Hold Parents accountable for their child’s lack of manners

The Florida Patriot June 24th 2012

Growing up as a child in the 1970′s in Miami from the time I can remember I was taught to open doors for ladies and respect my elders. I was not a perfect student and neither were my friends, however, in my whole educational experience I cannot remember anyone ridiculing or disrespecting a teacher, bus monitor or other school employee to their face in a bullying manner especially. As a matter of fact, back in my day we didn’t need bus monitors to control school students during the bus ride. This week the especially harsh bullying of 68 year old bus monitor Karen Klein should make alot of Americans take a very hard look in the mirror when it comes to their parenting skills, and wondering why our country’s scores in schools are falling behind.

Far too often, many cable news pundits and politicians want to point a finger at public school teachers and say they are not doing their job. Teachers these days are now responsible for teaching manners, civility, and other things and still find time to teach math, science and don’t the forget the all important FCAT. This reminds me of a time in 6th grade (1980) when three boys were giving a substitute teacher a particularly hard time and the substitute left and came back with our assistant principal. The assistant principal assembled the entire 6th grade and gave 3 paddles a piece to these three boys during the beginning of the year. For the rest of the year I cannot remember a similar incident or problem of this magnitude happening again.

Imagine what would occur if this incident were to happen today? The assistant principal would be criminally charged with assault and battery, the children would be whisked away for psychological counseling, and the parents would hire Gloria Allred to sue the school system for multi-millions. We are teaching this generation that they are untouchable, they do not have to be accountable for their actions, and that there are no consequences for their actions. How is a school teacher with 30 or more children supposed to teach biology or algebra with these distractions?

Some say that Private For Profit Charter Schools are the answer to this problem. How many parents are actually sitting at the kitchen table and helping their children with their homework instead of watching American Idol? If we take the same kids that arent’ being taught manners and move them to a different type school how have we fixed the problem?

Why don’t we start holding the parents of the children causing the problems accountable? Currently, John curses out his teacher and gets sent to the principal, given detention, a note to take home etcetera and the parent that failed this child is unaffected and the behavior continues. What would happen if John cursed out his teacher and John and a parent had to spend their Saturday cleaning the school/in study hall in the library? Why don’t we start a program like this in the elementary schools and I can guarantee you that John’s parent/parents are going to get tired of cleaning the school bathrooms/attending study hall on the weekends and this childs behavior would improve. Think of how many young men we could change and give a great education to instead of have them continue on the same way until they drop out and start committing crimes. Let’s give the school teachers a hand by making parents be accountable and at the same time give the children who want to learn a chance to without class being disrupted constantly.