Nice words don’t work without real consequences.
Don’t belive the bullshit that every behavioural issue can be fixed with a restorative conversation. That if you sit the kid down, let them talk, and get everyone to “reflect,” things will magically improve. Spoiler alert: they don’t. Restorative practice has been diluted to the point of uselessness. It’s become a ritual of empty scripts, soft tones, and zero fucking impact. You cannot ‘chat’ your way out of a discipline crisis.
No, students don’t get a vote.
Somewhere along the line, we started treating classrooms like town fucking halls. Rules became suggestions. Sanctions became “conversations.” Teachers were told to listen more, say less, and act like facilitators rather than leaders. And now we see the rusults: Total fucking chaos. Kids don’t need a peer, they need a boundary. A classroom is not a democracy. It’s a learning environment, and the adult is in charge. So step the fuck up and act like a fucking adult!
By doing everything for students, we’re teaching them not to give a shit.
Schools talk a big game about aspiration. High flyers. Dream big. Growth mindset. But it’s all bullshit. What they actually train is apathy. Effort is optional. Failure is feared. Ambition is actively discouraged. Not overtly, but structurally. Slowly. Systematically. Kids don’t opt out because they’re lazy (well not always). They opt out because school teaches them that nothing’s worth opting in for.
Comfort, Compliance and the Cult of Fragility
School used to be where you learned to cope with difficulty. Now it’s where you learn to avoid it. We’ve built a system that rewards fragility, punishes independence, and medicalises effort. Resilience isn’t something we teach—it’s something we fucking sideline. And no one is talking about the long-term cost of raising a generation that can’t cope with being uncomfortable.
