Train up a child in the way he should go...

The ceiling was decorated with hundreds of crinkled wax paper tubes hanging from it, which gave the classroom a jungle feel. An Indiana Jones-like character stood partially hidden behind palm branches on the open door, which also proclaimed Learning is a Great Adventure in letters shaped from hand-cut paper bones. Every bulletin board in the room was decorated in the same theme. The atmosphere was mysterious and thought-provoking-- exactly the way I wanted to introduce new concepts and lessons in learning.

Most of the students never got it; many of them couldn't care less.

Within the first couple of weeks, Indiana had to be taken down because some student decided he needed genitals. The crinkled tubes kept students guessing for the first couple of days, then they became challenges for students to jump up and jerk loose from the ceiling. If supplies were not locked up, they were stolen. It seemed to be open season on any student's supplies, too, if left unattended for a moment.

The bulletin boards became barer each month. Some students preferred writing obscenities on them rather than using the information put there for their benefit. Unless students' art works were mounted up high next to the ceiling, pieces were stolen. Manipulatives for teaching lessons became airborne missiles for some students to use against others. It took only a handful of students in each class to terminate a creative lesson for the rest of the class.

The room went through a metamorphosis over the next few months. What began as a colorful and exciting place to learn transformed into a dull, colorless space devoid of any decor that could be stolen, defaced, or destroyed. I never wanted it to come to that, but the energy intended for teaching and motivating seemed to be expended more and more for simply maintaining order, disciplining, and keeping students from hurting each other or destroying property.

They were only fifth and sixth graders, and too many of them were already marking time until they could drop out. How had we already lost them? Some of the sixth grade students were fourteen years old and had been failed the maximum number of times. They knew they would be passed on. They slept through lessons and smiled their way through threats of being held back, and sure enough, they showed up in seventh grade for the next group of teachers to struggle with.

How are children going all the way through school without a clear understanding of education and how it applies to them? Many can mouth the right answers, but inside, they still don't get it. How come intelligent children spend more energy thinking up ways to beat the system or cheat their way through classes rather than use that same intelligence and effort to learn something that will prepare them to become honest, productive citizens capable of supporting themselves, their families, and their community in some way?

What goes on in school is a picture of some of the same behaviors those students will repeat in adult life unless they make a great effort to change the course in which they are heading. Children who steal in school will later do the same on jobs, tax returns, or with merchants or landlords when they avoid paying their bills. Children who have dropped out or cheated their way through school will be dependent on their parents or the government to support them when their lack of taking advantage of a free education means they have few basic skills to survive, much less hold a job. Children who lie to teachers or even fellow students will lie as adults to employers, spouses, or potentially anybody. Children who have no respect for school or others' property will have little qualms as adults about vandalizing or trashing their neighbors' property, parks, community or roads.

School is training for life. The habits students learn in school-- good or bad-- are the habits they will take into life. The home is no exception. What students learn or see or hear at home is training them for life. Character training has to start in the home, and it must be reinforced and taught in both school and home at every age level.

An education devoid of character training just makes smarter wrongdoers. I can't tell you how many times I've seen the names or mugshots of those former students in the newspaper reporting of their arrests for various crimes. It's heartbreaking.

Train up a child in the way he should go...and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

That goes both ways.