Gilbert Gutknecht: “I hope my mom is not watching because I will get a paddling when I get home as a result. But it is an important point.…”

“I hope my mom is not watching because I will get a paddling when I get home as a result. But it is an important point. Not only did it benefit you, but more importantly it benefited a lot of your friends, seeing that the punishment was fair and that it was meted out quickly and promptly and justly, so we had better discipline in the schools. It is interesting when you poll what teachers are concerned about in terms of what is happening in the schools today with what was happening in the schools when I was in school as a baby boomer. Back then it was about talking in the halls and chewing gum and occasionally somebody trying in high school, at least trying to steal a cigarette out in the back of the school. Today the problems are much, much more severe. Today the problems are drugs, the problems are real violence, guns in the schools, things like that. My own sense, and I do not think this is the only answer and there are a lot of other social problems and obviously schools reflect a lot of our socioeconomic problems we have in this country today, but on the other hand I do believe in the schools where they still allow adequate and prompt and just discipline that they keep those problems, the bigger problems, from beginning to multiply.”