Education, academic and social, is the key to making the world a better place. It is just as important today as it has always been, perhaps more so in that today's economic climate makes more demands on our youth. History has proved that education provides us with the life we deserve, deserve being the operative word. Why then is education so often spurned by the socially immature as a waste of precious time? Why are educators often held to ransom by unaware, unrefined dunderheads who think they know better than those who are qualified to impart knowledge to the less experienced, both socially and academically?
"Start as you mean to go on," was the advice from my sister, an experienced teacher. It was 1963 and I was just setting out on my teaching career. I had spent three years training and was ready to fulfil the dream.
Classroom discipline had been an integral part of my training. Schools in the 1960s were not particularly known for disruptive and unruly pupils although one could always be certain that some pupils would "try it on" to get the measure of a new teacher. My first post was a challenge. No gymnasium and no playing fields. "How will you cope with teaching gymnastics in the assembly hall?" the head teacher asked at my interview.
"If I am to become a teacher worth her salt," I answered, "I shall adapt to the conditions and prepare my lessons around what is available to me. Dealing with the lack of facilities would be good grounding and excellent experience for the future. Dreams cannot be realised without hard work.
I knew that Physical Education teachers were always popular because of the freedom allowed by the very nature of the subject. I had greatly admired my own PE teacher, but had always respected her authority. That was how we behaved when I was growing up. Becoming a teacher myself, I knew that if I appeared to be a soft touch, if I ignored minor misdemeanours, if I allowed any disrespectful behaviour at all, I would not be in control. I decided to aim for respect, not popularity and generally speaking, after my first year on the job, I felt I had achieved more than a modicum of success on that score. With my watchwords being FIRM, BUT FAIR, I considered that I had established myself as a reasonable teacher.
I stayed in that position for two years and then spent a short time teaching special needs children in British Columbia, Canada. Children are the same all over the world and my views on discipline did not change. I returned home, got married and had a baby, but my circumstances demanded that I would have to be a working mum. I did however decide to make a departmental change and as I was teaching English as well as my beloved PE in a small Roman Catholic secondary school, the opportunity arose for me to apply for a full time post teaching English. I trained to become a teacher/librarian whilst still working full time and then studied for a Bachelor of Arts degree in order to become more appropriately qualified for the job I was doing. My credibility as an English teacher depended upon it and my dream continued albeit along a different path.
I'm not sure when the change occurred. It didn't happen suddenly, it was more a gradual decline. It is difficult to pinpoint a year, but in 1979 when my school amalgamated with another, it was particularly noticeable that pupils were less self-disciplined. Back chat ruled. There was a definite rebelliousness about many of the students and a seeming rejection of authority. Pupil-power became their weapon. Teachers were sitting targets albeit unwilling victims. One parent arrived with his son on the first day of term delivering the parting advice, "Don't forget, you don't have to do what they say." I know this, because I was there. And in that particular school, the head teacher advised the staff to pray for the miscreants. All well and good, but not, I make bold to say, effective advice for classroom discipline for a generation so consumed by sacrilegious antipathy of authority.
Since then there have been numerous well-meaning opinions regarding the decline in the behaviour of pupils in schools. It is grossly unfair to generalise and I have to say that the more well-behaved, academically inclined pupils got a raw deal, perhaps they still do. I found myself spending 75% of my time disciplining and 25% teaching. It was frustrating, demeaning and totally unfulfilling.
Governments and so-called social reformers blamed and still blame unemployment, poverty, broken families - and most demoralising of all - they blame the teachers. I know there are good and bad in every profession, but I have always maintained that discipline begins at home and it was never in a teacher's job specification that he/she must teach basic manners and respect.
Eventually my firm, but fair standpoint was totally eroded, my life's work flippantly dismissed, unappreciated. Undisciplined pupils who spurned education had taken my dream and shattered it. I took early retirement and never looked back - a sad indictment to one of the noblest, but least respected of professions. I genuinely believe that the sooner a child learns basic respect for his fellow human beings, the world will be a better place. Simple, isn't it?
