young people today...
Sunday, 19 June 2005 06:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eSo many times I hear someone begin a complaint with "Young people today..."
It is weird. It is like we never learn. Or we steadfastly close our eyes to the reality of the world around us while developing selective amnesia of our earlier years. How is it that people can say that kids today are worse than "when I was young"? I distinctly remember teachers getting punched out by students when I was young (30 or 40 years ago), students ganging up and beating the living crap out of each other, and teachers inflicting horrifying tortures as punishment upon kids for quite spurious reasons.
But these days teachers are often livid when a kid talks back to them or refuses to carry out orders. "We should be able to beat it into them," as if teaching how to be cruel ever fixed anything. "Discipline, that's what's missing," as if forcing your will on someone else ever had good and uplifting results.
What it says to me is that teachers haven't been properly equipped to attract kids into doing the right things. We have all heard of inspired teachers who effortlessly keep kids interested and laughing, who get impossible children to listen and learn.
This is what is needed, not more of the old-style beatings.
It is weird. It is like we never learn. Or we steadfastly close our eyes to the reality of the world around us while developing selective amnesia of our earlier years. How is it that people can say that kids today are worse than "when I was young"? I distinctly remember teachers getting punched out by students when I was young (30 or 40 years ago), students ganging up and beating the living crap out of each other, and teachers inflicting horrifying tortures as punishment upon kids for quite spurious reasons.
But these days teachers are often livid when a kid talks back to them or refuses to carry out orders. "We should be able to beat it into them," as if teaching how to be cruel ever fixed anything. "Discipline, that's what's missing," as if forcing your will on someone else ever had good and uplifting results.
What it says to me is that teachers haven't been properly equipped to attract kids into doing the right things. We have all heard of inspired teachers who effortlessly keep kids interested and laughing, who get impossible children to listen and learn.
This is what is needed, not more of the old-style beatings.