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Who is Running This Country?

When I was a young lad - some time a couple of centuries ago - I was scared stiff of my teachers.

We all were and it wasn't just due to the fact they were usually non-drinking, hardline authoritarians, rather that they carried whacking great canes around with them and enjoyed giving you a damn good beating.

Now, that sort of corporal punishment has been banned in schools - more's the pity - and so the only real discipline is detention. Ooooooh, sounds frightening!

It is no wonder older kids today are so unruly and things do not get helped when the most teachers can do is keep them behind after school.

In my day it was: "keep quiet, do as I say not as I do - or you'll get a cuff behind the ear!"

Today it's: "Johnny, would you kindly stop selling ecstasy or you'll be in trouble."

But while teachers have lost power over the terrors, they seem to have gained power over adults and there is a move to ban the Governor-General from visiting schools. The reason is Peter Hollingworth's Pontius Pilate-style leadership over child abuse. The chalk wavers reckon his attitudes are not conducive with the goals and values of public education.

Now, I may be wrong here, but schools are for learning and so all sides or politics and issues should be presented to students so they can make their own minds up.

Banning a controversial figure ends a student's right to know about important matters and smacks of we-don't-agree-so-we-won't-allow-debate. It is an unofficial form of censorship of the most dangerous kind.

Hollingworth appears to have been slack as chief white-collar wearer when he should have been putting the boots into peds and sex abusers, but I like to think his attitude has been markedly changed over recent weeks.

If teachers, as adults, don't like the Governor-General that's up to them, however, teachers, as teachers, have no right to ban him. Question or debate him at school, point out he is wrong, protest if needs be, but he should at least be allowed to visit.

If there is something that has really got up your nose, let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com