I often find the programme is as much a cultural eye-opener as a linguistic one. This will probably not be the first time I share a story from this programme where the reaction is incredibly different to the one I know the situation would have got at home...
So this particular listener had written in (I'm paraphrasing the Danish): Hi this is my dilemma. I have a child in year 7 at the local school (this is age 13-14, Anna is in year 7). As you know the children are receiving online schooling at the moment and I don't think their Maths teacher is very clued-up digitally. The issue is that when he shares his screen with the class to explain a problem, he doesn't realise that his tab bar at the top of the screen is also visible to the kids and the problem is he has a tab open entitled 'Pornhub'... Now as a Scottish person, I would expect the dilemma to continue 'Should I report him to the police, have him fired, have his right to teach revoked, have him put on the sex offenders' register, send all the kids to a trauma psychologist for PTSD, have him chemically castrated and apply for compensation as my poor innocent little cherub will never get over this for as long as he lives?' Despite the fact that all, or at least most parents of 14 year olds know fine well they are quite clued up about the existence of sex, porn and all sorts of other things. But as it was, the dilemma actually finished with the question: 'Does the panel think it would be ok if I rang him and warned him that the kids were all having a laugh at his expense, and suggest he removes that tab while he has the class because I feel sorry for the poor teacher?'
The openness about sex and similar topics coupled with the lack of cottonwool-wrapping of children, especially adolescent children, really stands out to me here. It is definitely an interesting cultural marker. I suspect even if someone wanted to give this point of view back home, the radio stations would think the question way too risqué to tackle!
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