Events that took place years ago have everything to do with today’s discipline in the classroom. We allowed the drug culture to enter our schools sometime around l967 or 68’. This culture can still be seen in old clips from various rock concerts showing mainly white students involved in drug activity. They brought it to the schools where unsuspecting teachers fought to maintain classroom discipline in an environment undergoing social change from without and within for it was also during that time that integration took place. There are very few of us remaining who were not touched by these events. We integrated our school systems here in Georgia somewhere around 1967 or 68’. At that time a few African-Americans attended white schools and a few white students attended black schools. It was a tremendous time of change, shock (assassinations) riots in streets, Vietnam and social unrest.

 I say without anything but remorse that we deprived the black children of our country an equal opportunity at education for many years prior to 67’ and many thereafter (most wanted equality in their own schools) but what I am writing about today has little to do with that except acknowledgement. One area that cost both races in our attempt to correct the problem of inequality was that of discipline in the classroom and it continues to be the major stumbling block of education today, for without discipline there can be no education in a classroom. Discipline may exist in the homes of the children who are lucky enough to have it in their homes but it will not exist in the classroom unless the teacher is entrusted with enforcing it.

We see a lack of classroom discipline at all levels of education today and I do mean all and there is a reason behind it. Teachers are afraid…oh here we go! Not me! I’m not afraid! Ok…you’re not afraid but other teachers are and it strikes at the heart of the problem. Let me explain by giving an example seen years ago and still existing today. Mrs. Smith has twenty five students in her class. Eighteen are white and seven are black. In 1968 Mrs. Smith had to ensure that if she disciplined a black student for an offense, she didn’t miss the opportunity to discipline the white student for the same offense.

Mrs. Smith, do not make the mistake of making that mistake, for if you do, you will be seen as racist and or not in touch with your surroundings and the mood of our country. To avoid not making that mistake Mrs. Smith chose to discipline neither student. After all, we’re talking about job security here. Now, it wasn’t the black student’s fault, or the white’s. Both suffered from a lack of discipline in the classroom and still suffer today (sometimes). As the years progressed and we saw a gradual deterioration in classroom discipline, some schools became more and more unruly. Teachers were more inclined to ignore bad behavior in an effort to shield themselves from the wrath of parents who would not believe and administrators who refused to believe what they saw. The answer to the discipline problem was seen in the black administrator, or the former white football coach, who could identify with the male students (black and white) in a way in which Mrs. Smith could not. We still see this today for it means job security for the black male administrator his white football coach counter- part and the classroom teacher.

Do the students, black and white pick up on this? Why, of course they do, and have for years. They’ve played the game right along with the teachers and administrators. Mass punishment (how I hate it) has become the rule in some classrooms for if little Johnny (black or white) can’t be quiet then everybody stands on their heads for five minutes.  Figuring if we make them all stand on their heads, we have maintained equality as it was meant to be and after all…wasn’t that what we were after forty years ago? We suffer from a lack of trust in our schools that says a black teacher or a white teacher does not have sense enough to find fault with a particular student, regardless of race, and remediate from there. Fear and lack of trust…the hallmarks of racism hidden in the guise of equality in our public schools. When you combine the aforementioned with the breakdown of the family and drugs in our schools, is it any wonder our children can’t read or write?