December 10, 2001

Dear Sir,

While I never condone the frequent and often reckless use of industrial action in this country, I must say that I sympathise with the teachers of CedarBridge for refusing to teach incorrigible students.

A few weeks ago I encountered one of these student, and after requesting that he desist from his objectionable behaviour in a public place, I realised that I had come face to face with the cold dead eyes of a sociopath. This "Child" seems to me, destined to jail or worse. I would not like to meet him a dark street. A sociopath requires a psychiatrist, not a teacher.

However, I am not suggesting that all of these children are sociopaths. Who do we blame? I blame the collective psyche of Bermuda that for generations has placed no emphasis on education. People somehow managed to prosper without education, and those who didn't prosper where either thwarted by lack of opportunities or from poor teaching. I'll go even further and say that those who displayed any academic flair were belittled as sissies or weird.

How do we deal with these out of control young men and the sad morose world-weary young women who seem to be disturbed by any request to do anything involving locomotion.

I think that like maternity leave, mothers should be granted "delinquency leave" with pay, in which they are forced to attend school with their "little darlings" for at least a term and learn what teachers have to put up with. The mother, as well as taking an active part in disciplining the child, will ensure that her child does homework, and is encouraged to learn. I think the money we pay to keep Mummy at school with her child will be trifling in comparison to what we might have to pay in the future to support these children in jail.

I have used the terms mothers, as it appears that many Bermudian men have abandoned any semblance of parenting other than child-support and some don't even want to do that.

Bermuda has a reputation of being a land of polite people. While this may be true of some of the older generation, the "Have everything" generation that is growing up, is rude, crude for the sake of being crude and loud and disrespectful.

While people have been complaining about the younger generation since the time of Plato. I think we are raising a generation of some unsalvageable delinquents, in addition to many kids who are unable to write properly or to speak properly. Most of these kids are incapable of passing the most basic exams that would enable them to pursue a higher education.

J. K. WILLIAMS

City of Hamilton