Political Correctness Ruins Lives?

[Don]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/su

bbc said:

Girls expelled for underwear film Two girls, aged 12, are expelled from the Royal Hospital School Two 12-year-old girls have been expelled from a boarding school after a home-made film of them posing in their underwear was shown to fellow pupils. Four other pupils at the Royal Hospital School in Holbrook, Suffolk, have been suspended for a week. Staff who found the short video film immediately disciplined six students but none of them has been identified. Head teacher Howard Blackett said the six pupils had been interviewed with their parents and action taken. The Royal Hospital is a mixed independent boarding school with 631 students aged 11 to 18. Parents interviewed In a statement the head teacher said: "Shortly after half term, it was brought to my attention that two girls in year 8, both 12 years old, had made a home-made film of themselves using a small hand held video camera. "They were posing in their underwear and the film had been shown to a small number of other pupils in the school. "The matter was fully investigated by the deputy headmaster and the senior mistress. "I interviewed all the pupils concerned with their parents. "The upshot of the investigation and my interview was that four pupils were suspended from the Royal Hospital School for one week and the two girls concerned have been expelled."

OK. We don't have the full facts. But it would appear that for a bit of childish messing about two lasses have got expelled from school and will now have to go to another school given their parents can find somewhere! I'm quite sure if phone-cams and the like had existed in my day we'd all have been filming one another at the most inappropriate moments for a laugh...

Do you think the Head felt forced into it in case some allegation of "Child Porn" or similar got made at the school?

Kids mess about. Surely the powers that be know the difference? Why (potentially) ruin two young lives when they simply could have taken the video camera off them, sent them home for a week and told them if they did it again they were out. Surely that would have done? Sad. And indicative of a climate of fear...

[Bodo]

Unfortunately, the article doesn't say why it is a problem wearing underwear in a film.

[Don]

Bodo said:

Unfortunately, the article doesn't say why it is a problem wearing underwear in a film.

Its a fairly ambiguous piece of journalism - which is why it begs the question - was what the lasses were up to so bad it deserved being expelled.

Maybe. Maybe not.

I thought, though, that it begged the question: Does our current almost hysteric cultural climate - filled with stories of vile deeds perpetrated against children (genuine ones, sadly) - create an environment in which fairly innocent actions done by the children themselves, that in past times they would have recieved a minor repremand for, demand backside-covering (sorry) action by institutions and professionals to the detriment of the kids themselves.

I think it does.

[Twelve_75]

I see your point L.A. but in this world today if you break wind out of key you get shot down by some PC legislation governing absolutely everything we do.

It annoys me how PC some people try to be so others pervay them as being correct members of society.

I do firmly beleive that if no action is taken against it then in ten or twenty years time we're going to end up like america where if you break someones window and cut your hand on it, the're liable.

What these girls did was, at the end of the day, a way to get attension from the members of the opposite sex. I don't agree with what they did entirely but, still being young (17) I can partially understand their motives.

Another aspect which you could look at could be that this was the first type of this incident discovered at this certain institution, so they made an example of the partakers so it wouldn't happen again.

Rant over, today is such a sunny day

>> Edited by Twelve_75 on Sunday 5th March 09:36

[hugoagogo]

i don't see the evil "PC" demon here at all, i thought that was about not calling a spade a spade etc

we don't know anything about this film or what led up to the expulsion at all, and 'ruins lives' is a bit rich

>> Edited by hugoagogo on Sunday 5th March 09:39

[hugoagogo]

los angeles said:

You button your lip, Honkey!

just aimed my irony at the right height

[D_Mike]

I just wanted to be the first to post

said:

Its polictical correctness gone mad!

>> Edited by D_Mike on Sunday 5th March 10:27

[Don]

hugoagogo said:

i don't see the evil "PC" demon here at all, i thought that was about not calling a spade a spade etc we don't know anything about this film or what led up to the expulsion at all, and 'ruins lives' is a bit rich

Maybe "Ruins Lives" is going too far. These lasses are young enough that it shouldn't affect their GCSE's if they get into another school in short order. But anything that disrupts educations is usually a problem.

You are right in saying we do not know enough about their home movie. Its just that I find it hard to believe that at age twelve it was much more than childish silliness - maybe it was worse - I can't know.

I just wonder if the distiniction between "childish silliness" and "worse" is being made harder for Headteachers because of our all-too-PC environment...and therefore because of that environment these young lives are having their education disrupted when, in the past, they would have just got a telling off.

Not enough information to draw a conclusion. But its a worry...

[john75]

Sounds like the normal sort of thing you do at 12 to me.

I remember when I was that age messing about with girls in a barn.

It normal just part of growing up.

[Pigeon]

We used to get the girls to do handstands against the wall so their skirts would fall down and everyone could see their knickers. Should we all have been expelled?

[hugoagogo]

Pigeon said:

We used to get the girls to do handstands against the wall so their skirts would fall down and everyone could see their knickers. Should we all have been expelled?

to be fair, you should never have been a teacher in the first place )