Do our teens need lessons in ills of anti-social behaviour?

FIRST of all, the praise.

Ireland ranks in the top 3% globally for quality universities. Students have ranked UCC a far better place to study than both Galway and UCD.

Our position as 11th in the world for our secondary school system can be credited to our high literary standards and the fact that many of us, (51% in 2020) go on to third level education.

But, have the needs of our students, and just as importantly, our society, changed in recent years?

Studies have shown that Covid restrictions have led to social awkwardness, among other issues, and an inability for teenagers to relate to one another has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

So, should the curriculum in our primary and secondary schools change to suit the changing needs of our society?

What I see as an increasing lack of care and comion, and an increase anger, is surely an issue that needs to be addressed by the educational system as part of a communal change.

The stereotype of the drunken Irish student has thankfully dissipated. However, anti-social behaviour is on the rise and is currently the scourge in many of our suburban housing estates in and around our city.

One residents’ association has reported arson attacks, breaking and entering, and the stealing of cars for joyrides. Residents in Ballincollig’s Castle Park say they are facing groups of teenagers drinking and arson attacks. There are reports of threatening to break residents’ windows in other areas of the city. The list goes on.

Open and unashamed drug use is a scourge, and the gardaí, what there are of them, are stretched to breaking point.

In 2016, Cork County Council made a statement that they would work with state agencies and the gardaí to address anti-social behaviour, but, they said, it should be emphasised that incidences of this behaviour are low.

Whatever about the county, this doesn’t seem to be the case in the city, where the three types of anti-social behaviour, - personal, nuisance and environmental - appear to me to be on the rise.

The powers of the Gardaí can often be minimal. 

The punishments in our court system can be laughable. Many crimes seem to meet little or no punishment, and so we are left with a society at the mercy of thuggish behaviour.

So, what if we tweak our education system, to try to nip the problem at source?

I’ve long thought that learning to drive should be a part of the Leaving Cert curriculum, and a class on the care and preservation of our environment is surely the way forward.

How about a class on the stupidity and uncoolness of smoking and vaping?

Couldn’t field trips entail young people meeting and learning from the elderly, and couldn’t there be talks given by entrepreneurs.

Sustainability and recycling have apparently been embraced by our younger generation, and they take this as a way of life. The idea of dropping litter is abhorrent to the average six-year-old because they have been educated to think that way.

Is it not the way forward to teach our children the pointlessness of cruelty too? Is it not in the national interest to teach the next generation about care and comion and how anger and destruction are a pointless pastime?

Pride of place is something that most of us are familiar with in Cork, and yet, somehow, many of our teenagers and young adults appear to take no pride in their surroundings.

Many appear to take no pride in sporting achievements and are not motivated to better themselves or to rise above their perceived limitations.

They take no guilt away from causing distress to their neighbours or destroying someone else’s property. They have no fear of the law, and they have no respect for those charged with enforcing it.

If you can teach someone to be angry, you can also teach them to be kind.

We need to make anti-social behaviour as alien to the teenager as dropping litter is to that child.

Relying on minimal punishment hasn’t worked. Perhaps it’s time to go back to the drawing board, the school blackboard, and re-educate our children in subjects that will actually make them, and us, part of a better society.