OCR Text |
Show Wiry female monitor needed to beef up school discipline When the telephone rang and a reader asked for my view on legislation to restrict corporal punishment in the public schools, I wasn't surprised. Several Davis County legislators had already told that they were barraged with excited cries on both sides of the issue-arid issue-arid to make matters more complex, teachers were also split. I told the caller I didn't really have a firm opinion. But that was before I walked into a Salt Lake-area high school to give a business presentation. 1 Cyclops BRYAN GRAY Columnist i copied it from another student prior to the class. These students have no ambition, no energy and no goals. They're just putting in their time. ' After receiving this dismal update, I continued walking walk-ing down the hallway. A portrait of Martin Luther King was tilting askew on the wall. His i4I Have a Dream" marker had been scatalogically altered by one of the students, bringing snips of laughter from two girls who were aggressively braiding their hair. "Hey, this is a cool school," said one. Maybe it was cool, I answeredbut it wasn't much of a school. But still I hadn't fully formed an opinion on corporal punishment .Not until I happened to tell about my visit to a former student, a veteran alumnus who had attended attend-ed the same school more man several decades prior. "Oh, we weren't much interested in school then either," he laughed. "But I can remember a lady vice principal, a wiry little gal who made sure that we didn't misbehave. You say that students were milling around the hallway and skipping class. Well, I remember when I did that once and this vice principal grabbed me by the shirt, tossed me up against the wall and told me it was advisable that I return to class. It made a major impression im-pression upon me and if she had thrown me any harder, I might have made an impression in the wall, too. The teachers and administrators didn't have to treat us with kid gloves. But that was a different time..." Yes, it was. It was a time when educators were able to educate. So I was happy when the Utah Legislature voted down a bill to restrict the use of corporal punishment Johnny can still get a spanking and Geraldo can still have his knife taken away if he enters the school looking look-ing like a human Scud. We don't need legislation banning corporal punishment punish-ment What we need is a Help Wanted ad in the newspaper seeking the following: ' 'Needed Immediately: A wiry Utile gal for vice principal, prin-cipal, able to grab a teen-age heathen by the scruff of his neck for the purpose of impressing upon him the importance of education. Wimps and shrinks need not apply' Within one minute of my arrival I saw a scrawny kid shoved into a locker door by two stocky Neanderthals... Neander-thals... Within two minutes I was addressed in the hallway by several muddled brains who greeted me with, "Hey, dude, how's it hanging?" Within 10 minutes I watched a featured speaker get drowned out by a chorus of groin-related catcalls. And then I had a revealing chat with a teacher who bemoaned the state of his school "Realistically," he said, "there's very little education edu-cation taking place. I've got about 30 students registered for this class, but I'm fortunate if half of them actually show up on time. Once the class starts, I generally am talking to myself. The kids don't listen and they certainly don't do any homework. "Look at this grade book," he continued. "If a kid gets 30 percent or 40 percent of the possible points or correct answers, we pass him. We have tootherwise we'd be flunking dam near the entire group. If I give a 15 -minute homework assignment, I'm lucky if 25 percent per-cent of the students even bother to hand it in, and of those who hand it in, a good half of them have just |