KID GLOVES APPROACH NOT ENOUGH
PARENTS must be the key to turning around the behaviour of disruptive elements in the state’s primary and secondary schools.
Yet as the Queensland Teachers Union warns, it is an increasing number of adults who are posing a great threat to teacher safety and the classroom environment.
As the Bulletin reports today, suspensions or expulsions from state schools last year amounted to Gold Coast kids missing an astounding total of 600 days a week. It looks bad.
The schools should not be blamed though for such figures.
Administrators are doing all they can with the options available.
What the data exposes however is a concerning level of poor behaviour that needs addressing across the board and not just when the kids walk through the school gate.
We applaud schools for punting students when they have to – either temporarily in most instances, or permanently when all else has failed in halting an accumulation of poor behaviour and bad attitude, or when the student commits a transgression that just cannot be tolerated.
Violent and disruptive elements have to be removed from classrooms.
The good kids should not have their future ruined by a few who are out of control. Schools that show problem students the door, for a few hours or days or permanently, are doing the right thing. What of the parents though?
Most whose children are handed a suspension are decent people who just want the best for their kids. They need to and will support the school.
The question however is how far teachers, administrators and indeed the rest of the kids in a disrupted class should go to accommodate badly behaved students – and the parents who may be struggling.
At some point, parents or guardians have to take control of life on the home front and therefore at school, despite their own issues with work-life balance or with children who are high maintenance.
Some children are put back on track by being diverted into specialist areas, where a significant degree of one-on-one instruction can save young lives and give these students an opportunity in life. This is very commendable and must continue.
The irony of course is that the brightest kids are often denied that level of personalised attention, and the majority of kids who are well behaved are left in crowded classrooms to take their chances in life.
QTU representative Jodie Walsh writes in the Bulletin today about shocking behaviour coming from a growing number of parents. Ms Walsh lists daily abuse, threats, vexatious complaints and online harassment as a poison destroying the safe working environment of teachers – and therefore the learning environment for children. Heaven help the offspring of adults who carry on like that.
Intimidation of school officers and teachers should attract the same strict penalties that apply to idiots who verbally and physically abuse police and paramedics.