FADO, FADO PRE-1970, in the schools of Ireland, "the perpetrators of unacceptable behaviour were the losers, not the teachers." These words from Maeve Martin's recent researches into school indiscipline must strike a chord with many teachers. The inference is that now the teachers are the losers. Of course, pupils lose also.

Until the 1970s, it was reasonable to expect pupils to have the same internalised norms of behaviour as the school norms, according to Martin. This was partly because 30 years ago schools were catering for an elite - in 1966 12,000 students sat the Leaving Cert, whereas this year's figure will be about 60,000.

While Martin warns against a false nostalgia for the good old days, she says that where "infringements or incidents of disruption occurred they were not of such gravity, nor of such persistence, as to distract a school from its primary purpose."

Her findings indicate that one fifth of schools now have serious problems where high level disruption is not an isolated occurrence but is, in fact, a recurring pattern.

These were all schools in areas of multiple disadvantage. Most schools, 80 per cent, reported that indiscipline could be described as low level.

Almost two thirds of second level schools surveyed indicated that discipline was a real concern compared to one third of primary schools. At primary level, 25 per cent of all girls schools and 36 per cent of co educational schools expressed this concern. This figure rose to 60 per cent for all boys primary schools. At post primary the gender gap was less marked with 67 per cent of respondents in co educational schools, 60 per cent in all boys schools and 55 per cent in all girls schools stating that discipline was a real concern.

TEACHERS themselves are coming under threat. In her address to the union's congress at Easter, TUI president Alice Prendergast talked of verbal and physical aggression against teachers by students, parents and colleagues.

One teacher told Education & Living of a number of incidences ranging from a teacher who opened the door of his home to a past pupil and was promptly head butted, to a young female teacher being deliberately pressed against a wall by an adolescent student who was as large as she was.

"If you were a young female teacher with an apparently unsympathetic principal, what would you do? It might be taken as an admission of inability to cope... another teacher was told to f. . .off."

Martin, whose report was commissioned by the Minister for Education, notes that respect is no longer automatic. It must be earned by teachers. While concerns for themselves and their property are obviously important, teachers are under physical threat in only a minority of cases.

What is more worrying for most teachers is the fact that their primary function - to teach - is being undermined.

John White, assistant general secretary of the ASTI, says that many teachers will say that most of the stress is not due to the points system, or demands from parents, or the introduction of new curricula - it stems from a minority of pupils who do not wish to be in the school for whatever reason.

In the past few years guidelines to deal with indiscipline have been piled upon more guidelines. The teacher unions have prepared their own documents and the Department has issued a seven page circular letter.

Martin's report confirms what teachers have known all along. There is a growing problem with indiscipline - her research into 250 schools represents the baseline study. It also contains examples of "best practice schools" and contains a long list of recommendations.

In the models of good practice cited in Martin's reports, John White says that there are two strands running through the successful schools - an awareness among pupils that they are cherished by the school and, on the other hand, that they need some disciplinary framework.

A motion at the TUI congress called for a ballot for industrial action if the Department "insists on ignoring serious indiscipline problems in some schools." It called on the Department to implement the demands of the TUI in its discipline document.

Pat Conway of the TUI executive said that the recommendations in Martin's report were largely in line with TUI policy: extension of the school psychological service; extension of the home/school community liaison scheme; provision of remedial teachers; increased guidance and counselling; reduction of class size; and inservice education for teachers and teacher educators.

Consideration should also be given to specialist short term support centres - the so called "sinbins". The Department should continue to commission research. "What we need now," said Conway, "is immediate discussion with the Department on implementation of recommendations. What we don't want is the report to gather dust while teachers suffer extreme stress. There are cost implications and because of this, the Department may just put this report to one side."

SOME very big questions must be addressed, according to John White, of the ASTI. The first is whether schools can cope with 100 per cent of the cohort of young people. "A very selective set of behaviours are demanded from a young person in school and these are not likely to be repeated when they leave. There is a great public enterprise to educate all of our young people but it seems to be the case that there is a small number who feel that the education system is simply something that they can't fit in with."

The next question is how do we address this? "We have to try to develop a curriculum which suits as many people as possible. We must recognise that the traditional academic intelligence is not to be prized over other intelligences." Schools and society in general are becoming broader in the notion of what constitutes intelligence, he adds.