With little or no help from the parents of unruly children, teachers in Cayman’s schools are leaving in droves.

The main problem is violence between students especially at Clifton Hunter and John Gray high schools.

Fights are said to be commonplace, with dozens of incidents taking place every day.

It has been reported that 23 fights took place in the first three days of February at one of the government schools.

Educators have openly said that there is little effort being done to address the problem with violence at the schools being the rule more than the exception.

Even more horrifying is the claim from teachers that “there are very high levels of neglect in the wider community, with children being commonly physically and emotionally abused, resulting in the over-sexualized and violent behaviour that is manifest in the classroom environment.”

Even the children that do manage to pass their examinations have done so against a background of bullying involving physical violence.

Councillor for Education, Winston Connolly, said recently the situation was alarming. He didn’t think it was insurmountable.

I am pleased he has a positive attitude to the problem even though he gave no details of what was actually being done.

However, with discipline being placed on the back burners and even when it is reluctantly applied, there is little or no backing from the parents of the child being so disciplined. Even worse many parents take a hostile approach against the school and teacher for enacting discipline against their ‘precious’ child who might be a saint in their eyes but in the real world imitates a demon.

With no discipline in the child’s home and parents employing nannys and helpers to look after their child because they are two busy keeping down more than one job, and the kids watching violence on the television programmes, it is no wonder we are having all these problems.

It is not a mandate of the school to teach discipline and respect. That begins and should end in the home.

“Spare the rod, spoil the child” is an old saying and it wisely means “If one does not discipline a child, he or she will never learn obedience and good manners.”

iNews Cayman has published an article today called “Mr Shannon strikes: Why do we hiccup?”

The writer claims: “Most kids are brighter than most teachers, just as most kids are generally brighter than their parents.  Problem is, rarely do teachers and parents figure this out and that’s where the trouble begins.”

He tells the story of when he was a child back in 1950’s to early 1960’s when discipline was very high on the agenda. In fact, too high. It was believed then that corporal punishment led to enlightenment. The practice then was to beat children into submission.

I am NOT advocating going back to those days but having no discipline at all is going to the other extreme.

Even if Cayman’s Minister of Education, Tara Rivers and her Councillor can come up with a plan to combat what is happening now their efforts will come to naught unless the parents of the children back them up 100%.

Cayman is having a major problem with teachers and it is a problem they cannot fix themselves.