Arbeit macht frei: - Fredrick Töben

themselves, rather than have them vent their frustrations on individuals
and social institutions.
Tribunals
Finally, discrimination, the essence of developed, sophisticated taste, is
presented to students as unreasonable behaviour, to be pursued by antidiscrimination
tribunals. It amazes me that basics, such as the fact that
learning cannot take place if environment and students remain
undisciplined, have been ignored for so long.
However, it will serve no-one’s interests to have the force of law brought
into our schools, except perhaps in the form of the friendly police officer
who may occasionally have to remind students of their civic rights and
duties.
Our current disciplinary problems appear to have reached a point where
individual schools have no alternative but to tighten up and discard the
nonsense disciplinary ideologies of the past 20 years. It is a facts that the
1950s and ‘60s did not throw up too many serious discipline problems,
but then these decades were not afflicted by drug problems either. Nor
was there the pernicious sexual harassment ideology to tear apart malefemale
relationships. Any primary teacher knows how to deal with rude
behaviour without recourse to sexual harassment thinking; unfortunately
teachers cannot follow Frank Dando’s advice for fear of having a writ
slapped on them by some aggrieved parents.
And there we are, at the crucial point, the family unit. Is school discipline
merely reflecting what is happening in our families? How many students
are left to their own devices while father and mother work to keep the
family home intact?
Or, is this question another form of scapegoating, of teachers relinquishing
their professional responsibility by not ensuring that schools have a
disciplined learning environment?
Fredrick Töben, Church Street, Goroke 3412
In 1992 I gained South Australian teacher registration and taught at
Marryatville High School from 1994 to 1997, before the Adelaide Institute
became a full-time job, and more, for me.
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