Readers' Letters: School violence won't end until children learn boundaries

When I was working in a university, I used to say I wouldn’t teach in a school for three times my current salary. That was even before the epidemic of violence that Cameron Wyllie (Perspective, 6 February) depressingly describes.

Certainly, he is right to hold the strange fads of “educationalists” partially responsible for the problem. Also relevant, however, is that so many children come to school without having been appropriately socialised. If children are not brought up to respect boundaries in behaviour, they can react violently towards those in their vicinity. Being disruptive and getting away with it does not satisfy them: they need to be shown how far they can go and what the limits are. Without this, they are in a no-man's land where they do not know how far they can go, and keep pushing to see how far that is. The lesson is that children actually appreciate having boundaries: they know where they are.

Everything has been tried to make children feel welcome and wanted at school, but school is preparation for life. Unless kids learn there (and, it must be said, in the home) that being at close quarters with others requires restraint rather than self-indulgence, and that if they want respect they also have to give it, the law of the jungle will apply. Other lessons that need to be learned are coping mechanisms for “boring” lessons and for disappointment at failure. These are lessons for life, where we all experience tedium and failure. Above all, a large part of success is if you make an effort at something difficult. A child’s sense of achievement at overcoming an obstacle is the greatest reward for requiring industry and application.

Staff at Kirkintilloch High School are taking industrial action because pupils there face no consequences if they are abusive or violent

We are left with a conundrum. How do we exert discipline over those for whom violence is the normal knee-jerk reaction? We abandoned physical violence as a solution years ago, and a good thing too. But how do we civilise without it those who create mayhem and make others’ lives a misery? The answer has to begin in primary school, with clear rules of engagement set out for all.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Embrace Europe

Tuesday's Scotsman editorial, “Starmer has no choice but to choose EU over US”, hit the nail squarely on the head. As each new day passes it is becoming more and more apparent that the USA under the leadership of Donald Trump can no longer be considered a reliable partner. Indeed, the best description at the moment of that country and its leader is, “unstable”!

As was stated on Tuesday, the time will come when Keir Starmer will have to make the choice between the EU or the US. On past performance of the Labour leader there is little doubt he will do anything other than dither when the time comes to make such a decision. Starmer knows the severe damage done to the UK economy by Brexit, yet when confronted with the means of rectifying the situation he appears to be terrified to take relevant action for fear of a backlash from people in England who voted for it.

In all of this there is clear political divergence between the people of Scotland and those of so-called Middle England. As someone who supports Scottish independence I hope this political divergence has not been lost on the policymakers of the SNP and that in the months ahead they will seriously consider returning to the policy of “Independence in Europe”. Your editorial may not have been pointing towards this direction but for many of us the time has never been more ripe!

Jim Finlayson, Banchory, Aberdeenshire

No right

Donald Trump must think he has the right to order Gaza residents to move to neighbouring nations. That would entail relocating 2.3 million residents, whether or not they wanted to leave. He has no legal or moral right to force them to move, and his remark about them being able to “live in peace for a change” is the most utmost hypocritical comment, meant to justify his order. He has the nerve to ask King Abdullah of Jordan if he could take in more Palestinians, to add to the 2.4 million refugees who were expelled in 1948 after the creation of Israel.

He is treating human beings as if they were chess pieces, to be placed wherever he decides they should go. His ambassador to the UN has stated that Israel has a “biblical right” to own the West Bank, which was occupied by Israel in 1967. If decisions are to be taken based on stories in the bible, which is not a universally accepted source of events in the distant past, it opens the door to any dominant country which is led by greed and hunger for power.

Carolyn Taylor, Broughty Ferry, Dundee

Steer clear

The wrong-headedness of a former First Minister's pet project and her insistence on ramming her opinion through into law is now proven to be an abject failure. Many people in Scotland, from their own personal experiences, knew from the start that minimum pricing would have no effect whatsoever on people with serious alcohol addiction problems; those suffering from this illness will always find a way, no matter how expensive. And so, sadly, it has proved.

Alcohol deaths in Scotland have risen to their highest level in 15 years (your report, 6 February). Retailers have cashed in on the SNP's increased prices and moderate drinkers have been hammered. For nothing, except the vanity of a leader and a party intent of doing no more than be different from the rest of the UK. As well as this preventable tragedy, it is widely assumed many of our poorest, stricken with this problem, have given up eating to pay for the alcohol, without which they feel they cannot live. On the make politicians, please stay clear of these problems.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Share the blame

Do they put something in the water in Dundee? Alan Hinnrichs (Letters, 6 February) sounds as if he would burst a blood vessel, the way he was going on about Great British Energy, as if this was purely a problem for the Labour Party, when his separatist friends are equally culpable of wasting valuable resources on wind power, destroying Scottish landscapes and leaving us prey to power cuts.

Both the SNP and the Greens subscribe to the idiotic notion that we can rely upon wind and, to a lesser extent, solar energy in a country noted for having no wind when you need electricity and no sun at night. He is as aware as all of us that the separatist parties and Labour (even the Conservatives, who might have been expected to have more sense) subscribe to the new “net zero” religion, destroying our oil and gas industries and closing coal power stations. They are all driven by the same messianic belief in a fantasy based on deliberate misinterpretation of natural climate cycles, Ed Miliband being the leading culprit. So, when he tries to blame Labour for “industrial-scale lying”, he must remember to include the SNP and Greens in that.

Another thing is also missing in the fantasy world he inhabits, though. There are no billionaires to be found, fascist or otherwise. They have all fled elsewhere to keep and spend their money. In the socialist paradises that we live in, on both sides of the Border, it is us, the non-billionaires, who have to pay for everything.

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

Off-grid daydream

My monthly gas and electric bill is £189. We have new double-glazed windows and doors and nine radiators powered by a combi gas boiler.

I've just finished researching going "off-grid" powered by solar panels. An air pump is no use for heating our stone house, the solution, an electric 10KW Hour boiler from a reputable company would cost £14,000 including installation. To power that I'd need as many as 30 350KW panels. According to the Heatable UK site that would cost roughly £21,000. Then we might need a battery at around £5,000, although one vendor recommended a 30KW battery costing around £25,000. That's a total of between £40-60,000 to go "off-grid", a 16-25 year pay-off period at current prices.

To their credit, no vendor recommended going off-grid, one even said the cost would be “off the scale”, I'd still have a gas bill for my heating, and to make savings just on electricity you still need to be on the the grid and juggle batteries and tariffs with a roughly ten-year payback. All the vendors I spoke to were honest, realistic and informed.

Ed Miliband needs to have a chat with some and tone down his rhetoric.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Ban nuclear

I hope Holyrood and the SNP will protect Scotland from being polluted by the “mini nuclear plants” Keir Starmer wishes to push past what he calls “Nimbies” in England.

Scotland already suffers from “small radioactive leaks at Faslane, ones the MOD does not think “large enough to report on”.

To allow further pollution of our countryside would ruin Scotland’s tourist trade as well as being a danger to us all.

Elizabeth Scott, Edinburgh

Gigs nightmare

Brian Ferguson is remarkably blasé about the addition of four rock concerts at Murrayfield during the Edinburgh Festival (5 February). Some 60,000 extra punters times four, when the city is already stuffed with visitors, is frankly a recipe for disaster. He claims it will be great for businesses in west Edinburgh, yet all hotels and B&Bs will be full anyway, and the residents will have to put up with parking restrictions, bus routes diverted, noise and detritus from the fans and general major inconvenience.

This is purely about money and the greed of the SRU. I'm sure the concerts will be great, but staging four during the Festival is utter madness.

Brian Bannatyne-Scott, Edinburgh

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