A rchive Date
[ 09-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Parents need to face reality of discipline
By STEVE MADELY -- Ottawa Sun
June 9, 2000
The next time someone grumbles about the loss of discipline in the classroom, I'll pull out clippings on the parents of the Cornwall kids who fought the Hooters suspensions.
A more classic case of misguided parental loyalties would be difficult to find.
The moms and dads pleading that their sons would never lie to them, and thus implying that it must be the teachers and principal who were lying, provide more proof that the lack of respect for authority does not originate in the school rooms of the country, it starts in the living rooms.
I sincerely hope these parents do not learn the hard way that boys are apt to, shall we say disguise reality. In no particular order -- school, sex, drugs, booze, missed curfews, and the origin of scratches or worse to the family car -- are the stuff of teen truth stretching.
The one constant in parenthood is the certainty that children will try to, how to put this, protect their parents from the truth.
Moms, sorry to break the news, but you'll be the last to know when little Billy decides it's time to taste some of life's forbidden pleasures. Do yourself a favour.
Whether it's the next door neighbour, a police officer, a relative, or your kid's teacher, when the news arrives that your little darling has been caught with a hand in the cookie jar, don't go into maternal denial.
It doesn't matter whether the boys went to Hooters or the Green Valley, they were told where they were allowed to go, and they snuck off some place else.
They tested the rules and got caught, this time, so they're facing the music. As they could easily explain, some things you get away with, some things you don't. Some things you can sweet talk your way out of, some things you can't.
One of the advances that will come into place when the Harris government's Code of Conduct takes effect in Ontario schools next year, is an end to embarrassing spectacle of gullible parents filing into a school board hearing to second guess their kid's teachers.
There will be no right of appeal to the school board for a suspension.
Even the ultimate punishment, expulsion, will be final and binding as long as the principal convenes an appropriate committee at the school and provides for a proper hearing.
SMIRKING KIDS
Smirking kids, looking on with delight, as their outraged parents denounce teachers and the school for enforcing simple rules, will become a thing of the past. They may play their parents like fiddles, but the days of kids telling teachers to stuff their rules where the sun don't shine, are coming to an end.
Ironically, the teacher's unions are so obsessed with defeating the Harris government that they have not yet recognized their profession is finally getting the backing it needs to restore teacher authority in the classroom.
Schools are not run by students for obvious reasons. They're run by teachers and principals. They are not democracies where children get to vote on what to study or how to behave.
They are benevolent dictatorships where teachers and principals have the final say, not unlike the workplaces these children will soon experience, where codes of conduct and performance expectations are ultimately laid down, not by the employees, but by the employers.
The teacher's unions have difficulty understanding that concept, but individual teachers do not.
Some parents have yet to learn that their homes can't be run by their children either. That's a parent's job. The little darlings may test the rules.
But pity the parent who cannot, or will not, enforce them.
Madely can be reached at (613) 739-5133 ext. 412 or by e-mail at madely@cfra.com. ]
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