Australia needs to grow up to solve its education problems | Caleb Bond

From gentle parenting to participation trophies, is it any surprise no one wants to teach Australian kids anymore, writes Caleb Bond.

We, as a nation, have to grow up if we want to arrest the teacher shortage.

In the past two decades we have regressed rather than progressed – both academically and socially.

The education system is set to be more than 4000 teachers short next year as thousands give up on teaching because they’ve had enough of the nonsense.

Honestly – who’d want to be a teacher these days?

Well, there’s one group quite happy to take up the mantle – Marxist activists who want to infiltrate young minds.

As I have written about previously, a Western Sydney University study last year found that students see Anzac history as “deadly boring” and “irrelevant” and two-thirds can’t connect with Federation and the spirit of the Anzacs.

When the curriculum and classrooms have been so successfully captured by activists, is it any wonder that teachers who actually want to teach throw up their hands and walk away?

Teaching seems to be a secondary consideration for some schools.

The Programme for International Student Assessment last year found that nearly half of schoolchildren don’t meet the national standard for maths and reading.

You could have knocked me over with a feather when NAPLAN results last week showed Catholic schools that went back to direct instruction fared better.

A teacher can’t even hug a primary-aged student anymore out of encouragement or support.

Male teachers, in particular, are afraid of being alone in a classroom with a student for fear of accusations of impropriety.

And it doesn’t help that the kids have gone soft.

There are no winners and losers in school and junior sport anymore – it’s all just for the fun.

They don’t learn resilience through winning and losing on the field – rather they expect constant praise because in sport they always get a trophy – and so they can’t hack it when the teachers tell them they’ve done something wrong.

And then come the tantrums.

Discipline has disappeared from both homes and classrooms.

The trend of gentle parenting has created maladjusted children whose bad behaviour is excused and every whim indulged to the point of irreversible selfishness.

Dare to call them out and they play the victim.

Those kids, naturally, take that behaviour to schools where teachers are no longer allowed to provide discipline for fear of retribution.

Teachers are routinely abused, assaulted and disrespected by unruly children – and their equally entitled parents.

At my old school, Mrs London was a fearsome and surly character best known for yelling at her students.

At least that’s what I thought until she was my Year 6 teacher and I discovered that she cared deeply about her students and their success – and her wrath was reserved for those who stood in the way of that.

She gave some of the best dressings down I have ever witnessed and went above and beyond to get the most out of her students.

I still consult the 1970s Oxford concise dictionary she used in her university days – a parting gift to me when she retired.

That’s what is missing from the classroom these days – and what I’m sure a lot of teachers who’ve resigned wished they could do.

If we had a few more Mrs Londons, the world would be a better place.