Uhm... Uhm... Wow... Only in Britain...

[K Frame]

This is, by far, the MOST bizarre thing I have ever heard of...

How about a good whack on the ass, instead?


A London council is spending £90,000 giving disruptive pupils foot massages in a bid to calm them down. Skip related content
Related photos / videos Schools to give unruly kids foot massages

The reflexologists will visit 60 primary and 14 secondary schools in Lambeth, working with children under 13 who are considered badly behaved.

The team is from Bud-Umbrella, a London-based charity which offers complementary therapies to adults and children.

Its website says the therapy, which involves applying pressure to specific points on the feet, can calm aggressive feelings, improve listening skills and concentration as well as relieve anxiety and stress.

A spokeswoman for Lambeth Council said: "It's incredibly important that we address young people's behavioural problems and we make no apologies for using different and innovative methods, but this obviously won't replace more traditional ways of dealing with anti-social behaviour.

"We have just pumped an extra £2 million into youth services overall and we provide a whole raft of both traditional and innovative measures to tackle anti-social behaviour across the borough."

She added: "We need to deal with the root causes of young people's behavioural problems and nip them in the bud - prevention is better than cure.

"In fact there has been a 50 per cent increase in attendance and 60 per cent decrease in exclusions among young people involved in the programme."

[MicroBalrog]

So does it work?

[Manedwolf]

This was good enough for hundreds of years of behavioral correction in schools there. Appeared to have worked, too. Many authors have written of feeling a phantom sting on their backside or palm when they were about to be doing something they should not.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

This was good enough for hundreds of years of behavioral correction in schools there. Appeared to have worked, too. Many authors have written of feeling a phantom sting on their backside or palm when they were about to be doing something they should not.

i can speak for the effectiveness

[HankB]

The devil's in the details . . . I've no doubt that disruptive behavior can be corrected by "foot massage" of the bastinado variety. 

[neviander]

Spare the masseuse, spoil the child?   yikes.

[MicroBalrog]

You know, it may seem outlandish, but remember, there's plenty of experimental educational stuff that does work. Let's let them try it first and mock later.

[K Frame]

You know, it may seem outlandish, but remember, there's plenty of experimental educational stuff that does work. Let's let them try it first and mock later.

And there's plenty that, on the surface seems ludicrous, and once it's tried it's a frigging fiasco.

I remember the experiment in the late 1960s and 1970s with "pods," open classrooms. My school had 4 classes in one huge open class room.

Didn't like what your class was working on? Tune out the math teacher and tune in the social studies teacher.

It was a free for all when another class had a movie.

The year those were introduced in the new elementary, standardized test scores in my district plunged, and kept falling, as did over all grades.

The school board finally saw the light and had to pass a bond referendum to get the money to do away with the pods.

Oddly enough, once the pods were eliminated, test scores started to rise markedly.

[Balog]

You know, it may seem outlandish, but remember, there's plenty of experimental educational stuff that does work. Let's let them try it first and mock later.

You have any examples?

[MicroBalrog]

You have any examples?

Pestalozzi? Ivan Illich? John Holt?