Armed Forces, Teenagers and Educational Establishments

For those who frequent the TA boards here, you'll know that I've been planning on joining the Terries recently. Unfortunately a rugby injury has put paid to that for at least six months, however the issue of me joining did raise some interesting issues at my sixth form.

Firstly, and probably most obviously, we have the students. When I announced I was going to join (I didn't stand on a table and bellow, word just spread), I had two forms of response. The first was a heartwarming 'good on you' from most of my friends, and it has to be said, the vast majority were male.
And then secondly, I had scathing abuse and attacks, mainly by girls. These included such things as "Oh so you're going to be a soldier. Have fun dying" and "You're going to go and murder little Iraqi children?" (I didn't bother pointing out the inaccuracy of the geography of this, it was too much effort). These comments are ongoing, and I think expose something about my generation, especially the women. I'm not saying that all 16/17 year old girls are squaddie-hating cows, but the trend seems to prevail around where I am.
It's also driving girls away from me who may have been interested in me beforehand. This is ever so irksome.

Secondly, and probably more concerning, were the teachers. As far as I'm aware, teachers are meant to nurture and educate you, bring out the best etc. It seems that's not the case if you want to be a squaddie. When it became known amongst the teachers that I was to join the ranks of Her Majesty's finest, I noticed a marked change in the attitude of teachers towards me. It's not like I'm a bad student, I'm predicted good AS and A2 grades, and am pretty certain I'll be heading off to Uni afterwards, and on to RMAS.
I behave, I get work in on time, and generally get good grades in my reports. However, teachers now seem to have less time for me, and what help I do get is curt and dismissive. It's almost as if they have 'given up on me'. And this wasn't going on before I said I'd be joining. The worst is my flaming feminist socialist Politics teacher who holds the belief that all soldiers do is drink, fight and generally take up taxpayer's money that could go to poor economic migrants or be plowed into another QUANGO, but then again you get them everywhere.

It's a sorry state of affairs, because my experience has been noted by others, and now the two or three other prospective soldiers in my college are keeping it under their hats, lest they suffer the same fate as I. Kinda makes me sad that people can no longer be proud to wish to be a soldier.

Rant over

P.S. A point to note would be that not a single teacher contributed to my charity head-shaving for Help for Heroes, and indeed some have leveled snarky remarks along the lines of "you look like a real soldier now" at me.

 

typical really they dont seem to remember that if it was not for soldiers these liberal f***kers would still be in the dark ages, there would be no schools,no religious freedom, no vote, all these things were won by soldiers not wonking tree huggers

 

Agreed, take no notice and do it.

 

Oh, don't get me wrong, I've wanted to be a soldier since I was 5 years old, the opinions of some people I'm not going to know in two years are hardly going to stop me.

 

Interesting.

At both of my last schools in the UK (as a teacher) I was genuinely interested when students expressed a desire to join the forces. In the interest of impartiality I tried not to change my treatment of them, nor to actively encourage them as to do so would be unwise professionally (there are positives and negatives to any career - I always made this clear if students discussed their plans with me) as a teacher is there to try and give unbiased advice and provide the best education to that student whatever their background/future etc.

A couple of times within a staffroom I met anti-forces individuals, but no more than in other workplaces I've been in.

For the original poster - is there any chance they are actually either making conversation, or encouraging you with their remarks which you deem to be "snarky"? With what you have said they are saying to you it could swing either way. However, I will not deny that there are teachers who are very anti-forces, unfortunately the NUT has a highly militant minority who hate everything the armed forces stand for.

If you're genuinely concerned/angry/upset/whatever there should be a pastoral figure you can go speak to - a head of house, head of 6th form, deputy head, head or someone who you can voice your concerns to.

 

Nowt as queer as civvies, white feathers one day poison comments the next. Damned if you do damned if you don't.

 

Read up on George Orwell, Kipling, Shakespear, and some of the soldier poets and just keep quoting it at them ad nausium, and keep on about all the good things that have come out of war, Nurses,Radar, nuclear power,blood transfusions,airliners,microwave cookers,Space travel,navigation,Maps,ect the UK would just be a small island off the coast of Europe in the same shite as when the Romens f***ed off. with the Roman Catholic Church running the show with a population made up of serfs, and all these gobshite women would just be the property of their father's and husbands, not a bad idea IMHO

 

I went through 6th form as a STAB, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, my school work definitely suffered. I ended up missing my grades for uni, but luckily managed to talk my way in still (the person on the other end of the phone had obviously never met me!). While I, like yourself, never shouted it from the rooftops, it was common knowledge and I too got the range of reactions. I'd recommend thinking long and hard about whether it's something you really want to do, but make sure your A levels don't suffer as a result.
My unit was fairly understanding about the situation (sorry sir, can't make that weekend - revision) and my school less so, but I enjoyed it.

Simply put: The pros (among others) were having a job that wasn't working in Maccy D's or in the local sainsburys, that I was proud of and that made me a more mature and productive person, getting valuable experience for the future and having a cracking social life. The cons were having to go back to school after a weekend of no sleep and consequently writing off most mondays, catching shit from my head of year who resented my infrequent days off and general attitude, losing valuable revision/coursework time and consequently cocking up my A levels, and being called 'Hitler' by my politics teacher.

If you're focussed enough to balance both, and do well at both, then go for it. It will open your eyes to some of the bullshit that occurs in education, as well as giving you a new family of mates and training for life. As Remembrance time rolled round one year, I was disgusted to see a letter from the RBL on the noticeboard, thanking the 6th form (approx 250 students and staff) for their kind contribution of £3 something the previous year, so enlisting the help of another Arrser, I put together a presentation and talked about the continued importance of the RBL and reduced half the audience to tears as well as getting a few more quid in the pot that year.

Oh, and fcuk the pointless, cretinous nay-sayers.

 

"Entschuldigung Sie Bitter" "Oh you dont speak German, Thats because a stupid baby murdering barsteward Like me had the Balls to fight, and win against the enemys of this country" it never fails to put the cnuts down

Or

" the only reason we are not haveing this conversation in Kraut, is because of people like me"

 

OP, I was in your position a year ago, but planned not to go to Uni and go straight to AOSB, RMAS etc. I've sinced changed my mind, as I'm simply not ready for it yet.

Same as you, didn't see why people should know about it. Thankfully the school was dead helpful and did a minor article on me for the newsletter while I was on a 2 day visit to Sandhurst. Tossers. Anyway, obviously everyone knew by the time I got back. Ranged reactions, probably not as bad as yours. One of my Muslim aquaintances was abit taken aback, I got plenty of "Why the fook would you do that" reactions. Most of my friends were supportive/apathetic. Which was fine, but if you'd asked a random member of the Sixth form what another random member wanted to do, they wouldn't have had a clue. When you asked them about me, they all knew. I got a couple of stupid reactions. One young lady (bit of a champagne socialist, fit as anything though) asked me if I'd shoot civillians. After making a (mostly lost on her) joke about only if they were nuns or kids, she said that in Iraq I would be ordered to. She genuinely reckoned that British soldiers were ordered to just riddle innocent people with bullets in modern wars. There was no convincing her.

Actually, the worse reactions were from the teachers, to be honest. Most of the male ones were OK. Some of the female ones were insufferable. My year twelve politics teacher looked at me like I'd just spat at her. As did one of my history teachers. I found that the most insulting. They're there to bloody teach, not pass opinion on my choices.

One of my politics teachers was a Northern Irish Catholic. We got on really well, but basically on the condition that it didn't go spoken about.

 

IIRC the NUT were considering a ban on the Armed Forces recruiting teams coming into schools. Says it all really. Left wing cnuts.

 

Any History teacher who is not pro forces, cant be much of a teacher, without the military there would be no historyFFS she must be a real block of wood, in fact there would be no teachers

 

Hahaha, interesting that, it's my year 12 politics teacher that's the worst offender. As is my history teacher.
Interesting that she chose to teach us "The changing role of women in the 20th century" AKA: "Why men are all pigs and why women are amazing"

 

Without WW1 women would never have got the vote, so it just shows how dumb your politics teacher is, without the massive losses of the first world war ,and the shortage of manpower in the arms industry, your female teachers would never got out of the kitchen,

 

Believe me, me and my friends have a brilliant time playing the chauvinist pig type in lessons and pointing these things out, and then utterly decimating any argument she levels against this view. Her Bp must have skyrocketed since she took on our class.