School indiscipline
Sir; Concern about the increasing use of violence by pupils against teachers Should be balanced by concern about the much more frequent use of violence by teachers against pupils. Yet the discussion by Rhodes Boyson and F. E. Chappell of the new phenomenon of adolescent children attacking teachers (November 8) doesn't even mention the old tradition of teachers attacking adolescent and even pre-adolescent Children. In my own good schools in respectable areas a generation ago I remember women teachers hitting boys and girls in primary school and men teachers 'hitting boys in secondary school. Now I find the same pattern still occurring in my children's good schools in respectable areas. It is not surprising if some psychologically weak and Physically strong children eventually learn the lesson they are taught so well for so long, and turn the violence practised against them against those who have practised it as soon as they are big enough to do so. It is no good worrying about home backgrounds, Classroom discipline, and the schoolleaving age while forgetting the one • factor which has the most direct bearing on the problem. And the question is not how to punish the pupils but how to teach the teachers who bully children until they become bullies in their turn. The cycle must be broken by the adults who are chiefly responsible for maintaining it,
Nicolas Walter 134 Northumberland Road, Harrow •
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