We were posted at the front of a large public high school auditorium in the Land of the Free in 2015. Both of us were responsible for maintaining some semblance of order as 150 to 200 students socialized, did homework, and ate lunch.

I can’t tell you what my partner saw, but I saw girls sitting on their boyfriends’ laps. I noticed a student climbing over chairs to get from A to B. Some students were throwing things.

We discouraged all this, of course, but the scene reminded me of Wild West cattle drives I’d seen on TV. I was a 61-year-old soon-to-retire teacher at the time, and my partner was a “bouncer,” aka disciplinary assistant, in his late 20s. This handsome young black man turned to me at one point during this chaotic time and observed, “These kids don’t know how to act.”

If feral students were the measure of a nation’s wealth, America would be the richest nation on earth. At the beginning of the 21st Century, we have an epidemic of parents unwilling to parent and educators unwilling to discipline in our country.

Image by Fotor AI.

Later today, I will go “once more unto the breach.” Where am I going? I will substitute at a public middle school somewhere in the USA. Why do I compare myself to Henry V in his armed assault against Harfleur in Shakespeare’s play Henry V? Because I will face classes of 30 students with varying degrees of readiness for learning. Some of them will face me angry that they are getting compulsory education, and because there are other personal struggles bearing down on them.

I do this because they pay me for these episodes of masochism. I also do it because I still enjoy it. I like learning new stuff and imparting it to others. I love seeing lights turn on occasionally behind the eyes of my students!

The problem of feral teens is not new. I was a feral teen because my parents did not take the time to civilize me. I am less feral now, depending on who you talk to. Others did the job my parents ducked, and the “school of hard knocks” did its part.

If President Trump truly wants to make America Great Again, this problem of feral young people must be addressed. We must be willing to civilize in schools and say no to student misbehavior.

Civilizing students is not a popular idea these days. No one wants to do it. On one occasion, when I was still a teacher, I sent a boy to the office with a referral for disrupting my class. After school, I went to see the student’s administrator to follow up on the referral.

I gave a narrative of the incident and asked what consequences the young man would receive. The administrator assured me that the young man understood his error and would not repeat it in my class. When the educrat understood that I was not satisfied with the consequences given to the disruptive young man, he added impatiently, “I am an educator, not a disciplinarian.”

Permissiveness in schools threatens our society. Many know it, but few will say it.

Ned Cosby, a frequent contributor to American Thinker, is a former pastor, veteran Coast Guard officer, and a retired English high school teacher. His novel OUTCRY is a love story exposing the refusal of Christian leaders to report and discipline clergy who sexually abuse our young people. This work of fiction addresses crimes that are all too real. Cosby has also written RECOLLECTIONS FROM MY FATHER’S HOUSE, tracing his own odyssey from 1954 to the present. For more info, visit Ned Cosby.