SocietyWatch
Elementary schoolteachers flee classroom violence
Dozens of schoolteachers have quit their jobs amid a wave of violence from students as young as 7 years old. The Harrisburg Educational Association says at least 45 teachers from Pennsylvania’s capital city resigned between July and October 2017, and association president Jody Barksdale told the Associated Press that there have been more resignations since October. While not all of these resignations were in response to unruly students, Barksdale is calling for a task force of teachers, administrators and parents to help students who display violent behavior.
“I have been kicked, punched, hit, scratched. I’ve had a student physically restraining me in front of my other students. … And many of the personal things that I have bought for my classroom have been broken or destroyed,” first grade teacher Amanda Shaeffer told board members on Nov. 20, 2017. “Many minutes are spent each day dealing with violence that is happening in the classroom.” Shaeffer was one of the half dozen teachers who appealed to the board for decisive steps to deal with these troubled children and their destructive behavior in the classroom.
The National Center for Education Statistics released its 2016 Indicators of School Crime and Safety report last May. It found that “10 percent of elementary teachers and 9 percent of secondary teachers reported being threatened by a student from their school in 2011–12.” The report also said, “During the 2014–15 school year, there were 1.3 million reported discipline incidents in the United States for reasons related to alcohol, illicit drugs, violence or weapons possession that resulted in a student being removed from the education setting for at least an entire school day.”
The trend vividly fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 3:5, “[T]he child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.”
Americans still paying holiday bills from 2016
Christmas shopping bills from 2016 have still not been paid off by 8 percent of baby boomers, 16 percent of Generation X, and 24 percent of Millennials, a Nov. 17, 2017, cnbc report stated. The report highlighted a disturbing trend in American consumerism.
Total U.S. credit card debt is more than $1 trillion and counting. Total household debt—including credit card debt, auto loan debt, student loan debt and mortgage debt—is $12.96 trillion, surpassing the amount owed at the beginning of the Great Recession.
National debt is now $20 trillion. According to the U.S. debt clock, U.S. total debt is over $68 trillion. The U.S. economy is wallowing in debt on both individual and national levels.
Third of UK children born to unwed couples
The number of babies born to single mothers in the United Kingdom has fallen to its lowest level since 1986, the Times of England reported Nov. 28, 2017. However, nearly a third of UK children are born to couples who are not married but live together, and more than 1 in 10 British children have parents who live apart.
This means that almost half of British babies are born to unmarried parents, whether single mothers or cohabiting couples. These statistics show that the traditional family structure in the United Kingdom continues to implode, a trend that can only have disastrous consequences.
A 2014 study sponsored by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia found that the children of cohabiting couples are much likelier to experience family instability, school failure, and emotional problems than are the children of married couples.
