The Tory cure for stressed teachers is: ELECTROCUTE THEIR BRAINS
Electro-shock therapy isn’t quite as horrific as this any more, but the possibility of a long-term harmful effect remains.
It is amazing that the Torygraph is promoting the electrocution of stressed teachers’ brains as a good thing.
Maybe it is true that electro-shock therapy has come a long way since the days when people routinely had their frontal lobes burned out, but risks remain. Why not relieve teachers’ stress by making the job less stressful?
Those undergoing this process may experience confusion lasting hours or even days; memory loss; nausea, headache, jaw pain, muscle ache; and possibly even heart problems.
This Writer has known people who have undergone this treatment and there is another aspect to it – the person I knew after the treatment was not the same person I knew before.
Have a think about that.
Add it up and, in my opinion, it seems that the Leigh Academies Trust is trying to cajole its teachers into volunteering to become compliant little teaching zombies, with the stress burned out of them along with any kind of conscience.
Leigh Academies Trust used to be run by Frank Green, who was appointed to a two-year job as schools commissioner by Michael Gove during that MP’s time as Education Secretary, so it is clear that this organisation has close links with the Conservative Party. You can read more about Mr Green here.
The Torygraph article suggests the “treatment” takes around 20 minutes every day – but goes on to say that some teacher are using it for anything up to three times as long. What does that tell us about it, and about conditions at the Leigh Academies Trust?
And what kind of teachers are they going to be, afterwards?
The Alpha-Stim device is is the size of a mobile phone and sends micro-currents of electricity to increase a patient’s naturally occurring “alpha waves” that are said to create a more relaxed state of mind.
School bosses have successfully tested the device and are now offering the treatment at seven secondary schools, seven primary schools and a special educational needs school in Kent.
After running a pilot scheme, the Leigh Academies Trust say the device has had a positive impact on levels of anxiety, depression and sleep disorder – all symptoms of stress among its staff.
Trust HR director Richard Taylor said the devices are now being made available to all the Trust’s teachers to augment existing strategies to deal with stress.
Peter Caunt, of the Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust, said: “We know this type of therapy works.
“The key to this study is to find out how cost-effective it can be compared to conventional treatments involving tablets and cognitive behavioural therapies.”
Source: Stressed teachers offered electric shock therapy to combat anxiety and depression
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How about the government reduces the workload that does not actually involve teaching pupils, to reduce teacher stress! I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Very interesting that this is being used in an academy chain where on the whole, teachers are treated like commodities. (Retired Headteacher, state school.)
Are they mad? The minds of stressed out teachers aren’t the damned problem. School bosses are promoting this? I assume this isn’t a joke. This is completely bonkers.
Surely a better idea would be decent pay and sensible class sizes but that would cut into their profits.
ECT has no lasting effects, needs repeated ‘treatments’. Undesired effects of even one episode of ECT on a particular indvidual? Unknown brain changes, possibly permanent. Cumulative episodes??? Yup, zombify state teachers into compliant robots. Horror film stuff.
That tech has been used by Buddhists and mediators for some time to simulate for folk what practised meditation can achieve. Yes, teachers should not need to use this and nor should an employer offer it as a matter of course, what’s next free prozac in the staff room like water fountains? <-that's a valid concern but presenting it as you are mike is, in my view, disingenuous. Its not an electric shock nor comparable to the use of shocks in psychiatric institutions. I can actually say that as a fact given the currents involved and the actual physics. Hyperbole does not suit you Mike and works against your aims.
Well, it’s always good to publish a dissenting point of view.
I’d rather see May, Gove, Fox, Davis, Johnson, Duncan-Smith et al, well and truly electrocuted.
How about trying to deal with what CAUSES the stress in the first place instead? Who’s profiting from sale of this Alpha-Stim device?
Teachers surely would not be foolish enough to take this ridiculous offer seriously,
They need there work load reduced, and smaller classes to help them, and there students
Madness shear Madness……and I bet if the Teachers concerned don’t accept the “Therapy” they will be refused sick pay or even sacked…It will be the children next.
.Just like Clockwork Orange
Compare this,
“Peter Caunt, of the Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust, said: “We know this type of therapy works.”
to this,
Removing the frontal lobe (Lobotomy) stops paranoid delusion’s, so it must work. ‘A widely held medical opinion of the 19th century’, & still now for some!
Needles to say, those who had this treatment were frequently institutionalized for the remainder of their life. To say electrneuro medical science has come a long way since these Frankenstein quacks practiced is wrong, Psychology and neurosurgical practice are as introverted as the symptoms. Destroying functions of the brain is like chucking a brick at the TV cos you don’t like the program, it does not take a Don to tell you it will in all probability stop working.
Trials were carried out on Tory cabinet ministers, but the results may not be applicable to humans.
My uncle suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, smoked several packs of cigarettes a day, and died of breast cancer that had metastasized to his bones. My parents have confirmed that he was subjected to the controversial psychiatric treatments described in this article: Montreal woman seeks compensation in ’50s brainwashing case – Montreal – CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-woman-seeks-compensation-in-50s-brainwashing-case-1.670151.
Traditional barbaric ECT (Electro Convulsive Therapy) was used extensively in the 80’s mainly for patients with severe depression.
The results were sometimes dramatic but short-term and it always irreversibly “fried” short term memory at minimum and required both an anaesthetic and an anti-convulsive medication because of the pain it inflicted.
Calling this Electro Shock makes it’s USA origins obvious and even a milder version in a pretty package for profit is still Victorian in it’s attitude and purpose.
WHAT(!) This is a joke, right? No? In the name of all that is good, what has happened to our country? If teachers are stressed, remove the stress, or teachers, remove yourselves from the stress! This is NO solution, nor is it, I believe, what E.C.T. was intended for! This is irresponsible, at best.
this is bloody ridiculous. i thought this sort of therapy went out years ago. archaic to say the least. then again its been said a number of times that this government are taking us back to victorian times.this is just another instance of this,
The only people that should receive electric any shock treeatment is the whole Tory government the only thing is it needs to be lethal.