Via the Manifesto Club comes this prime example of normal adult/child interaction being presented as potential kiddie-fiddling (pun unavoidable in this instance).
As teaching musicians point out in this forum discussion, not only is the video a 'caricature' of their usual (and in no way sinister) instruction methods to elicit the correct creepy response, it is also unhelpful to the student.
Teachers note that touch essential - it is the simplest way to straighten backs, reposition hands, or deal with all the myriad errors in technique reproduced in every young player. They also note that no-touch policies make everybody anxious, and make the whole thing into a big (and potentially seedy) issue.Indeed.
The Musicians Union, who collaborated with the NSPCC in this dirty-minded effort, say that the kids being taught may feel 'uncomfortable' but - anecdote alert - my only uncomfortable moment when being taught the cello in my youth was when the handlebar-moustachioed teacher loudly farted in the middle of a mock grade 3 exam, thereby right putting me off (perhaps that was the point, I never asked). His moving my fingers up and down the strings never raised any thought in me except that I was ballsing things up.
That aside, what I find quite extraordinary about this is that it would appear to suggest that the system of CRB approval is entirely useless. Here we are, as a country, suspiciously checking up to 14 million people in order to ensure they are safe to work with children yet - even after being cleared, as every personal music teacher will have been before holding lessons - any touch is still automatically considered to be grubby and assumed as a precursor to abuse.
The NSPCC are very good at spreading such irrational fears, which have led to sports days excluding parents, grandmothers being banned from taking pics of their grand-kids swimming, and friends being barred from looking after each other's children. But then, if they didn't, donations may suffer and their consultants wouldn't be able to sell as many books.
Oh yeah, and without such funds (£157m last time of asking), they also wouldn't be able to produce scaremongering videos about music teachers, or loan employees to political election campaigns.
If you ever wondered how we came to be in the position where parents aren't allowed to take photos of a nativity play; where mothers require a CRB check to help out on school day trips; and where voluntary theatre groups deem it not worth their while to accommodate kids, you should look carefully at the NSPCC and their self-serving scaremongery.
Call me old-fashioned, but people who see filth in every natural life situation used to be derided as 'sex cases'. Now they are respected and given money.
That's progress, I suppose.
