What's wrong with kids today...

In the wake of the VT tragedy everybody seems to have a lot to say about guns and the crazy people who use them for such senseless reasons, but I want to say something about our schools and what they show me.

For the last 2 months I have been working in an inner city school just North of MWC, OK. I have seen about 7 or 8 fist fights just between the 23 3rd graders in my class. I have watched a 5th grade student solicate students change at the vending machines and noone even argue with him because of how scared they are of him and his gang banger older brother who is at a MWC highschool. I have witnessed a teacher quit with less than two months of classes left because "it just wasn't worth it"...I have been harrased by 5th grade students who only respond to phone calls home to mom or dad (because their parents hate to be bothered, so they spank the tar out of their children if they get a phone call). This school has a room just for In School Suspension and a principal just for discipline. All of us teachers carry cell phones because students won't leave our classrooms when they are sent to the principal and often have to be escorted. I have seen 4 or 5 seperate 3rd grade students so filled with rage that they have flipped desks over. I could go on...

Now this school is an extreme situation, but I believe it could be a window into the future. The issue isn't spanking children vs. alternate forms of discipline, I would even argue that it isn't completely about God being taken out of school (as many claim it is)...I say the issue is love. Most of the children I see on a day to day basis are not being loved enough...Some are not loved at all...some are only loved when they are good...some only get attention when they are bad.

Schools are not the problem today. Myself and my fellow teachers didn't make these kids this way, their parents did. I hear all the time how schools are failing our children, the truth is that the world needs to wake up and see that parents are failing their children. When did it become the schools responsiblity to teach discipline, morals, self respect, character, etc...

Sure schools have always helped parents foster these ideas, but schools can't initiate these ideas. We have these kids 8 hours a day for less that 9 months out of the year. That is a lot of time, but not nearly enough time to undue the harm that has been done to them, and not nearly enough time to love them as much as the need.