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Show and Home c J Dr. Daryl J. McCarty Executive Secretary Utah Education Association Discipline breakdowns It is 25 years ago, your father has just gotten word from your teacher that you've been rotten in school today, and you're plenty worried. You have cause to be frantic, because the Daddies of 1955 frown on misconduct, miscon-duct, and they use a tactic known as "woodshedding" to combat it. Now, in 1980, that practice lacks universal acceptance among parents. Despite that, the fourth largest school system in the United States recently approved a return to corporal punishment. punish-ment. That's in Los Angeles. The swing back to the rod is an effort to halt the increasing absence of discipline among students. This is not to argue one side or the other on the question of whether to paddle or not to paddle. The matter is raised simply to demonstrate that folks, we have a serious problem. School administrators and teachers are seeing a continual deterioration of discipline in the classrooms. It doesn't take a lot to cause a serious disruption of education in a classroom. After all, concentration on the classroom task is essential to progress to the progress of every student in the room. One student hassling a classmate or the teacher can destroy the class focus on a learning point. If that happens three or four times a day, the damage to instruction in that class is considerable. There's no miracle remedy for breakdowns in discipline. Even when Dad wielded that peachtree switch with such devastating effectiveness 25 years ago, there were still some disciplinary difficulties. However, old hands in the teaching game will tell you there were fewer problems then. The point is, when parents support educators in the quest for school discipline, we seem to have better discipline. So Mom and Dad, choose your own way to persuade the children to behave in school, but please do it soon. Schools need your support. |