This should really go in todays news thread but until we have one I will put it here. I just had to share since I think it is the first time I have read a current article where someone is seriously quoting Michael on how to treat children.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2261679,00.html
Talkative students and bullets: the lecturer's woes
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Jonathan Wolff[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Tuesday March 4, 2008[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]The Guardian[/FONT]
Anyone else remember Michael Jackson's proposal that there should be a universal children's bill of rights? I have to admit that this sounds like the beginning of a rather off-colour joke, but all I'm doing is relating a tale from a slightly more innocent time. The idea was set out in a speech made to the Oxford Union in 2001. Uri Geller gave an introduction, and then the singer tearfully related the story of his own childhood, while also publicising his new charity Heal the Kids and explaining his idea for a type of children's charter.
The Oxford Union is often accused of vying with Paris Hilton in its obsessive attention-seeking, but in this case, surely, we are in its debt. Although ridiculed at the time, the content of the proposed bill of rights seems sensible enough; indeed very close to current government policy. Included are the "right to be loved without having to earn it" and, no doubt specially adapted for a UK audience, the "right to be read a bedtime story without having to compete with the evening news or EastEnders". But the one that stuck in my head was that children, said Jackson, should have "the right to be listened to without having to be interesting". Well ...
Soon after hearing about this idea, I made the mistake of reporting it to a fellow parent at the school gate. I hadn't thought it through. We then had to suffer the apparently limitless random babblings of her three-year-old, while we played a game of chicken: who was going to be first to say that, like most rights, this one has its limits? Luckily we were saved by the bell. Since then, I have kept Jackson's wisdom to myself whenever there are children around.
But what should we make of the right to prattle on? As a child, Lord Macaulay clearly took a different view. Supposedly, he kept completely schtum until the age of four, saying nothing until one day, on being accidentally scalded with hot coffee and comforted by a guest, responded: "Thank you madam; the agony is somewhat abated." But, one has to admit, Jackson is to be preferred to Macaulay, on this issue at least.
If children have the right to be listened to, who has the duty to do the listening? Presumably parents and teachers. But does there come a point in one's life where the right lapses, and perhaps another point, towards the end, when it fades back in again? From an educational point of view, though, there is a dilemma for any seminar leader. How do you strike the balance between respecting - indeed encouraging - everyone's right to contribute, and ensuring that the seminar achieves its educational goals?
Many student evaluation questionnaires ask whether the teacher allowed the right amount of discussion. There is often more variation in answers to this than on any other question, and for an obvious reason. If the teacher allows students to talk even without being interesting, few others will approve for long. Of course, many seminar groups have an ideal student or two, making all the right points. But equally there will be the student who always comes to the wrong end of the stick - slowly. Your job, naturally, is to try to nudge such a student into following the rule: "be brief and to the point". But the success rate in this respect will be patchy, and there will be those who are incapable of reform. Over a term-long course a "three strikes and you're out" is about the limit of co-student tolerance.
As Tolstoy might have said, while students can talk too little only in one way, they can talk too much in a number of different ways. They can make irrelevant points. They can think that their unique life experience is going to illuminate every issue. They can be very slow to get to the point. And worst of all, they can be abusive of other students. But as a colleague pointed out: what a wonderful job it is when one of the worst problems you have to face is dealing with a student who talks too much. Especially when put in the context of Jackson's sixth right: the right to an education without having to dodge bullets at school.
· Professor Jonathan Wolff is head of philosophy at University College London. His column appears monthly
