A Scottish teachers’ union wants to bring about identity cards by the back door. It will help stamp out bullying, they seem to believe:
All secondary pupils in Scotland should be given ID cards in an effort to stamp out bullying, according to a teaching union.
The Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) says many schools already have card systems in place for school lunches and libraries.
It believes adding a picture would stop pupils missing meals because they have been bullied into handing over cards.
Once more we have the hard of thinking proposing a simple minded “solution” to what is, essentially, a human problem. Don’t get me wrong here; I abhor bullying. I suffered it as a child and as a consequence have no tolerance for it. I learned that the best way of dealing with bullies is to stand up to them and fight back if necessary. It is a lesson I carried effectively into adulthood. I am all for teachers seeking opportunities to stamp it out. However, identity cards are not the solution. They aren’t the solution to anything.
However, the Green Party described the proposal as “deeply troubling”.
Quite. Make the most of this; I agree with the green party. Put the flags out.
The SSTA’s general secretary, David Eaglesham, said the time had come for photographic identification to be added to the cards used to access school facilities.
As I recall from my schooldays, teachers knew all of the ragamuffins in their charge by sight – they didn’t need photocards to identify us. I suspect the same applies now. If it doesn’t, there is something “deeply troubling” here indeed.
SSTA members report frequently that young people are bullied into handing over their cards for school meals to others, thus leaving them without their meal entitlement.
With non-identified cards this will remain a problem. If photo ID is introduced widely, then the problem will dramatically reduce.
We used to write our names on the back of our tickets so that they were easily identified if lost. It was a simple and effective process. If teachers are able to recognise their charges by sight, they would also realise pretty quickly that one or more of them are using tickets that do not belong to them. It isn’t that difficult… or is it? Have we really reached a stage where teachers are so incapable of recognising the children in their care that they cannot tell when this type of bullying is going on and cannot recognise when someone is using a stolen ticket? Really?
Or is it more to do with this:
He said that introducing such a system would also help prepare young people for “the realities of identity management in the 21st Century”.
Ah, now, that strikes a note… David Eaglesham is the general secretary of a union. Unions support and fund the Labour party. Is it any surprise, therefore that the conditioning of young impressionable minds into subservience before the state is on his agenda? The right loathsome Tony Blair will be proud.
Green MSP Patrick Harvie has a better proposal:
“We should be preparing young people for the reality of defending their privacy and civil liberties against ever-more intrusive government systems,” he argued.
…
“These ID cards will do absolutely nothing to address the causes of bullying. Instead they will teach the next generation that an ID card culture is ‘normal’, and that they should have to prove their entitlement to services.”
Indeed.