If a teacher touched a child, you could be taken to court and charged with any number of offences. What if the child got a cuff over the ears? The child's parents would claim the kid has lost some hearing, suffered psychological disturbances like unable to sleep, suffered ongoing pain, etc etc etc. Could be sued for very big money indeed.
Parents these days rarely support a teacher in their disciplinary attempts. In my earlier days of teaching, I can recall parents giving their son a whack when learning that he had given cheek to a teacher. These days parents would claim it was the teacher's fault. It was once believed that women feel guilty about going to work rather than staying home to look after their children and thus lashed out at teachers blaming them for their own child's behaviour because of that guilt complex. Now, I think it simply reflects the general community's lack of courtesy and decency to other people, bullying behaviour, lack of discipline being instilled into children, particularly as parents themselves live lives which lack discipline, etc with both parents working long hours. We have little microcosms of society in front of us all day so we see all the ills of society looking back at us in the children we teach.
Have they changed over the years. Absolutely they have.
In Private schools, one would expect to have parents who back the teachers more and who share common educational goals including the social goals of fostering an environment which results in well-adjusted happy children.
