Blame & Claim Wreck Waiting To Happen

The culture of blame and claim is going to wreck this country. More and more people are being encouraged to take action against ‘somebody’ about ‘something’. The fact that our media wants to find a scapegoat for everything is partly to blame for this awful situation. In the latest daft case, an eighteen-year-old girl claims she was subjected to anti-English abuse at her school on Lewis in the Western Islands. Interestingly her solicitor has about thirty other cases pending. Is this solicitor indicative of every solicitor in the country? Are there tens of thousand pending bullying claims? No of course not it’s more than likely a strategy that he’s employed to somehow collect all these cases together.

The girl claims the local authority failed to protect her from bullies at the Nicolson Institute on Lewis and is seeking compensation for the alleged physical and mental abuse she received from other pupils. A gang of girls is alleged to have called her an "English bitch", causing her unnecessary pain and suffering.The girl’s solicitor has confirmed that his client had agreed to be the test case. "When Natalie decided not to continue we had to find another client prepared to carry the banner. Sophie has agreed to do that," he said.

In that statement you have the nub of the gist. Bullying is a terrible thing but to claim that the school could really have done anything about it is dubious. As a society this desire to find someone to blame for everything that happens is crippling our courts system, our national psyche and costing us in numerous other ways. While there may be an undercurrent of bullying in this case as a general rule we are telling people that personal responsibility has no place in our modern world because there’s always someone else to blame.

A Life Less Ordinary

It's been revealed that schools in the Scottish Borders are failing to provide enough PE when compared to the Scottish Executive guidelines - the target is a mere two hours per week. Not that our region is alone but it is well behind most of the councils. When The Southern Reporter asked for an explanation, the council claimed they did not paint a true picture. Their basic explanation is that the figures are misleading. This maybe the case, but anecdotal evidence suggests that most people feel that school kids don't get enough exercise within the curriculum. Certainly most people I know suggest that the emphasis on homework and exam results is so highly focused that other activities take a back seat; even after school activities suffer.

Add this situation to the row about the Borders rugby team and there’s a worrying link. There's no doubt that the emphasis has changed in our education system. Government targets for producing more and more 'qualified' students with better and better grades is equipping kids with pieces of paper that indicate their performance but it fails to equip them for life. The focus on turning out children from our schools that are then pointed in the direction of university is all part of our 'league table’ driven politics. This is far more about how it reflects on Education managers and professionals than it is about the needs of the pupils. Over management of our schools by administrators and managers instead of leaving things to the teachers is part of the problem.

How does this relate to Borders rugby? Well we are becoming a virtual society, one in which people are more and more focused on what happens on one of the ‘screens of life’ - the computer screen, the TV screen, the mobile phone screen and the ipod screen. We live vicariously instead of vivaciously. The trend is towards isolation rather than involvement. We need to get back to living a life more real to avoid a life that’s less than ordinary.