40 thoughts on “Manners

  1. Janet, I ate my avatar

    we all know how they respected vulnerable children in their care,
    why doesn’t Mary ?

    1. Rob_G

      Indeed – she was no longer young she was after (or before) Róisín Ingle in the Independent magazine, and that’s 20 years’ ago.

    1. Rosette of Sirius

      Fists, elbows, knees, boots and the slap of a hurl to the back of one 11 year old in my school. Put the poor kid in hospital. A traveler kid too. We all witnessed the retribution in the schoolyard the next day. The Brother in question was beaten and slashed by the kids father. He was out for 6 months but back he came with no adjustment to his behaviour. I moved schools not long after. Manners indeed.

    2. Spaghetti Hoop

      Indeed. I assume the Sisters are included in this analysis? They were violent fuppers. Their method of teaching ‘manners’ was brutal and dehumanising and they eroded any self-confidence the pupil had. I was taught (at home) to be respectful and discreet, but to stand up for myself and politely voice my opinions, question others and engage with people as an equal. Any girl who did that, like myself – so-called ‘answering back’ in the convent halls – got a savage beating, and/or ‘booked’ on the short path to suspension. I’m glad I learned my manners at home, in my neighbourhood and through self-study and not via those black-veiled demonist witches. Happy Halloween!

      1. Shayna

        Yikes! I was born in a convent in Stillorgan, the first gape of life was of a nun, my great aunt, Sister Bonaventure (nuns take an allocated name – she was Auntie Liz).

  2. Ben Redmond

    Good Manners are a good thing to teach regardless of who teaches/or who has taught them. If we reject civilized standards of behaviour because of hypocrisy by previous upholders of same, we are heading for a new civilization of barbarity.

    1. Janet, I ate my avatar

      obviously manners should be taught, but to suggest it was the glory days using the CB method is at best delusional but actually just insulting to those affected by the “manners” put on them under the CB “care”

      1. Clampers Outside

        I don’t see her suggesting there were glory days, only that manners were taught.

        And while we’re in the anecdotal train, I know of way, way more who enjoyed their CB school days than did not.

        1. Janet, I ate my avatar

          why bring them into it, you could suggest previous generations had stricter upbringing, more emphasis on manners without dragging that shower into it

          1. Janet, I ate my avatar

            it’s a parents place to put manners on kids, not teachers,
            they should arrive behaved and able to be taught

  3. Bertie Theodore Alphege Blenkinsop

    I went to a Christian Brothers school and they were all grand, never saw anyone hit or abused… One of the lucky ones obviously.

      1. Brother Barnabas

        for balance, I’ll say that I found it dour and miserable – and most of them were utter ladyparts (but can recall one very decent one). I wasn’t sexually abused but was regularly hit – in fairness to them, you could hit them back

        but have friends who had very different experience in same school (which, incidentally, I suspect was also bodger’s old school)

  4. Ben Redmond

    @Janet above: You assert that “it’s a parents place to put manners on kids, not teachers,
    they should arrive behaved and able to be taught.”
    Unfortunately dysfunctional parents are not putting manners on their kids. They use television as a babysitter; they are abusing alcohol and sometimes drugs in front of the kids; they are neglecting to dress the kids properly for school. So the kids are learning the wrong manners from all this bad model of parenthood. If teachers are “in loco parentis”, the traditional way of looking at teachers, then the teachers’ first unwelcome task today is to try and replace some kids’ bad manners with civilized manners. After that knowledge, wisdom, reasoning, imagination and arithmetic may be successfully taught. I wish teachers today could give errant parents a good telling off, but a punch on the nose and choice swear words might often be an instant response.

  5. Janet, I ate my avatar

    kids in France need to be clean/ toilet trained to start school or they are sent home,
    no basic manners, sent home,
    no manners, no school, problem solved,
    if errant parents are responsablised in this way you’d find them behaving enough to not be under the parents feet sharp enough

        1. Janet, I ate my avatar

          you let them live in their merde and put up with their kids instead of expecting others to do the job for them

        2. Janet, I ate my avatar

          you legally have to send your kids to school so if they are constantly sent in a neglected state or disturbing class because of issues at home, social welfare will step in and ask why

  6. ReproBertie

    The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any – Fred Astaire.

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