MANY may take it for granted, but the job of teachers is quite challenging as the behavioural patterns of students today require them to be more than just deliverers of the curriculum.
Today, society has changed considerably. The strong family values and discipline that existed about 45 years ago have faced erosion and at times the ripple effects of indiscipline manifest among learners.

In fact, it was less than two years ago that former Education Minister, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, had posited that unbecoming conduct in the society has been having an effect on the school system.
In an interview with this newspaper, he said thusly: “The breakdown in discipline is unfortunately not just in the schools, but in society as a whole. The violence and indiscipline in society [are] leaking into the school system. Schools are not isolated from their communities, where personal violence and robbery occur; and it is getting into the schools, making our work more difficult.”

He was at the time speaking soon after a violent fight between two city students. The two 13-year-old students — one from Charlestown Secondary and the other from St George’s Secondary — were hospitalised following the fight that reportedly stemmed from an incident that occurred when they were in primary school.
One student was reportedly stabbed on the shoulder with a broken bottle, while the other suffered blows to the mouth and thumb in the fight that occurred on Church Street, Georgetown.

This is just one of several incidents that have gained public attention in recent times, but there are others which were never reported.
And in many cases, these are students teachers find very difficult to control. Generally speaking, in many instances, the indiscipline is believed to have a nexus with inadequate supervision in the home and an erosion of acceptable norms.
This is an area that requires research and one which researchers would find interesting.
But some have been attributing the breakdown in values and discipline to the introduction of television here; openly verbal and physically abusive parents; the absence of strong family support systems; and the rise in single-parent families, where single-parent mothers have to work to provide for their children.

Many see the latter as an established fact. With lack of family support, these parents, some of whom were not in the first place prepared to be parents, find it too burdensome to manage work and keep tabs on their children, while dealing with the other stresses of life.
This lack of supervision in many instances result in the children not being properly schooled in good behaviour, respect for authority and the value of education, among other important values necessary for their growth and development.

These shortcomings oftentimes are the causes for teachers to be much more that role models and people who transmit the formal education curricula. For the students who are experiencing social problems, they have to serve the role as guidance counsellors.
For those who are indisciplined and disruptive, they are required to be gentle but firm disciplinarians; coach for those weak in self-esteem and mediators for classroom quarrels, while doing their work diligently and managing their challenges outside the work environment.

Given the challenges they encounter in doing their jobs, they require support, and it is good to know that the Ministry of Education has not so long ago moved to provide much-needed support with the establishment of 10 counselling rooms in Georgetown which work every school day.

Encouragingly too, Chief Education Officer Marcel Hutson, who has been in the education system for years, has also seen the need to extend the service to hinterland schools and the vision to provide all schools with counsellors.
This will go a long way in helping dedicated teachers to function in the classroom without any unnecessary disruption, which by extension affects willing learners.