It has become more and more evident that discipline is confused with education.
Teachers and school management have to deal with disciplinary matters on a daily basis.
Parents, please note that in a school there are learning areas or subjects taught to your child to prepare them for life.
Subjects such as languages to enhance their literacy skills, mathematics to enhance numeracy and critical thinking, life skills to enhance social cohesion and so on.
These subjects are taught on a daily basis so that your child can progress to the next grade.
There is no subject like discipline taught at any public school.
If you want that subject included in the curriculum, then send your child to a military school.
That subject or learning area is taught at home, by the parents, from an early age.
Positive enforcing of discipline at home will create a conducive environment for teaching and learning at school.
When parents are called, by a teacher or school management, to address a disciplinary matter, they are met with denial of the matter or place the problem at the door of the school.
Parents are quick to be on the offensive and not deal with the matter at hand.
Often teachers have to be the ones to say no to children because parents are afraid of falling out of favour with their child.
Parents, you are the primary educators of your child.
The foundation of education is discipline, not only in behaviour, but in all aspects of life.
Schools are there to enhance discipline and prepare your child for the world job market, but the home is there to prepare your child for the world and for life.
My late parents used to remind us that they are raising us to be a mirror of the home.
These basic lessons learnt at home have over the years put us in good stead to be able to make it in life.
Discipline in education is also how you prepare your child, by the way they dress, how they speak to adults, and with their peers.
When a pupil swears at or spits at a teacher, we are asked by the parent, "what did you do to provoke that behaviour?"
Unbecoming behaviour by pupils is quickly placed at the desk of a clinical psychologist to try find out what the problem is.
Teachers are constantly reminded that they have to be sensitive as the child is attending psychology sessions.
Parents, let us go back to the basics. You are the parent and not the friend of your child. You are the primary educator or teacher of your child.
You are the enforcer of discipline in your home, and we are there to enhance discipline.
Education is like a three-legged pot, if one leg is broken, then education fails.
Educator in distress, Gqeberha
