As a child we were taught right from wrong by our parents, and these lessons shaped the type of person we ultimately grew up to be. Some of the rules that were set down by my parents were: treat others as you would like to be treated; respect everyone, especially your elders; do not swear in front of females; do not hit a female; if it is not yours then don't take it; do not tell lies and do as you are told. What were the consequences if you stepped out of line? there was a smack; an ear pull or a kick up the bum with no real harm done and the lesson learnt was to behave yourself.
At school we were always on our best behaviour because teachers were allowed to discipline unruly children and even if you seen a teacher out of school hours you didn't dare misbehave.
Society has changed and in today's world discipline is seen as abuse, so this right was swiftly taken away from teachers in schools, and at times parents are frowned upon if they pulled a child into line in public. If you give a child an inch some will take a mile, so before long we had a fair percentage of children running the show, without any checks and balances.
Now that these children have grown into parents the decline in morals has snowballed to a point where youth crime is a real problem in most areas, assaults, break and enter, stealing cars and domestic violence is everywhere, alcohol and drug abuse is rampant, and swearing is now common language. I, for one, think it is a very sad situation that things have deteriorated to the point where there is very little punishment for those that cause so much abuse and heartache to others.
I recently saw where Minister Grace Grace was encouraging people to take up teaching as a career because of a looming teacher shortage, seriously, why would you. It takes four years of university study and you then spend all day trying to educate children in a work environment where you have no power to reprimand any unruly behaviour. Don't get me wrong, most of today's kids are great, but the little monsters with parents who think they are angels really cause great disruption in the classroom.
For the good of our society, as parents we need to step up and take responsibility for the discipline of our children at home and we need to give our teachers more power so they can regain law and order in the classroom. While it shouldn't be a teacher's job to get some respect back into those children that haven't been taught it at home, for the benefit of the other students, they should be allowed to do so.
- Georgetown beef producer Greg Ryan