Discipline

What happened to discipline? Discipline within the student, within the content, within life. Where did it go? Will it come back? I am now a full time college student at the age of 29. I have been attending college for the last 7 years and I continue to see today’s generation change and it’s quite alarming.

As I mentioned before I am a long time college that was once a child. Hard to believe, but yes it’s true, we all are at some point in our lives. I can remember times when I hated my parents for how and when they disciplined me because I guess I was too young to really know what was right from wrong. Looking back at it all I can say I love them for it because it molded me into one fine young gentleman. When I misbehaved they let me know, when I was out of line they told me so, when I didn’t meet their expectations they made me aware, but from what I observe in today’s high schools, that kind of discipline is falling by the wayside. The students do not respect the teacher any longer. When there is a substitute, the students are worse than when their regular teacher is present. It was the opposite during my earlier years of school. When we had a substitute, we were made aware that we were to be better than when the regular teacher was there because if the substitute notified our regular teacher that we misbehaved, our class would pay. Sometimes we would have to write until our hand fell off, sometimes we would have to run almost until we were ready to throw up, and sometimes certain privileges were taken away, such as the rights to the computer use in class. It sure is different now, but I hope that something is done to change the view of today’s students. If nothing is done, I don’t see anything but heartache in the future, but I do believe it starts with students parents, and trying to change their views is going to take a miracle. God Bless America!

Wondering

Did you ever just sit by the window and stare into the sky? What did you see? How did it make you feel? Is anybody else doing the same thing you are at the same time? What did you think about?

I sometimes find myself starring into “space.” It helps clear my thoughts. It also reminds me that we shouldn’t take the things we have for granted. The air we breather, the water we drink, earths natural pleasures. How about the simplest things, a good example would be the leaves on the trees. Here it is, almost the end of November and there are still leaves on the trees, but look at the weather we had last week. Did “mother nature” have anything to do with it? What kinds of instincts does “she” have? The amount of wind and rain that we accumulated makes me wonder. In one night all of the trees lost there leaves near my house. Does the environment control itself? It almost looks that way. These are just some of the questions I sometimes ask myself.

What about the students in school? What do they think about? I guess we can all come up with some good one’s seeing that we were all there at one point. We remember what we thought about, but what about the students of today. I am a substitute teacher in a high school when I'm not in class at college. Some of the things that these students are talking about today, I would have never even considered when I was there age. Its funny how I can sit in the front of the room as their teacher for the day, but they will carry on conversations like they were sitting at home with there friends, like I am not even there. All you have to do is just listen, listen to their conversations. If we take the time to listen we can find out a lot about what they are thinking. We can figure out whether or not they need help, need someone to listen to them, need a challenge, need influence, and most need discipline.