Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.

1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up mates.

2007 - Police are called, Armed Response Unit arrives and arrests Johnny and Mark. Mobiles with video of fight confiscated as evidence. They are charged with assault, ASBOs are taken out and both are suspended even though Johnny started it. Diversionary conferences and parent meetings conducted. Video shown on 6 internet sites.

Scenario: Jeffrey won't sit still in class, disrupts other students.

1957 - Jeffrey is sent to the principal's office and given 6 of the best. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.

2007 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. Counselled to death. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra funding because Jeffrey has a disability. Drops out of school.

Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his neighbour's car and his Dad gives him the slipper.

1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.

2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang. Billy's sister tells psychologist that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mum has an affair with the psychologist. Psychologist gets a promotion.

Scenario: Mark, a college student, brings cigarettes to school .

1957 - Mark shares a smoke with the school principal out on the smoking area.

2007 - Police are called and Mark is expelled from school for drug possession. His car is searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario: Mohammed fails high school English.

1957 - Mohammed studies harder, retakes his exam, passes and goes to college.

2007 - Mohammed's cause is taken up by local human rights group. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that making English a requirement for graduation is racist. Civil Liberties Association files class action lawsuit against state school system and his English teacher. English is banned from core curriculum. Mohammed is given his qualification anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers, puts them in a model plane paint bottle and blows up an anthill.

1957 - Ants die.

2007 - Security services and police are called and Johnny is charged with perpetrating acts of terrorism. Teams investigate parents, siblings are removed from the home, computers are confiscated, and Johnny's dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario: Johnny falls during break and scrapes his knee. His teacher, Mary, finds him crying, and gives him a hug to comfort him.

1957 - Johnny soon feels better and goes back to playing.

2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces three years in prison. Johnny undergoes five years of therapy. Becomes gay.

so true , so true. how times have changed.

do you think this happens only in america or all over the world now ?????????

This is insightful and witty. But after I had read about half-way down, I had to wonder if you might not be American. You see, After Jeffrey had gotten paddled by the teacher, and Mohammed had failed highschool, a common response in the US these days is to return to school with assault weapons and light the place up!

Interesting note: The 22-year old who killed 32 students at Virginia Tech nearly a year ago, was an immigrant Korean majoring in..of all things English. It seems he might have started out in Engineering, but washed out. Then the fact that a girl might have jilted him didn't do much for his sanity either.

whiny old people. yeah let's bring back the good old days. meh.

kingling - probably in many countries of the western world.

khunlaw - I'm Australian

zeusbeheld - it would be interesting to compare 1957 to 1907.

ghee - I think many people have done things in their early days where thye would have gone to jail, and of course there are those who did.

it *would* be interesting to compare 1957 and 1907. i'd expect that if they did it the comparsion in 1957, there would be lots of people who were certain that in 1957 everything had sunk into some form of chaos or another compared to the golden days of 1907...

yes it always seems better in the old days, but there are tradeoffs - if we could get the best of todays education and technology, and combine it with the common sense approach that people had in those earlier days, we'd be laughing...!

The PC (Politically Correct) movement have done so much to destroy the normality of almost every aspect of life.

The "controls" have been turned inward against ourselves, and stupidly, so many of us accept that it is normal for example for a parent to be jailed for for smacking a kid for wrong-doing...and many other intrusions into family structure...yes, abuses did take place, but now the assumption seems to be made that abuse ALWAYS takes place...so just react as if to the worst case.

When my kids were little, my ex used to smack them when they did wrong - only if they took no notice of being told to stop - but they only did it once, and then they never did it again. Coupled with that, I would always explain the reason that what they had done was wrong - exactly why it was unacceptable. As a result they know the difference between right and wrong, and they are good kids without being "goody-goody" types, just quite normal and with good attitudes.

There really are aspects of those days that were excellent, sadly gone forever...