Dear Editor,

Jamaicans have a major fault; they do not understand the root of their social and moral problems.

And these problems are a result of their gargantuan appetite for indisciplined behaviour.

But how does one define indiscipline if there are no guidelines that demonstrate how to be disciplined? And at the rate at which this nation is going, we very well might end up with no rules in a very important place for young people — the schools.

We have a crime problem that has many facets, but it chiefly boils down to one thing: a total disregard for the rules that govern a civilised society.

We have a public transportation sector that we all complain about. Why? It is loaded with rule-breakers. What’s the end result? Needless deaths on our roads and suffering. I could go on and on.

We seem unable to link these societal problems with our appetite for being indisciplined. Instead, we try to find all sorts of excuses rather than confront the problem.

Where did this all start, you might ask. In our homes and in our schools, of course. How did it all start? By allowing and even celebrating rule-breaking and the refusal to put rules with sanctions in place, of course.

Look at our schools today, they are not a place for learning the basics of becoming a contributing member of society or a place where strong morals are instituted. School has become a place where students wear guard rings, engage in gangs, drink, and have sex on desk tops and video it. Then we wonder why the moral degradation of our nation and the decent into hell is happening at breakneck speed?

This argument about a child should not be deprived of an education because they break the rules of a school is hogwash. It’s precisely that argument why we have such an appetite for rule-breaking in this society.

An argument grounded in such selfishness can be stretched to another aspect, deeply repugnant to all and sundry, like murder.

I will say this: No education grounded in a system that allows rules to be discarded at will is worth it’s salt. The education of our children should start with teaching them to obey rules. It’s the obeying of the rules from an early age that inculcates a desire to continue to obey societal rules in the older years. We don’t seem to understand that.

We talk about values and attitude as if it is something that just happens.

There is no better value or attitude to be learnt from an early age than that of obeying the rules set out by whomever. It’s that simple.

We have a saying in this country, “Even in hell there are rules.”

Jamaica, on its current trajectory, will never achieve Vision 2030. We don’t have the discipline to follow the rules that are needed to do so as we have become world beaters at being indisciplined.

And those we elect are a part of the problem. They gleefully hail the breaking of rules in schools by vilifying principals and calling for punitive actions against them and encourage people to squat on private property for which landowners have paid millions of dollars.

Until Jamaicans understand the link between indiscipline in homes and schools and societal ills, we are pretty much a doomed people.

Fabian Lewis

tyrone lewis 272@gmail.com