I'm a school teacher. My current class is second year primary school. Second year is a good year to teach. The kids know what's expected of them and they're generally willing to learn. You have to lean on the odd one or two sometimes, but generally a growl is all that's required. It's rare for that age group to push the boundaries too far during class.
You do get the odd trouble-maker every so often. I had a new little boy in my class, transferred in from another school. As a matter of course I'd rung the previous school to get some background on the kid. When the office answered and found out who I was asking about I heard the woman laugh, and the call was transferred.
The next person on the line turned out to be the kid's teacher. When I mentioned him, she also laughed, wished me luck because, she said, I'd be needing it. The only thing she'd say about the boy was that they'd had some discipline problems with him.
So little Johnny joined my class, and I had some discipline problems with him. To put it mildly, he was a little shit. No. I should rephrase that. He was a stinking turd of a kid who contaminated the whole class with his stench. Not a physical stench, but a psychic one.
All kids are selfish, but learn to control it. Not Johnny. He wanted what he wanted, when he wanted it, and everyone else was supposed to give way. He was a rude aggressive bully, a standover merchant in the making.
Reasoning didn't work. Standing in the corner was useless because he wouldn't do it. Assigning extra homework was a waste of time because he wouldn't even do his normal homework. Detention and timeout meant nothing to little Johnny.
I finally worked out the reason he'd been transferred was because his previous school kicked him out. He was a teacher's nightmare, uncontrolled and disruptive. Not learning anything himself and effectively hindering the other children.
Now at my school, corporal punishment was permitted if warranted, and Johnny sure warranted it. The catch was that the kid's parent had to agree to any corporal punishment and Johnny's mother wouldn't. I invited her in to discuss the problem after school one day.
His mother, Eva by name, rolled up, late. Little Johnny joined some other late kids out in the playground while I chatted to Eva. She was quite an attractive young woman. Considering her age and Johnny's age she must have been barely legal when she had him. She was besotted with the little brute.
I explained the problems I and the school generally were having with Johnny. She smiled and pointed out it was just his way of expressing himself. I explained that he was disrupting the class and Eva said that the others would get used to him. I told her about the problems I was having trying to discipline Johnny and she got most indignant. I had no right to try to discipline him. Johnny had to be free to express himself, or how could he develop as a person?
How did she discipline him? It turned out she didn't. Johnny did what he wanted and she let him. I was starting to see what Johnny's problem was. He had a feather brained idiot for a mother. It also turned out that his father was absent and not expected back. (Probably jumped a tramp steamer and headed off to Asia in frantic flight.)
I carefully explained that children needed rules and boundaries. She disagreed.
I explained that in school a certain amount of discipline was required from the children. She agreed, providing it didn't interfere with Johnny's self-determination.
I told her that Johnny's behaviour had reached a point that corporal punishment seemed the only way to go. Eva strongly disagreed. Brutalise her poor child? Only over her dead body would such a thing happen.
I suggested that maybe Johnny would be happier at another school. Eva dithered slightly at that and then gave a long explanation. It turned out that no other school in the area would take him. He'd had three schools in his first year and we were the second for his second year. None of the others in the area wanted him back. Understandable in my opinion.
I explained that giving Johnny a spanking wouldn't actually injure him. All it would do was make his bottom smart and hopefully make him realise that he'd overstepped the mark. It would be a salutary experience for him. I waxed eloquent, giving a lucid explanation, promising that Johnny and the school would both be better off and the improvement might even carry over to his home life.
Eva disagreed. Johnny should be allowed to do what Johnny wanted.
No matter what argument I put forward, that damn woman ignored it. The problems we were having at the school weren't Johnny's fault. We just didn't understand him.
I understood Johnny alright. A spoilt rotten kid who needed some immediate discipline. To be fair to him, he was really quite intelligent and should do well. He was just acting the way he'd learnt was the easiest way to get what he wanted. Teach him a new way and he'd be fine.
What I didn't understand was a woman who had no concept of the long range effect of her ideas of child raising. She was raising a potentially nice kid to be a total failure. My irritation with Johnny was rapidly turning into irritation with his mother and anger that she was acting like this.
