Educaring, Part 1

A blogger at the opening ceremony for a new school year

The most important thing we’ve learned

As far as children are concerned

Is never, ever, ever let

Them near your television set.

In fact, just don’t install

The idiotic thing at all.


Well, that was one of my greatest heroes, Roald Dahl, in that modern classic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But Dahl’s words of warning about the pernicious effect of the TV on young children’s minds seems quaintly dated, irrelevant and out of all proportion to the dangers for children that can be found on the Internet. And some of those dangers are not passive, like a television. They will coming looking for your son or daughter, 24/7. Yes, you can switch off your family’s TV, but how do you turn the Internet off?


Recently my school, St. George’s in Sofia, has had a blitz on Safeguarding. All of the staff have been doing online training with a company called Educare. Some of the courses have been pretty explicit and not exactly entertaining, with such topics as child pornography, cyber bullying, online grooming, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), online radicalization, honour killing and child exploitation. All coming to a laptop, tablet or smartphone near you. Or your child. The Educare courses gave me a strong feeling that an Internet-based tsunami is endangering many children, young people and whole families in the UK.


According to Educare, 60% of all 11-year-olds in the UK have a smartphone, what is essentially a mini-computer. Can teachers really do anything to stop their students from being harmed by some (or most) of the nasty stuff (and the nasty people) on the Internet? Well, we can report our concerns to the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL). That is what we ought to do. But if criminals and perverts are more tech-savvy than most parents or teachers, then passing on your concerns is a bit like reporting that a sandcastle has been washed away. Perhaps you might be able to do something to protect that individual sandcastle, but alas you cannot hold back the tide.

This is one of my favourite photos of me. (My dear wife Irisha says that I have not changed at all.) Years ago, children used to do things like climbing trees, going fishing and riding bikes. If children somehow managed without laptops and smartphones then, why can’t they do so now?

This is an Uzi. It is a type of machine gun. The great thing about an Uzi is that, like a smartphone, it is small and so even a child could use one. Maybe an Uzi is what every child needs, in order to keep them safe. Does that seem ridiculous to you? Well, perhaps it is no more stupid or ridiculous than giving your 11-year-old child a smartphone.