On this particular day, I was on the train going to a meeting in London and a group of primary school children got on the train in Mile End. One of them had a visual impairment and was guided by an adult whom I believe is the teacher. Three of the children sat on my left side, and one of them decided to pick the newspaper to read.

To my surprise, the teacher told him to stop reading the paper and to put it down. From his body language/observation, the boy wanted to ask why but said ‘yes Miss’. While I was giving the teacher the cold look of why?; and my thoughts saying ‘that’s how you make a child display disruptive behaviour’, another adult supervising the children noticed this child putting the paper down but encouraged him to go on reading. The boy said ‘Miss told me to put it down.’ This adult turned to the teacher and asked my question, ‘why?’. Her response was, ‘we can not control the content in the newspaper.’ The other adult said, ‘oh’. My thoughts responded, ‘are you kidding me.’ At this time of the morning, 95% of the newspapers in the train carriage are Metro. This got me thinking about the political correctness of the education system and wanting to put filters in every area of it. If the children were disruptive with the newspaper, this action by the teacher would be justified. What happened to;

• Asking the child, what are you reading?
• Having a look at the newspaper before concluding on the action to take.
• Directing the child to a more child-friendly page.
• Engaging the child in the educational discussion linked to the curriculum.

Teaching and education are about educating during different scenarios and experiences. I seem to be getting more dissolution with manufactured educators and the deterioration of common sense in education.