You hear it in the news virtually every day,

“Youth given ASBO for graffiti.”

“Corner shop robbed, violent youths attack.”

It is starting to become a bore, all of the stories about the distressing state of the younger generation. You have to ask yourself; where are these kids going in life? The answer is, not very far.

To start I should clear a few things up. It’s not all youths that are like this, in fact it is only a tiny proportion that causes trouble, but in doing so they ruin the education and often the lives of the other kids in the classroom and also outside of school. Undoubtedly there has always been misbehaviour within young children and teenagers but only much recently has it become more of an issue. Not only has there been an increase in crime but also, more substantially, a decrease in discipline.

A typical comprehensive school classroom contains one teacher and thirty kids. No matter the age of the group or the ability of the group there are at least two or three kids that are intent on disrupting the learning of others. Attending school every day I have first hand experiences of this, even in the highest ability classes there are groups of kids that just will not do as they are told. And what does the teacher do about this? Nothing at all, this is where the problem lies. Kids spend the majority of their childhood in school, which is absolutely vital to setting them up for the future, a future which every child is entitled to. But this ideal is being spoilt by those very few, and it is the fault of the teachers, the Governors and the Government. Its all well and good investing £39.1 billion in education, for books, computers, facilities and various other things; but this investment is useless if the teacher does not have the power to control the class. There are kids who you would look at and think they are going absolutely nowhere in life and you would probably be correct, but this does not mean that we shouldn’t do anything about it and let them drag everybody else down with them.

Discipline in schools needs to be improved; it should not have to come down to the very youths themselves to make it clear what has to be done. We need to work together to raise the standards, and eventually make the headlines listed above a thing of the past.