You have to wonder what the world is coming to when teachers are threatened with physical violence by parents. What sort of a poor example does this set for our children, that the only way to resolve disputes is with name-calling, intimidation and bullying?
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As the Department of Education’s worrying report reveals, these aren’t isolated incidents. Across Wagga, indeed across the state, parents’ attitudes to teachers have swung wildly and appear to be taking an adversarial stance.
These incredibly selfish parents are not only behaving like absolute ratbags, they’re undermining their child’s future, setting them up for failure by showing them they should argue the toss at every opportunity and get violent when they don’t get their own way.
The children have obviously learnt from their parent’s behaviour, with an alarming number of assaults happening on school grounds. Some of them even think it’s appropriate to record these attacks, no doubt to publish online, only to have them become evidence in a courtroom down the track.
And with all of the attention being devoted to these naughty children, there’s no way the majority of good students don’t suffer as a result.
At a time when violence is becoming an increasing problem in our society, can we really afford to let another generation go thinking authority can be challenged and that it’s OK to use fists to resolve conflict? We’ve already seen far too many young people killed in coward punch attacks and drug-fuelled assaults and sadly, it seems as though that bad behaviour is being demonstrated in our schools too.
Wagga needs to take a long, hard look at itself and ask whether or not it’s acceptable to have this kind of behaviour. But then the tough part is calling out those ratbags when they brag about bullying a teacher or having a go at a cop. Tell them they’re acting like idiots and need to pull their heads in.
Pauline Hanson was rightly slammed when she suggested removing children with disabilities from mainstream classrooms earlier this year, but instead of getting rid of the good kids with disabilities, maybe we should get rid of the bad parents that are raising a generation of troublemakers.
People need to take little personal responsibility – parents and students alike – and if the kids aren’t doing well at school, turn off the Playstation instead of whinging at the teachers.
