Dear Editor,

The first school that I attended was Carron Hall Primary (now Carron Hall High). And there were some good, loving and hard-working teachers there.

And during those good, old school days, the teachers and principal were committed to having morning devotion every day with the students before classes began. Two of the hymns that we used to sing regularly were: “All things bright and beautiful,” and, “Immortal invisible God only wise.” And we did feel the joy and the upliftment in our spirit during those times.

How is it today? Does every school in Jamaica have morning devotion, first and foremost, like breakfast?

Generally or collectively speaking, during the good, old school days, school students were more disciplined, more respectful, more single-minded or lesson-minded — displayed good manners and punctuality, unlike school children of today.

During the good, old school days, there were no outrageous behaviour of students engaging in sexual immorality, behaving disgracefully on buses, listening to lewd music, and fighting with their teachers, as we are witnessing now.

During the good school days, there was no lewd music around, there was none in the schools via cell phones either – and no student was fed with such garbage.

During the good, old school days, there were hardly any killing — less violence, no stabbing, no cell phones, no illegal weapons (only few guys carried knives for good reasons) — neither were there buses playing lewd music while carrying pupils, as we are seeing in these madness days.

Thanks to God for the good, old school days. Can they come back again?

Donald J Mckoy.