Michael Rosen
Isolation Words by Michael Rosen Illustration by Dan Berry
More than 200 children spent five consecutive days in an isolation booth in English schools, the BBC reported.
When our society creates areas where there is little hope, we ask for schools and teachers to get on and cope. When society spends less on providing education, we ask schools and teachers to make good the situation. Then the word comes down to every school and college that the time has come to deliver more knowledge. This has to be restricted to the kind you can measure, which means much more testing and much more pressure. There are students who crack in this dire situation. But a solution’s been found: put these folk in isolation. So the ills of society that have been brewing for years we solve by putting youngsters alone with their fears. We’re following the path we follow again and again: we get hold of the victims and make them take the blame.
educate Your magazine from the National Education Union (NEU)
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