Page 5999 - Week 18 - Thursday, 12 December 1991
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the stress under which many teachers work and applaud them for their dedication to the task. While I have sympathy for the parents, I feel that the problem may be due to the fact that parenting skills are not taught in schools. When we ask, "When should parenting skills be taught?" we are told, "At the family planning stage". I believe that they should be taught in schools.
I firmly believe that there are no bad children born. There are children born with problems, but they are not bad. But there are inadequate and hopeless parents, in many cases. When a psychiatrist was asked why people ended up in asylums, he said: "The trouble is the schools. They teach too much geometry, physiology and science; not one of the subjects you need to get into a madhouse". He said, "What they should be teaching is how to get a good discount". Maybe he was Scottish.
The fact is that both parents today choose to work because they wish to have every moving gadget in their homes. This I find incredible. My parents waited until they could afford to buy things and they bought them as they were needed. We were a long time before we had a record player. I remember that my mother paid off the piano that we learnt to play on at two shillings and sixpence a week. We were very grateful when it was paid for. The fact that parents believe that they should have all these things is a cause of a lot of the problem. Of course, there are the single parents who have to work, and we need to be giving assistance to these areas in order to maintain a stable home for the children.
Mr Speaker, unfortunately, teachers are expected not only to teach but to be childminders, mother, father, and family to their students. This is far too great a burden to place on teachers. I look forward to this report being widely discussed in the community and serving as a springboard for further work. I am very aware that the report is extremely wide ranging in its recommendations. In fact, you could almost call it a Christmas wish list. However, if we do not look after our children now, and take from the report the most urgent and important recommendations, we are going to have a very sad and sorry future generation.
Finally, Mr Speaker, I wish to express my appreciation to the hardworking committee secretary, Judith Henderson, and to her research and administration team, without whose patience - and I emphasise patience - and expert guidance this committee would not have functioned. Mr Speaker, one of the things that Mrs Nolan made a comment about was private schools. We did not really get any - - -
Mrs Nolan: I never mentioned the words "private schools".
MRS GRASSBY: No, but you did in the committee. We did not really get very much work from private schools. I went to a private school; I spent 10 years at a boarding school. It was a school that was on television just recently in Brides of Christ - Santa Sabina. I can tell you right now that
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