where angels fear to tread

Can't help thinking I ought to say my two penn'orth about recent events. My bent is towards Science... sociology and sociologists make me heave. I find their endless apologist ramblings nauseating to say the least.
In my early days of teaching (1970s) when the cane was in regular use, I thought 'if you can't get in thro' the head, get in thro' the hide'. Very Naive of me, but I was a lot younger then. With time comes experience, with experience growing maturity and hopefully some common sense.
When the cane was abolished from the classroom, people forecast anarchy in the classroom. Then I came to realise that talking was more important than issuing a threat. Here I must say that I never struck anyone, nor had any authority in the matter. 
Time moved on (1980s) and another government rolled into Parliament. This one had a new agenda...'divide and conquer'... 
Governments came and went and the EU brought out its 'Human rights Act'...they might as well have dubbed it 'human riot act'.


Did you notice Dear Reader that in Japan, after the tsunami, rioting and looting were conspicuous by their absence?


In Japanese culture it is 'the good of the many that is better than the good of the one'. Not the 'Devil take the hindmost'.


So where are my musings taking me? To Literacy and the idea of Talking and Communicating...of 'getting in thro' the mind instead of the hide'.


I'd like all those that appear in front of magistrates as a result of the disturbances to be tested for literacy and numeracy. To have their educational background investigated. To look for their shortfalls in learning and have them addressed.


As I heard Michael Morpurgo (children's author) say today 'Literacy is empowerment'.