APROPOS recent discussions about punishing children (Letters, October 24 & 25), the other day my PE teacher son had a "restorative conversation" with a Primary 2 pupil. It went along the following lines:
“Did you hit that other boy with a beanbag?” “Yes, that wasn’t very good of me, was it?”
“Why did you hit him?” “I just felt like it.”
“How do you think he felt?” “It was really bad of me. I won’t do it again.”
Ten minutes later, another "restorative conversation" with the same child.
“Did you hit that boy with a beanbag again?” “Yes, that was really bad of me ...”
Wonderful what these new school discipline approaches can achieve.
KB Scott,
11 Randolph Court, Stirling.
I WRITE in full-throated support of your correspondent Rosemary Burinski and her call to ban fictional children’s characters who set a bad example (Letters, October 25).
Who amongst us can forget the regular orgies of gluttony and racism inspired by Billy Bunter throughout the 1910s? The world has barely recovered from the catapult-based tyranny ushered in by Dennis the Menace in 1951. And it is not for nothing that we never write out in full the dread name of M*nnie the M*nx.
So there we have it: all the ills of the world can be cured by banning cartoons.
Colin Edgar,
62 Gartmore Road, Paisley.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here