Esther Tyson, Contributor

The raft of incidents of teachers being attacked and students injuring each other that has been reported in the media in the past two weeks gives a frightening picture, albeit an incomplete one, of a downward spiral of the discipline in our schools.

What is even more frightening is the image of parents supporting students in disrespecting their teachers. It was reported that a parent had a teacher arrested for using a bamboo switch on a student to prevent him from cutting another with a razor blade. Now that is the limit! Apparently the teacher trying to stop the student from injuring another is now regarded as breaking the law. It has now reached to the place where teachers now need to consider their own safety when teaching in our school system. Teachers have to realise that they are teaching in a war zone. This war zone has students on one side, with some parents aiding them, while the teachers are on the other side, with some parents aiding them. Our teachers have little resource or protection from the attacks they receive with the provisions made by the Ministry of Education.

Senseless

Teachers are no longer allowed to search students in schools, we are told; you must, instead, ask the students to turn out their pockets, to reveal to you what they have. Does this seem senseless to you? No wonder they want to train the teachers as police, since only the police can do searches.

Many persons are pushing children's rights, with which I am all in agreement; however, not many are pushing the students' responsibilities. As much as we emphasise the right of the child to care and protection, we must also emphasise the responsibility of the child to self-discipline, hard work, respect for authority and concern for others. There must be balance in the message being projected.

Teachers are now feeling even more stressed than they were before because of the threat to life and person which is becoming a part of the Jamaican school reality.

We suffered first from a measly pay package, next from the general disrespect felt in the society, now we add a third: a threat to life and limb.

I foresee that we shall once more have a large number of our teachers opting to take up the opportunity of teaching overseas where they will get better pay and get less attacked. I noticed agents from British Columbia scouting for teachers and other recruiters from overseas are once again on the hunt. They will have willing prey with the threatening environment in which teachers are now operating in our country.

This situation actually is the outcome of what is happening in our society generally. After all, the school is a microcosm of the wider society. We do not choose the students, apart from transfers, who come to our schools.

No home training

The students are allocated by the Ministry of Education. So, we get students from homes and communities which are disciplined and orderly and who are properly socialised, and we also get students who have little or no home training, who are left to parent themselves. It seems that some parents have abandoned their children or else the parents are no more disciplined than an out-of-control teenager, which in fact, some of them are. You see the "chickens are coming home to roost".

The question is, how are we going to change this? When I speak of the fact, that our family life, as a nation, needs to be restored, persons say that it is an idealistic thought. They say that we must accept the fact that the family structure in the Jamaican society is by and large non-functional, therefore, the schools must be depended on to socialise the children. Well now, how can we do this if teachers are in fear of their lives, are in fear of correcting students, or of disciplining them? Parents are taking the side of students to 'boo' their principals, arrest the teachers, come into the schools and beat up the teacher who has dared to correct their children. Which school administration, which teacher is going to be willing to take on the challenge of resocialising out-of-control children coming from an out-of-control society with little support from the parents?

It might be that the Ministry of Education has seen the end of this mad road we are travelling on why the thought of training the teachers as police has come up. Is that the solution? Then we should just turn the schools into military training camps. That probably is a good way of utilising the soldiers at Up-Park Camp since the war we are fighting is internal and the poor teachers are ill-equipped, lacking the resources and the expertise to deal with this war zone.

Culture of indiscipline

When are we going to realise that the culture of indiscipline, slackness and violence is pulling us downward in this spiral of mayhem? In the same way that we have negotiated an MOU about the pay package for Government workers, the Government needs to negotiate an MOU between parents, private-sector organisations, the police, the media, the DJs and singers, the transport authorities, students and teachers, on what is acceptable and expected of our children. Many of them are out of control. Why? Because they are products of an out-of-control society. The culture must change.

John Milton, the English poet, tells us, "He who reigns within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears is more than a king." We need to promote that message to our people. Right now, the opposite message is ringing like a loud, clanging bell in the ears of the nation. We, are suffering the effects of that message being played out tragically on the roads, in the communities and in our schools.

Esther Tyson is principal of Ardenne High School, St Andrew. Comments may be sent sent to esther.tyson@gmail.com