned! Just because it’s using the same letter patterns for words, don’t expect them to all use the same sounds! I’ll just let you read it for yourselves!

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard but sounds like bird.
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead -
For goodness’ sake don’t call it “deed“!
Watch out for meat and great and threat.
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.)
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s dose and rose and lose
Just look them up – and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn’t learned by fifty five.

No wonder kids have trouble spelling, eh?

Found this little article in the paper today. I found it in the Herald Sun, but this link will take you to the Australian newspaper site instead. It doesn’t matter though – it’s the same article written by the same bloke. I just couldn’t find it on the Herald Sun’s website. Anyway… seems there’s a blight of school children’s parents drinking at school fetes and similar school events. Worse, their buying their alcohol from the school itself as fundraisers and generally getting themselves blind as the day carries on. All very education behaviour for the kids to see, isn’t it? Well…

Where are all these schools that are doing this??

I mean, we have to go through School Council and get their approval several weeks in advance if we even consider selling soft drinks or fruit boxes or even the odd hotdog day! How on Earth can any school with these sorts of contingencies legally be allowed and capable of selling alcohol to parents while the kids are there? We’ve had our share of trivia nights and things like that where alcohol has been available, but on those nights kids aren’t brought along, are they? The school needs to actually get hold of a liquor license for the night to be able to hold things like this as well.

Yet… apparently there is a scourge of primary schools selling alcohol to parents because otherwise they wouldn’t come to their fetes and so forth.

Surely if this was going on we’d hear about it outside of the newspaper rags, wouldn’t we? I’m pretty sure if any of the schools around our district tried pulling a stunt like that the rumour mill would be working overtime and we’d have heard about it before the first tinny was knocked back!

Honestly, if things like this are happening, then come out and name the schools. Don’t make a blanket statement tarring us all with the same brush. I mean, we’re not even allowed to sell icypoles without a permit any more!

Related Posts: The kid didn’t know I was coming for dinner…, The Easter Ferret, Childhood Obesity… don’t you dare reward my kid with lollies!

I finished today feeling a lot of pride.

There’s one little feller running around our school I’ve had a fair bit to do with over the last three years, and I’ve kept an eye on him as he’s moved up the grade ladder since I taught him back in grade four. While you have to maintain a professional standard with your relationship with the kids you work with, we’ve always managed to get along really well, even before he reached my grade. Of the really prominent days and good strong memories I’ve got through my career to this point, this feller has been central in quite a large percentage of them.

The day he learned he would be in my grade the next year he told me straight up it was going to be fun – we’d barely shared five words with each other before that year’s camp. Although he loves running around and joining in with the footy on the ova, every single time I was on yard duty that year he’d make sure to tag along and just chat – and chat properly too, not the chatter you usually get from kids hanging around you because they haven’t got friends of their own. Stepping on his back at camp when he was crawling through the mud pool to hear him squeal and laugh. The end of year trip to the pool where he dared me to try to knock him off the inflatable dinosaur with a hose of freezing water. Beginning basketball and winning a premiership. Inviting me in for tea after dropping him home one night when he wanted to stay at the break up party a little longer. Not even waiting to say ‘g’day’ on the first day of this year before making sure I knew what day and time he’d be playing basketball this year.

And a few little things that weren’t always such good news.

But through it all, he always spoke respectfully with me, even when having a laugh and a joke at my expense.

He got himself into a little bit of a bother at the start of the year. Despite that, he managed to persuade the Green House team to elect him to one of the four captain positions for this year’s House Sports. It was generally agreed though that he’d forfeit the badge the next time I got himself into trouble. Most predictions were within two weeks. I quietly voiced the opinion that I had no doubt he’d make it, but I generally just sat back to watch what he’d do. I don’t think he ever realised though that he was that close to messing it all up.

The House Sports was today. About three months after the elections. There he was leading our team

There are times, ever now and then, when I get the feeling that I just know what is going to happen. Today was one of them. Last year, after having their first basketball grand final all but stolen from them (they finished the game one player short with their four best players fouled off, two before half time – that’s another issue!) I walked in to watch their next one knowing they would win. No doubt about it. Today was the same. Green House would win.

Sure enough, while I watched on from beside the green kids trying to keep a knowing little smug grin off my face, they announced the House Sports winners. Green. He’d done it. He’d just proven to everybody why I have absolute faith in him no matter what, and he didn’t even realise it! And now there he was standing before the rest of the school leading the year’s victorious House Sports team. This is why I believe in fairy tales.

Proudest moment though? When he looked across with the broadest grin his face could hold and gave me a big thumbs up.

Better than a trophy.

Related Posts: Scoring for basketball… leads me to drink!, Scoring for basketball… the sequel, Advancing a teaching level, When it rains it pours…, More than just yesterday’s teacher…

This would be one of my all time favourite songs, and I make sure the kids hear it leading up to ANZAC Day each year. As Thursday will be our House Sports Day and I’ll barely see half of the kids for much of the day, they’re going to hear it tomorrow instead. With a bit of luck it will interest more of them into trying to drag their parents to the parade on ANZAC Day. I know some of them will be there, and one of them has all but dared me to meet him at the dawn service, but if it gets more of them there to see the real diggers walking by, then fantastic. If it just opens their eyes a little more to the history of our military and how we honour a defeat rather than a major victory like most nations, then that’s more than enough too.

It tells the story of a digger landing at Gallipoli on 25th April, 1915, and then returning home to Australian via Sydney on the first ANZAC Day, 25th April,1916. The words written here are the ones I use and learned, not quite the same as those Eric Bogle sings on the clip to the side. I play it in C as it’s easy to finger pick for me, but again, I sometimes use a capo to get it to a better key for the kids. Here is the progression for those who are interested. The verse and chorus are the same for each of the five sections. It’s in 3/4 time.

C / F / C / Am / C / G / C G/G C /
C / F / C / Am / C / G / C G/G C /
G7/ G7 / F / C / G7/ G7/ F / C /
C / F / C / Am / C / G / C G/G C /Chorus
C / F / C / C / C / F / G7 / G7 /
F / F / C / Am / C / G / C G/G C /

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Now when I was a young man, I carried a pack
And I lived the free life of a rover.
From the Murray’s green basin to the dusty outback,
Well I waltzed my matilda all over.
Then in nineteen fifteen the country said ’son,
There’s no time for roving, there’s work to be done’.
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war.

And the band played Waltzing Matilda as the ship pulled away from the quay.
And ‘midst all the cheers, the flag waving and tears, we sailed off for Gallipoli.

How well I remember that terrible day,
How our blood stained the sand and the water.
And how in the Hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he’d primed himself well.
He rained us with bullets, he showered us with shell.
And in five minutes flat they’d blown us all to Hell.
Nearly blew us right back to Australia.

And the band played Waltzing Matilda as we stopped to bury the slain.
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs – and we started all over again.

And those who were left, well we tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire.
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
While around me the corpses piled higher.
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head
And when I woke up in my hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well I wished I were dead.
Never knew there were worse things than dying.

For I’ll got no more Waltzing Matilda all around the wide bush far and free.
For to hump tents and pegs, a man needs both legs – no more Waltzing Matilda for me.

So they gathered the wounded, the crippled, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia.
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane.
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.
And as the ship pulled in to Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve, to mourn and to pity.

And the band played Waltzing Matilda as they filed us down the gangway.
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared, and they turned all their faces away.

So now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me.
I see my old comrades, how proudly they march,
Reliving old days and past glories.
But the old men march slowly, their bones stiff and sore.
Tired old heroes from a tired old war.
And the young people ask ‘what are they marching for?’
And I ask myself the same question.

But the band plays Waltzing Matilda and the old men still answer the call.
But year after year more old men disappear – one day no one will march there at all.

Technorati Tags: ANZAC Day, Eric Bogle, Waltzing Matilda, Gallipoli

This particular topic poked its nose out at me over the last few days due to an issue I read on a few other blogs over the weekend. While I don’t want to go into detail, be content to know it involved the privacy and general safety of kids and the unknowns of people’s true identities when masked behind an internet username and small square avatar picture. If you think you may well own one of the blogs I’m speaking of and are wondering why there’s no links, it’s because I’d rather keep topics like that at a little more than arm’s reach from School Spirit. Hopefully you understand.

Anyway, it got me thinking about the personal information I have access to both now and previously with children past and present. I consider myself an honest, loyal sort of person, so the information and knowledge I have about certain kids (well, all of them, really, but in some cases the information about some kids is more… personal… than others) will stay safely away from the ears of people who don’t need to know, but sometimes I pity the way the world is turning when innocent little events make me look at stuff like this in a more simple light.

It’s a pretty straightforward professional rule. As a teacher, I’m not allowed to disclose personal information about any of the kids to anybody outside of the school staff, although you don’t generally have to because much of that sort of information is available for us through the school records anyway. It’s a rule that makes perfect sense, too. You can’t just fling the odd phone number, address or medical status of the kids out willy nilly to any old character that wanders in to ask for it. Who knows what purpose they may have for the information? You can never be too safe, can you?

But how do you explain that to an eight year old?

In our room, each grade has a class roll. The names of all of the kids in the grade are listed there alphabetically by surname, and as you’d expect, we keep records of which days they have missed, whether they’ve gone to medical appointments, extended holidays or gone home early because their little brother’s broken his arm playing ‘I’m a bigger moron than you’ (the rules of which are usually to jump off the highest surface possible – bonus points if it’s a hard surface underneath!). It also holds information such as parent names, birthdates, addresses and phone numbers. Obviously, the kids aren’t meant to go looking through it because of the sensitive information inside it. Not that they care – they just like looking at all the little marks I make on each page. But this is where the boundaries get a little blurry sometimes.

You see, the kids know their addresses and phone numbers are in there. They’re not interested enough to look, they just know they’re there. So last Friday this little eight year old feller spent his Free Time Friday (once he’d finished his weekly work, naturally) trotting around the room collecting phone numbers from some of the other boys so he could ring them to come to his birthday party sometime this week. One of the kids couldn’t remember his, so he came up to me with what I thought was a good little solution to his problem.

‘Mr V, can you look in the roll and tell me his phone number so I can ring him about my birthday?’

I have to say no.

Although he accepted that I wasn’t allowed to do that, try as I might, he just couldn’t understand the reason why.

If only they could stay that innocent longer, eh?

Technorati Tags: privacy, schools

I’m not a baseball fan. I’m aware that there’s an Australian team we occasionally hear about every now and then when they pop up in the Olympics, but that’s about the extent of it. I’m even vaguely aware that there is a local club that represents our local town, and a few of the kids at school play in the junior league. To me it’s always been a typically American game and not large enough in Australia to gain any coverage to keep me interested. But I AM interested in the achievements of the kids running around in the playground, and I stumbled over a local newspaper article last night by accident that involves both.

I very rarely read the local paper because there’s generally nothing of interest in it. I only picked this one up because Mum likes to read it and I was heading that way and had stopped in at the local shop on the way anyway. So I opened it to have a browse and caught a photo of one of the kids. He’s not one I teach, and he’s not one I’ve taught previously, but he’s one I’ve known for a few years just from running around the yard and my basketball spectating. He’s still a year aware from my grade level, but he also says ‘g’day’ every time he walks past.

Anyway… his face popped out at me from the paper and, surprise surprise, it ended up being the only article I read. First, the good news.

First game of the season (it’s Teeball rules at Under 10s level – baseball rules at Under 12s), and only his second season playing the game (apparently he spent every night last season sleeping with his team hat on!). This little feller last weekend performed a triple play – apparently the rarest feat in baseball. He’s managed to get all three ‘outs’ in one fell swoop. Fielding at second base, he’s caught the batter out, then tagged the runner coming towards him from first, then ran down the player running from second to third to tag him out as well. He must have been fair belting across the field to manage that. Apparently he was then swamped and over-run by his entire team with high-fives flying left, right and centre, and fair enough.

But my grizzle was… I saw him every day last week and he didn’t mention it once!

So… Monday morning I’m gonna stride up to him and belt him around the head with the newspaper article a few times and ask him what the deal is! How can an eight year old keep something like that quiet from anybody? Then I’m going to do the same to one of his team mates who’s actually in my grade and didn’t mention a thing either.

Keep things from me, will they?

Related Posts: Scoring for basketball… leads me to drink!, Scoring for basketball… the sequel

Technorati Tags: baseball, sport

With ANZAC Day fast approaching, I’m spending this week and next talking about Gallipoli, the First World War, and the marches. Trying to get into the kids heads the importance of this day and the weighty history behind it. The kids find it strange and hard to grasp that, despite shooting at each other across the trenches of Gallipoli, there was no real hatred between the ANZAC troops and the Turks. I guess war is still black and white at that age – good versus bad – but they’re slowly starting to realise that being on different sides doesn’t mean you don’t like the other bloke. They’re also starting to appreciate the humour of some of these situations such as both sides raising wooden targets for the other side to aim at and throwing supplies and friendly notes across No Man’s Land, even sharing cigarettes and family photos with the ‘enemy’ while helping to bury the common dead.

‘Two Little Boys‘ is a song we’re going to focus on a bit leading up to ANZAC Day, especially it’s themes of friendship and loyalty, and to a lesser extent the loss of innocence. It’s a great little song recorded by Rolf Harris of wobble board fame. The video file to the side plays the recording alongside appropriate photos and images. I play it in C with a capo up a few frets.

Two Little Boys

Two little boys had two little toys, each had a wooden horse.
Gaily they’d play, each summer’s day, warriors both – of course!
One little chap then had a mishap – broke off his horse’s head.
Wept for his toy then cried with joy as his young playmate said;

“Did you think I would leave you crying when there’s room on my horse for two?
Climb up here Jack, and don’t be crying, I can go just as fast with two.
When we grow up we’ll both be soldiers and our horses will not be toys
And I wonder if we’ll remember when we were two little boys?”

Long years passed, war came so fast – bravely they marched away.
Cannons roared loud and in the mad crowd wounded and dying lay.
Up goes a shout, a horse dashes out, out from the ranks so blue.
Gallops away to where Joe lay – then came a voice he knew.

“Did you think I would leave you dying when there’s room on my horse for two?
Climb up here Joe, we’ll soon be flying, I can go just as fast with two.
Did you say, Joe, I’m all a-tremble, perhaps it’s the battle’s noise
But I think it’s that I remember when we were two little boys.

Did you think I would leave you dying when there’s room on my horse for two?
Climb up here, Joe, we’ll soon be flying – back to the ranks so blue.
Can you feel, Joe, I’m all a-tremble, perhaps it’s the battle’s noise
But I think it’s that I remember when we were two little boys.

Technorati Tags: ANZAC Day, songs, music

Saturday night a week and a half ago now, the final day of the Easter holidays, I went down to Melbourne to watch the footy and support my team. It was the first home game of the season and our first game we could get to this year. We beat the Old Enemy (well, one of the two Old Enemies) so all was good with the world and I bellowed my lungs out in support of the Glorious Crusade.

Sunday night, the day before I’m due back in the classroom to front the kids, I start to feel a little sore in the throat. Shouldn’t have yelled quite so much. I’ll be okay though, the kids were just about working well and quietly two weeks ago. We’ll just carry on nicely as though the last fortnight hasn’t been missed.

I fall for that every holiday!

Reached Wednesday night and the throat has not gotten sorer, it’s actually cleared up, but the voice has gotten croaky. Thursday, tough day not being able to talk louder than the kids (wasn’t gone, the kids are just a little rowdy this year), and there’s only so far holding one hand in the air and waiting for them to face you can go. By the end of the day, we were sort of glad to put the day behind us and pretend it never happened.

So… what better way to remedy a rapidly disappearing voice? Spend the last day of the week at the District Sports directing kids to all of their events, of course!

Gawd…

Actually, the voice survived the day quite well. I gargled a few glasses of warm, salty water the night before and softened the chords up enough. I just didn’t talk all that loudly with the kids on the day. Made cheering loudly for them as they approached the finish lines a little harder, but a quiet pat on the back or a knuckled nudge to the shoulder as you walk past afterwards is often more suitable and meaningful. Quiet recognition can carry a lot more weight, I reckon.

The kids did really, really well. Only about ten or so actually received any ribbons, but that’s not really what we consider these sorts of things about. Every one of our kids that fronted up for a race or event left nothing behind and tried their absolute guts’ out. You can’t ask more than that. When a few had a quiet grizzle about coming third last out of twenty seven competitors and stuff like that, I just asked them a simple question.

‘Are you at school doing maths right now?’

‘No.’

‘Then there’s a win right there, eh?’

Even better, the kids behaviour was fantastic. Only a few issues that cleared themselves up easily, and for the most part the kids not competing kept themselves occupied with a tennis ball, a nerf ball, and a footy they found… somewhere. They even threw together a scratch match against the kids from another school. We had to call it off after about forty minutes or so of continuous play as it was just about to get nasty. Our kids came back complaining.

‘They cheat! They change the rules and call stupid free kicks!’

‘That’s why I called the game off, fellers.’

‘Yeah, we weren’t gonna win.’

‘It’s not winning the game I’m worried about. I stopped it before you won the fight afterwards!’

That picked their spirits up a bit!

Technorati Tags: sport, children’s sport

I’ll open first by stating that this post is a bit of a gripe. It’s an issue that keeps popping its head up from time to time and, to be honest, I think it’s blown quite considerably out of proportion. And this issue of critical importance is teachers giving the odd lolly or unhealthy treat as a reward for good behaviour. With this apparent childhood obesity epidemic running rampant through Australia’s primary and secondary school aged population, the blow torch has fairly regularly been turned on us for having the good old lolly jar or similar sitting on the desk as the odd reward for good behaviour or winning some little competition within the classroom. Things like that. There have been pushes from various outside (and internal) sources to have things like this removed for the health and wellbeing of the children.

Well, I’m holding out against these invaders. My lolly jar is staying firmly on my desk and I’ll keep using it until some bureaucrat in a fancy suit makes it officially illegal and damaging to the chance to continue my career and forces me to remove it. Let me run through a few things.

This riled me yesterday afternoon while I was reading the daily Herald Sun newspaper after I’d spent the day at work. Specifically, the article ‘Mothers sour on sweets‘. More than 95% of parents surveyed claim their kids are receiving unhealthy treats for performing well. Surprise surprise! Of course they are. No argument there. Used well, it’s a cheap and effective and, more importantly, fun, little thing for the kids involved. Apparently though, according to these figures, 90% of these parents disapprove of the practice. News to me. I’ve yet to have any parent complain about the lolly jar sitting in plain sight on my desk. When most parents see it for the first time they look down at their little darling and suggest ‘you’d better behave if you want one of those, eh?’ In fact… I get a lot more complaints from parents about running the kids around the oval for various reasons.

Ironically, I read this article after spending the day with 60 odd kids at our local district school sports! I’ll post about that one later for a bit of good, light hearted stuff!

Back to this article though. It seems to even imply a negative response to the practice of kids bringing lolly bags and cupcakes to share with their class on their birthdays. It’s the kid’s birthday! If that’s not a traditional time to celebrate with a lolly or a little bit of cake, then when is? You see the kids walking in as proud as punch with another year on their age and a tupperware box filled with a cupcake for each kid (and the teacher, mind you!) that will take all of three bites to consume. Let the kids have their day, eh?

And yes, apparently there is a childhood obesity epidemic we’re not helping to remedy too. The odd lolly given out as a prize for working their backsides off compared to three or four laps of the oval each week. Which side of the ‘healthy/unhealthy’ kid ledger am I likely to have those kids on?

I’ve just looked through the class photos of each of my grades over the eight years I’ve been teaching. If I had to be mean and nasty, I could count 18 kids who would possibly be either fat or obese. Six of these play sport at quite a high level all the same. That’s less than 20 kids out of a total of about 420. Puppy fat, baby fat and kids who you know are going to shoot up and become string beans I’m not counting, and I don’t think they should be. Yep, lots of kids are unhealthily fat, but I’ve yet to see this range of 20-40% that is regularly bandied around. Personally, my figures are about 2%, but I must just be a little kinder on the little fellers burning off their baby fat.

Anyway, this is the way the lolly jar works on my desk. Firstly, if anyone is going to get fat from it, it’s going to be me. When the kids are elsewhere and I’m working alone in the room, I’m going to graze from the jar myself. Not to mention my practice of eating one of these lollies in front of the kids when they’re working too loudly. A quiet ‘you’re too noisy, I get a lolly’ shuts them up a lot more efficiently than calling out ‘too much noise, lower the volume or lose your tongue!’

Okay, that phrase has worked at times too, but the kids know you’re joking.

At the end of each week, we hold a raffle draw. One ticket is drawn out for each day we’ve been at school that week. Usually five, then. And each winning kid gets to choose one lolly from the jar. The largest lolly in this jar is probably a musk stick which has been broken in two. The rest are usually licorice allsorts, chocolate bullets or jelly beans. No matter the size, they win one lolly. So at the end of the week, five kids get one lolly. And you can bet there are fifteen to twenty other kids wishing they were the lucky winners instead. All for one lolly.

At the end of each fortnight, we see which table group won with the most table points. These lucky kids get two lollies for their two weeks of good work. Which means, if they’re lucky enough to also win the raffle draw, they walk out at the end of the week with three lollies!

We then add up the points for all four tables. If this combined total is higher than our previous high score, then every kid gets one lolly as a reward for the whole grade working well. This happens maybe once a term, which is good, because otherwise I’d be running out of money refilling my stocks! So, again, if a kid is really lucky that week, they might get a raffle prize, win the table points, and the grade might break their points record. Which means the kid might walk away at the end of the week with a total of four lollies.

Which apparently will set them on the path of childhood obesity.

I’m going to go back to the start of the week though and begin again. Monday mornings, unless it’s absolutely belting it down with rain, the kids all do a lap of the oval after assembly. Complaints fall on deaf ears unless they can show either a note from their parents or a plaster cast on their leg. As often as possible, the half hour before lunch after maths is a huff’n'puff session. Twenty odd minutes of physical activity outside after, yep, a lap of the oval. The kids could do up to six laps of this oval each week. Adding in the distance from the room to the oval and back, that’s about a kilometre over the week alread with recess and lunchtimes still to come.

We have the favourite ‘apple slinky’ machine in the room where at recess and lunchtime, kids can peel, core and slinky their apples to eat. Up goes the apple consumption of the school by about 200%! After lunch during silent reading, the kids are also allowed to eat any left over fruit they’ve brought from home. Twice a term we usually have a ‘healthy lunch’ day as well. If the kids have water in their drink bottles, they can keep them on their tables and use them throughout the day. Lots of healthy options and nutrition and fitness happening all week.

But at the end of the week a kid might get four lollies!

Surely there’s room for the odd lolly amidst all the fitness, healthy eating and exercise we also promote.

Yes, I know there are fat kids out there and schools are working their own weight off trying to bend their curriculum and timetables around new guidelines and requirements being passed down to us to keep these kids fit and healthy, but it goes too far sometimes. No lollies in the jar for the odd little treat that makes being a kid so much fun? Hopefully my parents will continue to let me reward their kids with the odd little morsel of sweet, sugary delight without worrying that I’m damaging the health of their little prides and joys.

I know there are a few readers out there with kids of their own. I’m looking at this purely from my side of the debate, but I honestly can’t see any serious reason other than allergies or similar to particular additives and so forth where, run like this (as the vast majorities of classrooms seem to) could realistically be seen as negligent. I’d be interested in any responses to either side, but I’ll say again though that I’ll fight to keep my lolly jar until they tell me ‘lose the jar or lose your job’.

Let the kids be kids while they still can, I reckon.

Cheers.

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