THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 19, 1996 TAG: 9602160009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 37 lines
It's time for teachers to be able to teach class the way I was taught: with a hard hand.
I was taught discipline at home and again at school. I never talked backed to my teachers; and if I was late to class without a valid excuse (``My alarm didn't go off'' doesn't count), I was kept after class to be punished with five or more hits of the paddle. A charge of abuse didn't come into play; I was in the wrong for interrupting class.
Laws have changed. The students, not the teachers, are now for the most part dictating how the classes are run. And the parents are unconsciously helping them.
The teachers are scared of losing their jobs. The students are complaining to the parents that they are being treated too roughly; the parents are complaining to the principal that their child is being abused; and the principal is disciplining the teacher for trying to keep an orderly class.
What ever happened to teachers' rights?
If many of these students were disciplined properly at home, teachers wouldn't have to discipline, or at least try to discipline, the students so hard. Guns wouldn't be carried to class by elementary-school students, and teachers wouldn't get beat up by their students.
Let's give the right to discipline students back to the teachers. It will benefit all of us - and mainly the students - in the long run.
MARK E. DUFFY
Virginia Beach, Feb. 4, 1996 by CNB