Guest Post by Odin

Japan's 'monster' parents take centre stage

"The stage was set, the lights went down and in a suburban Japanese primary school everyone prepared to enjoy a performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The only snag was that the entire cast was playing the part of Snow White.

For the audience of menacing mothers and feisty fathers, though, the sight of 25 Snow Whites, no dwarfs and no wicked witch was a triumph: a clear victory for Japan's emerging new class of “Monster Parents”.

For they had taken on the system and won. After a relentless campaign of bullying, hectoring and nuisance phone calls, the monster parents had cowed the teachers into submission, forcing the school to admit to the injustice of selecting just one girl to play the title role." (source)

I heard of a local story. A teacher was monitoring the halls between classes and caught a middle school boy standing at the open girls lavatory door and yelled "I smell wet p***y". The teacher wrote the boy up for something and sent him to the principle's office. Just happened that the boy's father was an anal lawyer who complained bitterly to the principle. After a long series of events, the teacher had to write an apology to the boy. The principle never gave a word or sign of support to the teacher. News of things like this travel fast among kids and they know how the teachers are not allowed to apply even basic discipline. The government schools are tangled beyond repair. The only viable solution is deregulation (code word for vouchers). I'd opt out of the government schools in a minute if I did not have to pay twice.

~Odin