Disruptive Children, The Royals, Harold Evans, Berlin Sensitivity , No Carping
Early last year a friend of mine finally managed to move her badly bullied nine-year-old from an inner London primary school where he had once been very happy. A cheerful, gregarious child had become a withdrawn, wretchedly unhappy, explosively angry one
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| School Is Out Elizabeth Adela Forbes (1859-1912) Photo credit: [CC BY-ND) |
He was the 22nd child to leave his class in two years. They had all gone for the same reason: the class was dominated by a pair of boys without boundaries, vindictive and cruel. They victimised children in turn, hit and threatened them, stole their money or pens, disrupted the class and mocked anybody who worked.
The school, run by nice well-meaning women, had no idea how to cope. Neither the boys nor their mothers cared when they were called in for earnest chats. The teachers and the head were clearly longing for the boys to move on and become somebody else's problem.
... This summer an intriguing book (The Origins of You) co-authored by the Harvard child psychologist Jay Belsky pinpointed why it is a mistake to turn a blind eye to bad behaviour in children. To hope it's just a passing phase. To think they'll automatically become more responsible when they grow up.
... One of its most astounding findings is that the risk of children growing up to be aggressive troublemakers with damaged lives can be predicted by a 90-minute observation... At three, each was observed completing a series of tasks. Some were inhibited, some confident, some well adjusted, some reserved. Ten per cent of the children were described as "undercontrolled". They were irritable, distracted, impulsive and had problems concentrating.
By 18, most did not resemble their three-year-old selves. The exceptions were the inhibited children, who tended to be shy with few friends, and the undercontrolled group, who sought out conflict and excitement. They were combative, aggressive and freely admitted they were ready to hurt and frighten others for advantage. They were quick to lose their tempers if a friend disappointed them or if they lost a game.
... By 26, half the boys in this group were persistent offenders, responsible for most of the crime in their areas... So how do we change behaviour?
... Peter Gluckman, a former paediatrician and who now runs a think tank, has been wrestling with this issue for decades.
Whether children have resilience and self-control is a combination of biology and environment. Much is set before birth, with children born to stressed mothers, often, but not exclusively, poor ones, having markedly different brains by the age of two to four. The patterns of a child's responses are established in the first 1,000 to 2,000 days of life...
(Jenni Russell, The Times, 2020)
There are many issues raised by this article. How can it be that the two children at the primary school were not excluded or expelled for their persistent extreme behaviour? It beggars belief that, apparently, no sanctions were brought against them. Once parents have been brought into the school and made aware of their children's behaviour the outcome is usually clear. Either with parental support the behaviour of the child is changed or the disciplinary stakes are taken further and the child is suspended. If further acts of bad behaviour continue then the child should be expelled. In my view, the "nice, well meaning women" were not acting very professionally in their capacity as teachers.
As for the research. I would have thought it fairly obvious that "undercontrolled" children at three might well grow into troubled and aggressive adults.
"Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man."
The Royals
The second most expensive was Prince Charles's last minute £210,345 chartered flight to Oman to pay condolences on the death of Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said.
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| The Bone of Contention George Armfield (1810-1893) Photo Credit: York Museums Trust [Public Domain] |
Prince Andrew, once known as "Air Miles Andy", eschewed scheduled flights to take a £16,000 charter to attend the Open golf championship in Portrush, Northern Ireland... A source said the prince had attended as the golf club's patron and a charter flight was "the only way to get him to complete his engagements".
The royal train, mile-for-mile the most expensive form of transport, made only three outings in 2019-20, two of them for Charles, who ran up a £20,822 bill for a return journey from Kemble, near his Gloucestershire home, to Carlisle. A senior aide said it provided an "effective and efficient" mode of transport, and reduced security costs for engagements.
... The Queen will receive £86.3m from the taxpayer funded sovereign grant next year for both official duties and palace refurbishment. Though Crown Estate profits are expected to be lower, she will receive the same in 2022-23, as under the 2012 funding formula, the amount can never go down.
(Caroline Davies, The Guardian, 2020)
And on it goes.
*The Dutch government has bowed to "populist" demands and ordered a review of the annual cost of more than €45 million of the royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau.
... There has been particular controversy over the decision to pay Princess Catharina-Amalia, heir to the throne, €1,6 million including a € 300,000 salary when she turns 18 next April.
"That is a generous study grant," said a Labour MP, Attje Kuiken.
... Mr Rutte (Prime Minister) justified the payments to the crown princess as appropriate because as future queen she needed to develop financial independence...
*How much do royal families cost?
Sweden: €6.3m Spain: €7.8 Denmark: €11.0 Belgium: €11.8 Norway €26.4
Netherlands: €40.1 Great Britain: €84.6
(Bruno Waterfield, The Times, 2020)
Harold Evans
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| Truth Plucking Out the Tongue of Falsehood Alfred George Stevens (1817-1875) |
... His time in the editor's chair (The Sunday Times) was not driven by his views, but by an endless hunger to find things out. Reporting came first and last - "peeling the onion," he called it. What was the one immutable rule of journalism, I asked him in 2010?
"Things are not what they seem on the surface. Dig deeper, dig deeper, dig deeper."
"Just find out what the bloody facts are," he raged in an interview for this newspaper. He knew the importance of facts to a functioning society long before we descended into information chaos, with a majority now saying they don't know what's true and what isn't.
... He became expert in law and a tenacious litigant - seeing off numerous attempts to injunct, sue, punish or otherwise gag the paper.
(Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian, 2020)
Berlin Sensitivity
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| Berlin Street Scene Lesser Ury (1861-1931) Photo Credit: Ben Uri Collection [CC BY-NC-ND] |
Berlin's centre-left city government has issued its staff with guidelines on the use of "diversity-sensitive" language in a move criticised by opponents as a dangerous move towards a "nanny state".
The 44-page booklet compiled by the regional department says that "foreigners" should now be referred to as " inhabitants without German citizenship", and that "illegal immigrants" are now "undocumented migrants".
"People with a migrant background" should now be referred to as "people with an international history", the booklet adds, while the widely used German terms for fare-dodging on public transport, "schwarz fahren" (literally "riding black" is also vereboton.
Asylum seekers are to be called "people requiring protection" or "protected persons".
If an individual changes their gender officials should no longer describe that as a "gender change" but instead as a "gender alignment".
... Unilever's subsidiary Knorr said last month that it would rename its popular Zigeuner, or gypsy sauce as Hungarian-style paprika sauce after complaints that the name was offensive...
(David Crossland, The Times, 2020)
Some of our own:
Homeless - Outdoor Urban Dwellers Insane - Reality Challenged
Prostitute - Sex Worker Dishonest - Ethically disorientated
Fat - Metabolic underachiever Tramp - Homeless Person
Preferential treatment - Affirmative action Promiscuous - Sex addict
Blackboard - Chalkboard Lies - Alternative facts
Dustman - Sanitation engineer Smelly - Nasally disturbing
No Carping
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| Carp Henry Thomson (1773-1843) Photo Credit: Tabley House Collection [CC BY-NC] |
Patrick Kidd gave us a Latin lesson in the Diary on Thursday, which he is eminently qualified to do. I feel I should, nonetheless, reassure puzzled readers who thought he was having a senior moment when he translated carpe diem as "fish of the day". As jokes go, it was a classic.
There are strange communities online where people meet to share Latin jokes. In case you don't believe me, here's one I found on Reddit.
"A Roman walks into a bar, holds up two fingers and says, 'Five beers please'."
(Rose Wild, The Times, 2020)
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