By the time former soldiers are summoned to the classroom to remove disruptive pupils how much damage will already have been done? What are the other pupils and their teachers doing meantime? What will former military personnel be able to do that teachers and parents can’t do?
“No homework again, John Smith? Just stand in front of this wall then while we put on this blindfold?”
A school in Blackpool is hiring former soldiers to deal with disruptive pupils. How would you feel if your child’s school admitted such children, to sit with your child? How would your fellow parents feel about your child’s school spending money like this because other parents had not done their job properly?
Before children go anywhere near a school their parents have four or five years to prepare them, much greater more powers over them and far more opportunities to teach them to understand “Yes” and “no,” “Please” and “thank you,” “Yours and mine.”
It would be better to require, help and encourage parents to their fulfil their role, the most important in the world, even if we had to adjust benefit levels and tax codes in order to do so.
If we want military discipline for teenagers, allow them to leave school at fourteen to join full-time cadet corps. Education could be a component of their training.
[For the geeks: students learn, pupils are sent to learn.]