Are we too cynical?

[cfmonk]

Hi all,

 

Just having a read through posts here and thinking back to my school days.

 

Whenever a younger person claims to be "in charge" or have "decision making powers" they get slapped down and told don't be silly, of course you don't. But I'm thinking back to when I was at school and I'm pretty sure I did!

 

When we organised an open air production of Aladdin, we dealt with all the licencing, ordered all the gear we needed from Stage Electrics / the local hardware shop etc. with the only thing the school doing was send a cheque after I submitted the invoices to them.

 

I also organised termly live music events and I genuinely was the point of contact for the hire companies. I would contact them, we would chat about what the budget was (depending on profit from previous gig amongst a few other things), what the theme was, what we wanted this time around, they would send me a spec and I would approve it or adjust it as necessary.

 

We also pootled up into the lighting rig regularly using ladders etc. (although NEVER the Tallescope). Plugged in big power (I can honestly say I've been plugging in 63A distros since I was 14 although it was checked by somebody competent afterwards), used power tools wherever we needed them etc. etc.

 

I left school in 2004 @ age 18. Was my school a complete anomaly? I should admit it was one that you paid for but does that make that much difference?

 

Thoughts?

 

Chris

[adam2]

I think that your experience was not typical.

This may well be an advantage of a fee paying school, that within reason has to do what those paying for it want.

It is not just a case of more money to spend on equipment etc, but also probably better trained teachers and other staff who are capable of actually assesing risks and deciding what is reasonable, rather than simply no to everything.

[Bobbsy]

I'm too far beyond school to give my own personal examples but I can speak about my older children (both in their mid/late 20s now).

 

They both studied drama and were also involved in the "Technical Club" which had semi-official link with all the courses because they were expected to do all things technical for every show, course related or not.

 

The Head of Drama handed out technical titles like mad. They had a Head of Sound, Head of Lighing, Production Manager, Stage Mananager, assistants for every "Head" and a bunch of other titles I can't remember. As I mentioned, they were expected to work on every production in the school theatre whether it was part of the curriculum or extra curricular. More controversially, the school also rented the theatre for outside hires and the student technicians were expected to crew those as required too. Sometimes this meant just providing local knowledge to a visiting crew; other times it meant operating the show. Despite the school earning hundreds of pounds a night, these were unpaid and usually meant the students being out of pocket for transportation, food and sometimes even consumables.

 

The student department heads all had full autonomy which made for a real bunfight when lighting, sound and set construction all needed the ladder or something. There was a rule that only students over 18 (and there were always some since the school went up to A Level) but this was honoured more in the breach and became interpreted as "so long as n 18 year old is watching". In a single week I heard of the Head of Drama throwing a fit when she saw 14 year olds up the scaff tower aiming lights--then throwing a bigger fit when the 14 year olds weren't up the scaff tower lighting her show.

 

As with working at height, the student Department Heads were left to their own devices almost totally--until the Head of Drama didn't like what was being done. Then they were fired. Then, when it looked like there would be no lighting or sound, they were re "hired".

 

In short, if there's confusion about the role of students, don't blame the students. I can't judge every school by the one my kids went to but I at least give them the benefit of the doubt. Teaching/supervision for the technical side of school productions is a joke.

[Boggy]

In a single week I heard of the Head of Drama throwing a fit when she saw 14 year olds up the scaff tower aiming lights--then throwing a bigger fit when the 14 year olds weren't up the scaff tower lighting her show.

 

Sounds like perfect training for a job in theatre.

[kerry davies]

Hmmm???

 

You have to be 18 to apply for a TEN. So either the LA was somewhat daft (quelle surprise, not!) or someone co-signed any licensing paperwork.

 

Insurers tend to get all pedantic so I would assume that again, a teacher was nominally the insured party.

 

As for hiring that is up to the relationship between the hire company and the school. Standard practice is for 18 to be the minimum age under T's and C's though schools with accounts might well have specific terms for student hires.

 

Teachers do not get any training in "industrial practice" and 99% have never done any HASAWA based training like WaH, power supply, Risk Assessment etc and shouldn't be messing about with things themselves. They make it up as they go along, not even knowing about insurance or the law, hence the multiplicity of different approaches.

 

Parents are convinced their own kids are more precious than others and need special treatment which pressurises teachers to wrap everyone in cotton-wool.

 

I don't think it is cynicism more a mixture of ignorance and stupidity, which does seem to be becoming far more available in the UK these days.

Just look at the product of our finest educational establishments in the House of Commons and you know we are finished. It's all been downhill since 1979 and that is realism not cynicism.

[Jivemaster]

Hi all,

...Was my school a complete anomaly? I should admit it was one that you paid for but does that make that much difference?

 

Thoughts?

 

Chris

 

Personally I think there is your answer! Most modern state schools "teach to pass the exam" with as little risk as possible. Even better with no risk at all! Private schools can still teach to develop the child. Also state educated children will have lower expectations and aspirations than children educated in the fee paying system.

[the kid]

I think I did everything on that list from about 14 ish. We never had "departments" though but it more more who wanted to do what. complete with hot switching mid show (re patching the 36 channels from the 48 plugs). Looking back I think the teacher who worked with us really really did trust us, and I think that trust has been lost, for various reasons, insurance being one.

[rossmck]

I left school in 2004 @ age 18. Was my school a complete anomaly? I should admit it was one that you paid for but does that make that much difference?

 

I don't think so ... I do wonder if it's changed a bit though. I have some similar experience ( we even had a tallescope that was routinely pushed around with me, or other pupils, on top of it - usually without any 'official' supervision ) and again pupils were responsible for dealing with hire companies, and making sure budgets where adhered to. There was also a well organised structure with pupils filling the roles of Stage Manager, DSM, Lighting Design, Lighting Operator etc which (more than most schools) compares reasonably to these roles in the real world, they even had a small office space.

 

Returning to the same school 10 years later, a lot has changed, the old 'crew' is gone - nothing's done unsupervised (possibly a good thing ;)) - pupils don't use access equipment, or repatch the dimmers, or hire kit, or do much.. It's quite unfortunate as I know a few people from that school that have gone on to have quite successful professional theatre careers, not sure the current generation of stage crew would be quite as enthusiastic about it.

 

I've also found myself working in other schools, as an external contractor, being paid to undertake work that previously would have been done by the pupils themselves... I'm not complaining about being paid to do stuff by any means, but I can't help but think it would be better if they involved pupils more. Conversely I've been lucky enough to be able to work with some of the more enthusiastic ones, letting them take the lead on things like design and operating stuff and just being the 'bloke who's insured to go up a ladder and knows how to focus a light' ...

 

( Reading the above to myself really makes me feel old now :( )

 

E2A - P.S. Don't get me started on these Public Private Partnership schools, and the 'facilities management staff' (janitors) who aren't allowed do anything (change a lightbulb? no, call an electrician ... fix a leak, no - put a sign next to it, call someone to assess the leak, who will then say "yes, it's a leak" and call a plumber. With the STAFF trapped in red tape like this, what chance do the pupils have any more :( </rant, sorry>

[paulears]

I've visited hundreds of schools and colleges over the past five years or so, and there is a huge difference in who does what and the level of performance and responsibility.

 

It's quite clear to me that age has no real link to responsibility - call it maturity if you like. So in some schools there could be a really useful 14 year old who is quite safe up a scaff tower, climbing a ladder or fitting mains plugs. Very often this person also has no interest whatsoever in performing - so acting, singing and dancing are areas where academic or vocational success will be limited. These are the people that the GCSE and A Level 'technical' options we hear so much about are designed for. If you take an NQT - possibly 22 years old, perhaps female, with a uni history of dance or maybe drama, who when doing their A Levels/BTEC 4 years previously spent all their time doing the acting/singing/dancing, then having this very handy 14 year old is a godsend. Equally, an older teacher may possibly be totally lost with technology - I worked with a PhD who could just about use word, after doing a 'computer' course in the evenings for a year! This person, faced with technology being needed to play videos, listen to music and worse - put on a show will also find the 14 year old indispensable. To the student, who genuinely does have amazing scope, they have 'power' and are in charge of everything technical. However, behind the scenes in both private and public schools and colleges, the system prevents the student really having the power. So to the student - they draw up a plan, produce the shopping lists, find suppliers, and the kit arrives. However, the powers that be make somebody - usually the budget holder who has to sign purchase orders - submit these plans to the 'system' where lots of people scrutinise them - the student's name gets replaced with the budget holder's, the documents are re-written to house format, official tenders or enquiries get sent out, the results approved by others, and eventually perhaps even 'star chambered'. A nasty way of doing budgets - the budget holders sit around a table with their bids, often double or triple the available funding, and then they battle it out for their own department, using added value to the institution and students to justify their bid. So the new lights go up against a computer controlled lathe, or a photographic darkroom for the foundation degree course. All of this is invisible to the student - and sometimes even the teacher!

 

The safety aspect nowadays almost always depends on the skills, knowledge and ability of the 'Health and Safety Officer'. Somebody with an off-shore oil industry background is very competent at risk analysis, and the students and staff are usually allowed to do our kind of work, with simple precautions and sensible systems in place. The other end of the ability scale is where the HSO is the elderly librarian, who took the post on completing their 25 years service. They can read documents, but have no experience in interpreting the 'rules' in a valid manner. So expect a ban of everything, probably the teachers too!

 

A sensible teacher uses the skills and abilities of the kids to their own end. So if you have a reliable, technical bod - why do the work yourself, when you know they'll love doing it. It goes horribly wrong when they leave and there is no replacement. However - no matter what the titles and practical responsibility, the student has no real, or legal responsibility - that lays firmly with the person in charge. At 16, despite not yet being legally an adult, there is an expectation of being responsible for their actions - but the exact degree is for the people with wigs, when something goes wrong.

 

Even when I think back to my own history - the fact is that I did do some things that were, with contemporary knowledge, dangerous. If I'd been electrocuted, or suffered broken bones from falling of the scaff tower I'd got up on two wheels by overbalancing - then somebody would have been responsible for me. Back then we treated accidents differently - a few broken bones would be just accidents - and the blame seeking modern mentality would only come into play when serious injury and death took place. The odd trip to hospital, or burns, bruises and cuts were facts of life.

 

The only thing that really winds me up is where a teacher hands out titles but makes no link to responsibility or performance. It builds up egos that then get deflated when the people find out they count for little.

[adam2]

I work for a maintenance contractor, and have done the odd call out to schools and colleges for electrical faults.

Whilst I am pleased to claim any overtime payment for such works, the level of incompetance in some schools is astounding, paying perhaps hundreds of pounds for a call out to something that could be rectified in the past by a kid, and even these days should be within the abilities of an adult.

 

One was "to connect up a dimmer rack" I arrived expecting that some minor installation work was required.

In fact the hired dimmer equiped with a 32 amp 3 phase plug, simply needed plugging in to the adjacent matching socket !

 

Have also had call outs to "repair dimmers" that simply needed a handfull of new fuses.

[paulears]

I've often wondered if the teachers should do the BTEC and the kids assess their work!

[ramdram]

I would suggest that a proportion of "blame", if you will, is down to budgets. Not the budget for the kit per se, but the cost of insurance and the conditions attached to the cover...and the reasons behind that.

 

Above we read that in the the past there the few broken bones or daytrips to hospital. I suspect the pupil might have been roundly chastised at home for causing a fuss, such as falling off a ladder or some such. In those days the "Nation" held an "Authority Belief" thing in that those "above" had some divine power and could not be challenged.

 

Indeed recent history proves that a small proportion of the hitherto unchallenged still believed this arrant tosh...I refer to MP's expenses. Or the stretching of the nation's credulity when we read of some female member of the HoL who employed illegals..and yet got off with a token reprimand...

 

Nowadays we all know we have "rights", and we have a multitude of legal folk who will offer to sue anyone on whatever grounds they can find. We have all been "trained via TV" to sue anybody at the drop of a hat...how many ads did we watch exhorting us to pursue a claim even going back years? So desperate are these legal types to earn a crust that they operate on a "no win, no fee" basis. I don't suppose the hit rate has to be that high for obvious reasons..."justice" does not come cheap.

 

It may be that the insurers "woke up" to this and, not being a charity, spread the costs. We all see references to young, usually male, drivers who through being stoked on testosterone or booze or other substances or possibly all of them do the daftest things imaginable. Or possibly the mature person who is on perfectly legal prescription drugs do silly things whilst under the influence. In other words we all pay.

 

I would posit the insurance industry have one of the best takes on human behaviour going, (can we recall some of the redacted insurance claims..."the tree jumped out in front of me". Patently nonsense but somebody expected to be taken seriously. They know that they are being milked.

 

I submit that the insurance industry followed its own advice of doing everything it can to reduce its risks on personal liability underwriting and consequently issued so many caveats to cover that the actual chance of receiving a payment is very slim.

 

In other words blame "better education" on our rights, a willingness to sue, egged on by an over stocked legal profession (a great majority of whom aspire to be well off...if not filthy rich) in the sure knowledge that there are no financial penalties to the "alleged victim" if the claims fails in the courts, and if you did win then the insurers will cough up, not only your "winnings", but also the legal costs charged by the professionals (sometimes a great deal more that the the "quantum").

 

I don't think schools are all that guilty of the nanny thing...they probably have no choice.

[kerry davies]

I've often wondered if the teachers should do the BTEC and the kids assess their work!

 

There is the crux of it.

From Paul's earlier post he mentioned the teacher who had danced their way through education then being given responsibility for everything including technical work. This is never going to work. How can they be responsible for safety in a working environment when they have never even worked, let alone been given any knowledge of the law and safe practice?

 

It isn't the HoD's fault that he stored paint thinners under the stage at my old college, he was ignorant of just about everything to do with theatre except Shakespearean drama. If you expect someone who has spent up to 7 years studying Brecht to be responsible for the electrical safety of children and the public you are daft. Our education system is daft.

 

How can students be expected to understand that there is a right way and many wrong ones to do anything when the guy in charge has never been taught basic manual handling, let alone working up scaff towers? The blind leading the next generation of visually handicapped, I despair! (Rant over, teachers; your turn)

[Junior8]

I would suggest that a proportion of "blame", if you will, is down to budgets. Not the budget for the kit per se, but the cost of insurance and the conditions attached to the cover...and the reasons behind that.

 

In other words blame "better education" on our rights, a willingness to sue, egged on by an over stocked legal profession (a great majority of whom aspire to be well off...if not filthy rich) in the sure knowledge that there are no financial penalties to the "alleged victim" if the claims fails in the courts, and if you did win then the insurers will cough up, not only your "winnings", but also the legal costs charged by the professionals (sometimes a great deal more that the the "quantum").

 

I don't think schools are all that guilty of the nanny thing...they probably have no choice.

 

See my post on another thread for the reasons behind this. However I was talking just last Friday to some colleagues of around the same age and we concluded that the vast majority of teachers who taught us, and were senior staff when we started out in teaching, had all been through the war. This meant that they had both had tremendous responsibility and risk thrust on them at around age eighteen after leaving school mostly at sixteen. They had a different mindset to that today. I can think of several who'd think nothing of flattening a pupil with the serious threat that if they brought Dad round they'd do the same to them! Ex Japanese POWs and ex pilots were literally frightened of nothing or no-one. By the same token if you wanted to learn welding they'd let you... Neither were they daft though - if they dished out responsibility (and at my secondary school they did-usually to get off for a fag) they were pretty sure of who they were dishing it out to. The last example of this kind of teacher I came across was a head - now dead - who was also prone to sending very junior staff to very high powered meetings (that happened to bore him) with full powers to act on his behalf. I can't see that happening now either!

[paulears]

We also have the problem that there aren't enough teachers who know their stuff to go around. So many courses are now being taught by graduates with no work experience, it went school, college, uni back to school and college to teach what they were taught - not what the industry does. I'd had enough after ten years and spotted that the aim of a college was not education, but to grow, by generating income to put on more and more courses to generate even more income. The balloon has burst on performing and production arts, and the numbers of courses are dropping, swapping to engineering and construction. The arts have fell out of favour, so they're moving on. They didn't do performing arts because it was good, or even wanted - just because it was good business.