Madam, - I am astounded at the naïve and wholly ignorant views of Vincent Browne in his column of January 26th, "Schools propagate inequality".
It seems evident that Mr Browne has not set foot in an Irish school in quite a few years. He hears of one incident involving a discipline issue and seems to glean from it that all schools in the country are authoritarian boot-camps with teachers out to subject pupils to their will.
This is far from the truth. If anything, in most schools, teachers are losing control over the classroom - not because an idealistic democratic system has taken over but because a small minority of wild, disrespectful and even violent teenagers now dominate.
I teach in a school which could be described as progressive, where due process is applied to all discipline issues, where students do have an opportunity to explain their actions and where pupils have an input into deciding school rules and policy. Unfortunately, propagating ideas of "equality" and "respect" is difficult - no, impossible - when there is a handful of children, in most classrooms, who have no respect for their peers or their teachers. Such students continually disrupt class and, frankly, deny education to the other pupils.
So what does Mr Browne recommend we do about this problem? Bring in "hugging" therapy? We listen, we discuss, we reason - but nothing works, not even traditional punishments such as detentions or suspensions. Some pupils have no fear of any punishment a school can meet out - even expulsion.
Why? Because the root cause of disciplinary problems do not lie in the schools but in the home. Parents have a duty to raise their children to respect others and to respect the idea of education. If they don't want to learn, what is the point of sending them to school every day? Schools cannot solve all the ills of society because the ultimate inculcation of "insidious values and ideas" happens in the family home. - Yours, etc.,
ED SMITH, Salthill, Galway.
Madam, - Vincent Browne describes a disciplinary incident in a school and says: "First there appears to have been no due process applied: no fair procedure to determine what was going on; no attempt to invite he student's point of view".
He gives no evidence that he attempted to get the school's point of view. He appears to have formed his judgment from having heard one side of the story and then proceeds from the particular to the general and states: "Indeed the whole school culture is wrong and this is a mere incidental example of how it is wrong".
This is not very helpful to the many schools and teachers who are trying to cope fairly and honestly with the increasingly difficult disciplinary problems they face each day. Maybe Mr Browne should reflect for a little longer before he rushes to conclusions. - Yours, etc.,
LOUIS O'FLAHERTY, Lorcan Drive, Dublin 9.