AHAFO

THE YOUTH AND FUTURE INC THAT THE NEGLECT OF OUR CULTURAL VALUES HAS IMMENSELY CONTRIBUTED TO INDISCIPLINE AMONG TODAY’S YOUTH. As the principal speaker against the motion, I shall for the sake of our debate and time, define the borders of the Debate and confine it to the school. The causes of indiscipline can be divided into two groups, causes within school and causes outside school. It must be observed that each of these causes immensely contribute to indiscipline in the youth therefore the temptation to dwell on one particular cause as the most affecting cause must be overcome. The first speaker has already defined the motion that notwithstanding, The chair, ladies and gentlemen, lets answer these questions. 1. Is there indiscipline in the youth? If no, then there is no need for us to be here but since you and I are here, it means we admit the fact that there is evidence of indiscipline amongst the youth. 2. What are the causes? Our opponents are dwelling on the neglect of our cultural values to make their case but the chair, after my exposition, you will realize that even if there is a neglect of our cultural values, it has not in any way gendered indiscipline amongst the youth. 3. Have we neglected our cultural values? We haven’t. but rather what has been left out our indigenous culture are the negative aspects of our culture such as the trokosi, cruel widowhood rights and FGM. Ladies and gentlemen, culture is dynamic therefore as J.A Kufuor puts it, “our culture is going through transition” so I see no reason why we should misconstrue this transition for a neglect. This implies that though there are omissions now, those are natural thing that every culture goes through. 4. Have the part of our cultural values that have been subtracted caused any indiscipline? I am still waiting to be convinced as to how the abandonment of cruel practices such as FGM and trokosi lead to indiscipline. The bottom line is this: although there have been subtractions in our culture, it is a natural thing every culture goes through and these subtractions must not be misconstrued as neglect as if the thing is good and we are not taking care of it. 5. Indiscipline is an inherent trait in every culture.so even when the said culture was at its peak, indiscipline was here and shall remain with us till the rapture takes place. Therefore one cannot and must not say that the neglect of our cultural values has immensely contributed to the indiscipline amongst the youth. Having established my case, let me show you the real causes of the canker of indiscipline that has eaten up the youth. WITHIN THE SCHOOL. Visiting teachers like service personnel. In this case, the teacher handling the lesson is a supply teacher and so is not recognised by the learners as a figure of authority, because he/she is only temporarily teaching and that class. Also the supply teacher may not know the individual names of the pupils - this may give certain kids the excuse to ignore the teacher while he/she is attempting to communicate with them (it is indiscipline for learners to ignore their teacher.). It will take some time before they pretend to notice the teacher actually wants their attention. Name games might be played where the pupils assume the names of their friends for example during the register, to confuse the teacher. 1. In a case the teacher is foreign and cannot speak good English - the pupils can use it to their advantage by purposefully misunderstanding their teacher. Another way for pupils to shirk, is to engage in friendly conversation with the foreign teacher. Asking questions about his or her homeland is often a very successful way of enticing them to talk about subjects with very little relation to the lesson. 2. The teacher may be late and so the first few minutes of the lesson were spent in an environment devoid of the basic classroom rules. This bad foundation for the lesson makes pupils more prone to rebellious behavior. 3. Its the last lesson of the day. For any teacher, such a time of the day to teach is generally a misfortune. In anticipation of the end of the day, pupils take less care over their work and may lose commitment, as thoughts turn to what they have to do after the lesson, e.g piling up homework to deal with or an angry girlfriend who needs talking to. 4. Of course the standard of discipline is likely to go down even further if a lengthy holiday awaits the end of a Friday afternoon lesson or indeed awaits the end of a school week. 5. Poor teaching. Usually a teacher who makes more of an effort to connect with the pupils is more likely to gain their attention. But reading in a monotone from a text book before telling the pupils to get on with some task in their books is just asking for the paper planes to take flight and shouting across the classroom. 6. Outnumbered class or overcrowded class. It becomes quite difficult to control a very large class. Teaching is a tough job and giving the teacher student ratio in our country one should expect nothing but an increase in indiscipline. These are simply managerial and pedagogical issues and have nothing to do with the neglect of our cultural values even if there were reason enough to say that. 7. Some people are inherently indiscipline. According to Tim Lahaye, a temperament author and preacher, some people such as the phlegmatic and the sanguine are naturally indisciplined. This has nothing to do with cultural neglect. My opponents should check themselves up and come again. 8. Amongst higher ability groups, certain pupils may come to the conclusion that they are intellectually superior to the teacher and to their coleagues they misbehave because should the teacher come up to ask them a question about the topic under discussion, they would answer without a problem and so taunt him/her, without feeling any incentives to do the work. Instead they talk to friends, chuck stuff about. 9. Negative relations between pupils. There may also be unwelcome incidents that could occur between pupils at any time, causing tempers to occasionally flare. As you can probably guess, such emotions are likely to somewhat dim the awareness of school disciplines for the pupil(s) in question. CAUSES OUTSIDE SCHOOL; this may possibly include the following: 1. The parents of pupils may have no interest in education and so this encourages their children to assume a similar attitude, provoking rebellious behaviour. Has a cultural abandonment got anything to do with this? You are the cause of your own problems. According to professor Kwakuvi Azasu, a senior lecturer at the university of education, “the attitude of a parent largely affects their wards’ conducts in public and in school.” Just as the saying goes like father, like son. A crab can never birth a bird. Period and these issues ladies and gentlemen, have nothing to do with neglect of cultural values. They are simply pedagogical issues. 2. Pupils may be abused at home. Research has proven that children from broken homes tend to be more indisciplined than those from homes where the couple stay together. Why talk of the neglect of culture when all you have to do is to set the home right. Or is it only Ghanaian culture that encourages parents to stay together?Its not going to be as easy for a pupil from an unstable background to focus on school work as one from a more secure one. After all, what is a pupil who is mistreated at home more likely to be thinking about, will he be thinking of what's the formula for the circumference of a circle or, will my dad get drunk again tonight and threaten me with that knife? To such Pupils, being tough is the way to survive at home, so why should they think otherwise when they turn up at school? According to Peter Kofi Afful a Lecturer at Pentecost University and the University of Education, “people are products of circumstances and the environment.” This implies that, what you see more and experience is what makes you. Joel Osteen says “you are the product of your words.” In effect, a student who hears profane words everyday will definitely produce such words most of the time. Why blame this on neglect of cultural values? Change your thinking, change your mind! 3. Home life for some might involve being overindulged by parents where they are criticized and harshly reprimanded any time they go wrong so pupils expect the same when they come to school. And these are the causes of indiscipline. Neglect of cultural values has nothing at all to do with this!. 4. Again in the domestic context, pupils may not ever have been set clear boundaries at home and so its only natural that they are going to find abiding by a whole set of new rules at school a suffocating prospect which limits their usual freedom immeasurably. 5. The Ghanaian community is made of people from different cultures in which what is discipline in one may not be in another, so why then accuse the neglect of cultural values as the cause? Many nations today suffer critical illness courtesy of what corruption among people (citizens and foreign nationals) and not being able to control and regulate the effects. Thus, the pace of nation’s development is completely declining resulting to fear that this situation may go beyond uncontrollable climax. The situation is what the entire world is suffering today. The question here is; what are the effects of moral profligate to our nation’s development? The global economic meltdown is a typical example here. If I may ask, what are the underlying structures behind this? When huge money are spent recklessly or looted by the people in government, the result is the case. When two elephants are fighting, the grasses suffer. This cliche reminds me of the poverty situation in most developing nations of the world where their leaders indulge in looting their nations’ treasury and not finding a means of caring for the less privileged even when funds are released by developed nations. This resulted into unemployment for the teaming youths and school alumnae creating a big vacuum to accommodate more corrupt practices by these idle youths. Most of the youths turn restive in kidnapping, assassinations, robbery and terrorism. The problems created by some nations’ leaders and mostly in the developing nations contribute to neglect in the rule of law, no respects to human right and thus re-generating into more corrupt practices eating deeper into the nations’ fabrics. Another big effect of moral profligate is from media and their impact triggered by sophisticated technology and civilization. The information disseminated to the general public could lead to virtual practices unknown to the nation before now. Most practices like the abuse of sex and sexuality, practicing of witchcraft and indulging in drug trafficking among other crimes are seriously heating the development of our nations today. Thus, the media should be scrutinized to deliver a sound and error free information gearing towards building our nations. Government at all level, corporate bodies and individuals are therefore called to pay attention to this critical situation affecting the entire world today. The reversal of the current trend would do us better and re-create unity, peace and love among nations. There are many causes of indiscipline in the youth found in today's society. One of the main causes being the lack of parent involvement as well as parents not making children responsible for their own wrong doings and failures. Too often, parents are unaware of what is going on in their children's school until the child comes home with a failing grade. The parent is then ready to march into school and reprimand the teacher instead of the child. Children pick up on these behaviors and think that every time they are insubordinate that the teacher will be forced to take the blame. Youth that are not in school are more likely to be involved in criminal activities. They are also more likely to become drug users or to become alcoholics. Sociologists and psychologists have been very interested in studying the causes of youth violence, and it has become clear that it is a complex social problem. While it sometimes can be connected to a tolerance of violence at home and within the community (including the media), it's not necessarily the direct result of family violence or even of media violence alone. Media violence, family violence and violence within communities are all ways in which a general tolerance of violence are expressed. Interestingly, recent research suggests that sibling violence has a strong connection to youth violence. Brothers and sisters who engage in violent or bullying behaviors at home are more likely to be guilty of bullying and violence among their peers too, and as they get older they are also more prone to dating violence. When parents fail to monitor bullying among siblings at young ages, tolerance of those behaviors is implied. As children grow older, they apply the same behavior to all their other relationships. In addition to being connected to low levels of parent involvement, youth violence is also connected to low socio-economic status and other factors that are difficult to untangle since they are somewhat interdependent. There can be many factors that contribute to parents being unable to monitor their children's relationships appropriately, and this may be one connection to lower socioeconomic status. For instance a single mother who doesn't have a strong support network of family and friends to help may have little time to monitor children as she would otherwise. It can be tempting to oversimplify the causes of youth violence--but social issues like this one need to be addressed on several levels if they are to be prevented. reserve script