Dear Editor,

It is time to turn a corner. Our society, our future, our welfare depend on it. I spend a massive amount of time traveling. And as I travel I meet thousands of different people. I have met many teachers from around the U.S., and I am hearing so many alarming things. Things like that they are scared to go to work, because their children threaten their lives, steal their belongings, and there is nothing they can do about it.

I have had a wonderful conversation with someone who work with the Mason County school system, about how their children have to undergo a massive amount of “warnings” before they can even be sent to the Principal. I am talking like at least nine to twelve warnings. I am hearing of children telling adults to suck certain parts of their anatomy, punching them in the stomach, and more.

I am going to come out and say it: Your children are horrible! I don’t care who you are, if you ever take your child’s word over an adult’s, you are insane. These kids are supposed to be a direct reflection of your upbringing! I remember getting paddled in school (in the 80s) over in Bidwell, Ohio. And when the principal called and told my mom I got paddled, guess what? I got another whippen when I returned home. Why? because I wasn’t acting the way my mom was raising me, and I was an embarrassment to her and her parenting. And that’s what these children are today, an embarrassment to worthless upbringing. There is zero allowed discipline that makes any difference. Children need to have an understanding of discipline. I heard a teacher in an airport last week tell me her high school students told her they didn’t have to respect her, that respect was something her generation did. She was 24 years old, only a couple years older than them, and they were out of control. What is the answer?

Every time a teacher, principal, or anyone informs the parent of wrong doing by the student, the parent says the child is being “provoked”, picked on, blah blah blah. Parent: your child isn’t being provoked when they punch a teacher or use foul language as a baby, that is a mirror image of the house you are raising them in. If you are using foul language or letting your children watch inappropriate movies or play inappropriate games, you are to blame for their upbringing, not the teachers. The teachers aren’t there to raise your kids, they are supposed to be teaching them some educational values that they may use in the real world. But because your kids are so behind on how to act in society, everyone fails.

People, do you know that they are not teaching cursive writing anymore because our society isn’t writing anymore? These are basics, people. My child is two years away from joining the school system, and I am scared to death to send her to school with your children. I am scared to death to send her to a school system that has zero control over the students whom they are supposed to be educating for the time they have them a day. This problem can be fixed, but it needs to be fixed at home first, then at the state school board level and re-initiate some sort of discipline measures that is purely discipline. Start protecting teachers, and start telling these parents that they are failing their child, and us as a future society.

Curry Russell

Mason County, W.Va.