It takes a village, but WA young people are being abandoned by theirs

Sadly, after four-plus decades of working in education, I am increasingly feeling that our schools are becoming counter-cultural, whistling in the wind about the importance of a values-driven life.

But how do our young people make sense of such messages when they frequently see adult behaviour that models neither kindness nor respect?

We all know the proverb “it takes a village to raise a child” and it feels to me our young people are witnessing an increasingly disrespectful village.

All Saints’ College principal Belinda Provis with students at the school in Perth, WA.

While we are all appalled to read of teachers’ shocking experiences of anti-social and violent behaviour by some students – including a number of very young children – let’s not forget, in attempting to address this, that schools do not exist in a vacuum.

There is delight in reporting the name-calling and disparaging comments uttered by some elected leaders in this country towards anyone who disagrees with them.

Road-rage footage is common on the nightly news, and I even recall over the recent festive season, supposedly a time of goodwill to all, a retail spokesperson pleading through our TV screens for Christmas customers to stop physically assaulting shop assistants.

We don’t have to look too much further to see other examples of the village modelling undesirable behaviour. A quick skim through social media comments shows the vitriol some adults display when someone dares suggest a differing view.

Our young people are witnessing all of this behaviour and more every day.

Students also carry into the classroom a range of external stressors – family issues and struggles; atrocities in Europe and the Middle East bombarding their social media; existential concerns about our warming planet.

Related to this, we received in February the report from a Senate inquiry into declining classroom behaviour and aspects of this, I fear, may be a case of treating symptoms rather than causes.

There is no doubt the report’s statistics are alarming, with Australia ranking 69 out of 76 countries on the OECD’s disciplinary climate index – Australian classrooms described as among the world’s “least favourable” for classroom discipline and behaviour, with almost a quarter of teachers reporting feeling unsafe.

And 2023 data in the Australian Council for Educational Research’s recent social-emotional wellbeing survey showed an increase in our young people’s stress and anxiety levels from 2018, confirming patterns evident since 2003.

Over half of secondary students now report feeling “very stressed”, and one in three girls reported, over the past six months, they felt hopeless and down almost every day and had ceased usual activities.

In the classroom, we would all agree every student, teacher and education assistant deserves the right to learn and work in a safe and respectful environment.

So where can we, as a community, start?

Rather than expecting too much from a new behaviour curriculum teachers may be asked to deliver, or reverting to increasingly irrelevant, traditional classrooms with desks in rows, facing the front – both responses suggested in the recent Senate inquiry – why don’t we, as a community, make a resolution to model the behaviour we expect from the young people in our village, and to call out bad behaviour when we see it?

While not diminishing the many complex social concerns in our world and community, a positive first step could be calling for all the adults in our village, and especially our elected leaders, to model basic courtesy and respect as a core responsibility.

Just as it is a minority of students who behave inappropriately in schools, thankfully it is not all of our leaders who behave badly.

But even one leader’s rude and disrespectful behaviour is significantly concerning to those of us who work in schools as it gives our young people permission to also behave badly.

How about we call for a ban on name-calling and other disparaging comments from our leaders – that is behaviour I know most schools would not accept in classrooms nor school yards, yet it is witnessed regularly.

An inquiry into politicians behaving badly might highlight many of the same issues the recent inquiry into classrooms has called out, including verbal abuse, tantrums, calling out when not appropriate, and showing a lack of respect.

The majority of our nation’s students are fabulous young people who intend to become good adults, parents and leaders of tomorrow.

In support of this our country desperately needs them to witness kind, respectful, inclusive and values-driven adults and role models in their village.

Maybe then more teachers would stay in the profession, feeling supported in their work by the village?

But that’s a topic for another day.

Get fascinating insights and explanations on the world’s most perplexing topics. Sign up for our weekly Explainer newsletter.