So, on the first day of a new job one of my pupils says to me, "What's your name?"

 'I've told you already - it's Mr Carmichael.'

 'No, your first name, I mean.'

 I'm tempted to answer 'mister' but that would just give credence to his familiarity.  I don't mind the child knowing my given name, but the fact that he felt comfortable in asking illustrates the lack of distance in the pupil-teacher relationship.  Yes, I know I'm not supposed to be some remote automaton (although there are times when I feel the government would have it so) but in the context of school, he is my pupil and I am his teacher.

 On another day, a child calls out for the forth time.  At this point, instead of ignoring him, I'm forced to stop and remind him that if we are all to learn, he must wait his turn and respect the right of others to speak.  I say this much more calmly than I feel but hope to avoid confrontation in the middle of a lesson.  This does not elicit the desired response and after a couple of minutes I'm forced to ask the child to leave the room.

 On yet another day, another child (although it could easily have been the first or second) decides she doesn't like the look of her allotted task and so decides not to complete it.  For entertainment, she pokes, prods and generally irritates the other children around her.  They too become distracted and I have to stop work with my focus group to straighten things out.

 These examples are not of emotionally disturbed or particularly challenging children.  What I'm talking about, unless I'm completely loosing it, is a fairly large minority of children who are familiar to all teachers; children who choose not to accept reasonable limits to their behaviour for the benefit of all.

 My father, who tells many a happy tale of being beaten in school, says discipline was never a problem in his day.  In his opinion, back in the Glasgow of the forties, everyone felt uplifted by a swift crack on the backside with a length of cane.  He also believes that National Service, hanging and the birch should be restored, so perhaps we'll pass on.

 In contrast to my father's education, when I was at primary school, a cement bound thirties affair in the middle of a large council estate, my peers and I were never struck by a teacher.  I'm just old enough for this to have been legal, but it never actually happened - and as far as I can remember insistent, constant disruption from some children was just not an issue.

 So what has changed?  It's easy to blame the parents.  I am one, I should know.  Nostalgia tells me that it used to be, 'What teacher says goes.'  You'll have heard this one before, but it bears repeating.  A child goes home and his father asks if he's had a good day at school.  The child replies that no, he hasn't, he'd got into trouble.  The result?  A crack round the back of the head.  Now I don't advocate parents assaulting their children in this manner (although there are times when I'm sorely tempted) but the moral of the story is clear.  Parents, at least apocryphally, would support any discipline metered out by the school.

 There have been many times at parents' evenings or special meetings after or before school that I've had to meet with parents bemoaning the fact that their child came home upset.  The first time this happened, I was surprised to discover that the cause of the parent's ire was not the fact that they thought I'd had harsh words or punished their child, but that they didn't see anything very wrong in what their child had done.  This in a school where home-school links and communication were strong.  The lack of support from a section of parents is worrying.  It is quite impossible for children in this situation to accept responsibility for their actions when the people that have the greatest influence over them act as apologists.

 Of course, there are many shining examples of parenthood.  (You need look no further than me!)  I've always tried to support the school and its activities, except when requests arrive for help at the summer fete, something to be avoided at all costs.  Parents should and are encouraged to share in the school's aims and ethos.  Unfortunately, the very parents you want to reach out to the most are the hardest to get onboard.

 A lot of this talk about parenting is by the by, likewise, theories about television, computer games and resultant attention spans.  Although the problem teacher's face is replicated outside of schools, it is our job to tackle it within.  We have a responsibility for children when they attend school and so we must shoulder some of the blame.  Are we too relaxed, too strict, too demanding, too laid back?  In short, have we helped to create a generation of children who will not conform to what society would demand?  Well yes, in part we are responsible.  We have allowed ourselves to accept systems that we knew were flawed in the first place.  While I'm all in favour of a National Curriculum, efforts to raise standards, inclusion, even monitoring of standards through OfSED, all these changes and drives have fundamentally changed teachers’ role and focus.

 I fill in more documents, set and pursue more learning targets, accept and review more performance targets, revise more government schemes of work, attend more courses, plan in evermore pointless detail – etc, ad infinitum - than I ever thought was possible.  I believe in an holistic, child centred education for all, it's even in my standard application letter.  This was my focus when I first entered teaching.  This was my focus, but I have to confess, of late, I have become a little distracted.  I don't actually have time to tackle the things I know really need doing.  How can I balance an over bureaucratic system with what I know to be right?

 Often I don't.  I do what I have to do.  I do what is demanded and any time I have left, if I've got the energy, I tighten my focus on what I believe. I used to love chatting with children, building real rapport, while they sewed, embroidered or painted.  But there's no fun in that when you've got to cover Unit 5c annex ii, iv and vii and assess ICT skills of a group of children in the corner at the same time.

 What really worries me is that I can see no end to this.  At some point I may have to assess, record and pass on information about ability to apply backstitch in a design situation.  Where will it end?  Oh yes, I almost forgot, teaching classroom assistants.  Let these undertrained and underpaid workers do my proper job while I sit in a quiet corner of the staffroom and plan.  Except it just won't work.  Aside from the fact that these people will not be trained or paid properly for what they will do, it will be me who has to deal with all the over-familiar, interrupting, distracting pupils that are sent to me.  I won't be a teacher anymore.  I won't even get to plan lessons for someone else to deliver.  I'll be a nanny for malcontents.

 Maybe, and I say this with much reluctance, Margaret Thatcher was right.  Perhaps there is no such thing as society anymore.  In our post-modern world it might just be that some young individuals can not co-operate or work towards the improvement of the group if it doesn't fit in with their sense of self.

 So what are we to do?  I don't have solutions, only suggestions:  grin and bear it, open a newsagents, become an advisory teacher, feign madness through stress and retire early, or my personal favourite, trite though it is: stick it out and remember why you wanted to do this job in the first place.  Nothing's perfect, but nothing ever got better by giving up.


 Now, where's my lottery ticket?