Problem kids are ruining our education system

WHEN it comes to kids behaving badly, tough consequences for poor actions are the least that is called for. So why aren’t we doing even that, asks Ann Wason Moore.

SOME of my best friends used to be teachers.

But they’re not anymore.

Oh, we’re still friends. And they still work in a classroom. But, by their own admission, they no longer teach.

Instead, they manage behaviours. Bad behaviours.

I’d like to stress that these teachers — I mean, managers — don’t work at the school where my children attend. They work at state schools — and none at the same one.

These friends taught me well to pay the extra money and go the private route. It hurts our family’s pocket, badly. But apparently you really do get what you pay for.

That’s not better grades, necessarily, but a better cohort.

Why? Because private schools can kick out the bad apples. Whereas state schools have to manage them into a position where there is nowhere left to turn but out the exit door. And by that time, the damage is done.

As a teacher mate explained it to me: “Education Queensland won’t let us exclude any child until we have gone through every last step of an exhaustive process.

“We have to prove that we have both developed and enacted a specific strategy and only once the student has failed to reform can we take action.

“Or they see the counsellor who recommends they go to a specialist which the parent can’t afford. It’s no-win.

More and more teachers are reporting that students no longer respect them the way they used to. (Pic: supplied)

“By the time the student actually leaves, it’s too late. The classroom has been disrupted and lessons have been interrupted. The only thing learned is how to behave badly and get attention. It’s viral.”

This is not a high school problem. Or rather, not just a high school problem.

Kids from prep are swearing not just in front of, but to their teachers. And using fists as well as words.

Some parents are horrified, some defend their child’s behaviour, but some parents don’t say anything at all.

As a prep teacher told me: “The ones I most need to see never show up.”

There’s another issue at play too, the big bully on the education block: NAPLAN.

The official description of this standardised test insists that the results of the tests are there purely to provide information for students, parents, teachers and principals about student achievement which can be used to inform teaching and learning programs.

But the fact is that parents use them to rank schools. And the schools know this. Loss of students means loss of funding, which means NAPLAN is to be feared.

With the rise of the super state school — the ‘independent’ academy with an excellence program, schools know students who score well will be looking to move over to these brains magnets.

The problems teachers are facing are across public, private and independent schools. (Pic: iStock)

So they need to bulk up their data in whatever way they can. And one of those ways is to curb suspensions. It looks bad, even if letting this behaviour slide feels worse.

But make no mistake, this bad behaviour doesn’t start at school. Something has happened in the home. Whether we, as parents, are too permissive, too detached, too busy or a combination of all of the above — plus more, something has changed.

I see it in my own children. The way they speak to my husband and me can leave our jaws hanging. No way would we ever have spoken to our parents like that.

And we didn’t raise them to speak this way either. For goodness sake, ‘idiot’ is a swear word in our household. But we’ve gone wrong somewhere.

Fortunately, our school is there to back up the behavioural guide we set at home. They have teeth and they’re not afraid to use them.

Not that I’m for one second advocating corporal punishment, I find it disgusting. But tough consequences for poor actions are the least that is called for.

I’m confident that it’s not just the private or super state schools that offer a world-class education.

I’m not a snob — our family is fortunate that we could make the sacrifices to send our kids where we wanted — and the last thing I want to do is slag off the state schools, especially the battlers.

It’s simply not fair that teachers can’t do their jobs.

I’m just trying to help out some mates. And, hopefully, our kids.

Originally published as Problem kids are ruining our education system