Discipline for unruly kids

At Issue: A case of a student who disrupted class that resulted in the false arrest of his teacher.

Our View: Hopwood Jr. High is riddled with unruly kids requiring parental intercession, now!

At a casual gathering, several retired teachers teased one another about returning to teach at Hopwood Jr. High School. Nobody wants to even dare lift a finger. One related he contracted bleeding ulcer in his last year while the other has developed high blood pressure and came close to seriously injuring a disruptive pupil with a stapler.

This doesn’t include other student-inflicted problems at the lone junior high at Chalan Piao. There are students who walk around campus boasting their new-found expression of superiority using the f… word like it’s the latest addition to Dr. Webster’s. Others would puff cigarettes even in class, while still others light up their marijuana in the boys and girls rest rooms.

These adolescent problems weren’t born nor inflicted by other well-meaning students who are committed to academic preparation for their last three years in senior high after Hopwood. Nor is it a teacher inflicted problem for they too are equally wary of their obligations as instructors to prepare their students for new challenges ahead. Where then does this wobbly and bumpy road lead us?
All roads lead right back to the front doors unruly students’ home. What they do in disruptive behavior is a grand tale that perhaps their parents have failed them by way of firm disciplinary measures when they begin infringing upon the peace and rights of others. Their behavior is a perfect reflection of what must be happening at home in terms of their relationships with their parents.

Expulsion from class isn’t going to help them nor our community given their chances of becoming parasites because they never learned lifetime skills. Perhaps a boot camp of some sort in remote islands ought to be explored to bring some senses to these kids who need to be taught how to focus their energies into positive activities. Helping one or two return to normal adolescent is better than grandly failing all whom we wish to dispose via expulsion.

Counselors should also explore what kind of an environment unruly kids come from. For all we know, they may be the victims of a broken home making their struggle to join the mainstream of their own peers a bit more frustrating.
Thus, they express such frustrations in unruly behavior. Albeit difficult, we have to have a starting point. If parents are the source of the problem, then other actions may be undertaken to bring them back to their senses.

As difficult the array of problems may be, it is because of its difficulty that all must strive to resolve them however gradual. Let’s look forward to a bright new day. Si Yuus Maase`!