The authority of teachers

Apple daily had a recent commentry written by Chip Tsao(陶傑). 

For those who can't read Chinese, it was about a secondary school teacher having problem with child who doesn't give a damn about the subject she was teaching - home economics. The child thought that if the button goes off from the cloth she'll just buy another piece of clothing[1]. Tsao believe that it is important for the teacher to hold up their dignity and perhaps traditional values in school and that she should not be afraid of complaints.

To be honest though this is totally NOT applicable for secondary teachers these days -- the principals in schools are more apologetic than ever and to be honest do they even have the dignity of an academic?

The value of his comment aside, this is a very vivid illustration of teachers losing their authority over students and parents.

I personally hold a belief that teachers should:

(1) Be very knowledgeable in their field, and
(2) Be respected.

The thing is, if you would like the teachers to deliver their teaching effectively, they have to be able to manage the classroom well - and to manage the classroom well, one has to confer them of adequate power to discipline the children in the class (fairly).

These days, the typical teacher had more fear than power inside the classroom. Children are more fragile than ever - they are prone to harm themselves, taking drugs, joining gangs and so on - if you ever punish them, and they retaliate by abandoning themselves. And then if they go such way after your punishment, you are going to be the "killer teacher" who will be fired and not be hired by any other school. And even if a child cries at home after being scold/punished in school, parents these days often complain to the school without even knowing why their child was punished.

If a teacher had more fear than power inside a classroom, how can they teach effectively?

Thus, the way to go is:

(1) For the management of school - you should stand by the very teachers you have hired, and treat students as students, parents as parents and school as a professional agent delivering teaching. If they run the school like a service industry, the only that can come is failing the delivery of teaching (and thus they fail professionally).
(2) For the teachers - they should uphold their professional standards and not be put into fear by these students and parents who would only complain.

In my humble opinion, though, teachers in Hong Kong had more problems with knowledge in their fields than complaints...

[1] well, true - and perhaps it even isn't economical to put it back in if the one doing it is earning quite a bit per hour