Lack of respect for teachers shames our society

11:50am Thursday 12th April 2007

Comments (1)   Have your say »

WE ALL wring our hands and wonder why the youths of today are out of control and causing hell on our streets.

Society's never been so affluent, yet the kids have never been so unruly and ill-mannered.

We see it here in south Bucks and it's undoubtedly worse in other parts of the UK where hoodies rampage unchecked.

And now we know why.

This week's news from the annual conference of the NASUWT teachers' union was genuinely shocking.

It appears children are able to make offensive videos during school hours of people being attacked, harassed and ridiculed.

But it's not just the youngsters who suffer at the hands of the bullies.

Teachers complain that films are being made showing them abused and derided by pupils.

In case you think this is a load of whining flannel, it's worth pointing out the Government is taking it pretty seriously.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson addressed the conference and told how teachers were considering leaving the profession because of the "defamation and humiliation they are forced to suffer".

And he is demanding website providers ban these offensive videos which are uploaded for all the world to see.

He has also given teachers new powers to confiscate the mobile phones and MP3 players used for such abuse.

But isn't this all a damning indictment on the way we live our lives in the 21st century?

When I went to school in the 1970s, we wouldn't have dreamed of even talking back to our teachers, let alone ridiculing them and filming their humiliation.

Sure we had the odd run-in with them, but pupils who stepped out of line in our school were caned or clipped around the ear.

In today's world, that would infringe the little darlings' human rights.

Teachers these days get tough with pupils at their peril.

It could lose them their job or land them with a legal writ.

The world has turned topsy-turvey.

In the old days, children were meant to be seen and not heard.

Now they have all the power and are virtually immune from the law.

This means they don't have to be properly educated, because people will always be there making excuses for them.

Kids aren't thick or lazy any more; they are given trendy medical terms for their conditions which excuse them from having to try harder.

It's not their fault they hang around on street corners because they don't have any yoof clubs to go to and they are too young to drink and they are too old to do the fings that younger teenagers do and, and, and, and...

Sorry but it doesn't wash.

Older teenagers have always been the same. They want a lark, they want to hang out with their mates and they want to play at being adults without the responsibility that goes with it.

There's actually nothing wrong with that.

Because it's the job of parents and teachers to keep this all in check.

We need teenagers to be boisterous and anarchic because the alternative is that they are all dull, lifeless sausages who slip into middle age by the time they are 20.

The trick is for the adults to be able to control this recklessness of youth.

But when teachers are no longer allowed to discipline pupils, that's when it all starts to fall apart.

I am not advocating a return to child chimney sweeps but the pendulum has swung far too much away from authority.

Children no longer respect the police, their school and their parents, because they don't need to.

And then when they enter the world of work as an adult, they suddenly get a huge shock as the cotton wool is lifted from their bodies.

This lack of respect and lack of discipline does them no favours and is rapidly turning the UK into a nation of low-achieving sloths.

Ban the mobiles from all schools, make all kids wear full uniforms and make abusing a teacher punishable by immediate expulsion.

I'm sure many of our Bucks schools do this already, but we need all schools in all parts of the land to follow suit otherwise our society will disintegrate.