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the bad old days

READING

THE BAD OLD DAYS

The other day, a teacher got sacked for tearing a boy’s shirt. The boy was fighting with another child when the teacher grabbed him and pulled him away to try and stop the fight. In doing this, he tore the boy’s shirt. The boy’s parents complained to the headmaster and the teacher was sacked for physically abusing the boy. Many people in Britain support the teacher, saying he was only trying to do what was right and that it was the boy who was at fault. Many of these people are also probably remembering what their own teachers were like and how much stricter they were.

When I think of the teachers I had less than twenty years ago, I immediately remember ones who used to give out terrible punishments. My English teacher was known as Johnny Headbanger because if he caught two students in class, he used to grab their heads and bang them together. Another one called Mr Golding, who taught us Maths, used to make you hold your arms out like a cross and then he put a Maths textbook in each hand. Those boks used to weigh about two kilos each and after about twenty seconds you should be sweating and your muscles would be killing you, but he would just smile and carry on teaching the class. Many teachers were quite happy to give you a smack on the back of the head if you were cheeky. That kind of thing used to be quite normal.

Nowadays, however it sometimes seems like a teacher can’t even touch a pupil without the headmaster threatening them with the sack. Many people now feel the law’s gone too far. They say pupils have too much power and have learned how to push teachers to the limit. They blame the outlawing of all physical punishment for an increase in bad behaviour in children. But do we really want to go back to the bad old days when teachers were basically free to beat you up?

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