ON THE ISSUE of violence by students against teachers we are 100 per cent in support of a zero-tolerance approach. It is a development in our school system that must attract strong and decisive action by administrators – and parents must lend their support when such action is taken.
We accept that our children have varying personalities, come from multiple backgrounds and have been impacted by a variety of circumstances that all contribute to how they react under pressure. When we add the impact of substance abuse to the other social ills that afflict so many of our young people it is not hard to understand why these student-on-teacher acts of violence occur.
But understanding or appreciating what could have led to them is one thing. Accepting or tolerating them is another. When president of the Barbados Secondary Teachers Union, Mary Redman, and president of the Barbados Association of Principals of Public Secondary Schools, Vere Parris, said they will not condone these acts we expect that Barbadians generally will support them.
It is only by being firm that perpetrators and others will understand that resorting to violence, regardless of the aggravating factors, will not be accepted and that when they fail to observe the rules of prudent and sensible human behaviour the consequences can be grave.
The incidents reported in the press this week of teachers being attacked by students are clear examples of unacceptable behaviour that must be followed by strong action that sends a clear, islanswide message of what we will not tolerate.
However, at the same time we share the caution of Mr Parris, the principal of Combermere School, that we must be careful about just expelling students, in the process turning them over to the wiles of the streets.
A student who has perpetrated such violence against a teacher might have tainted the school environment to such an extent that it is impossible for him or her to continue there. But as a society we have to be mature and responsible enough to provide alternatives – and not necessarily in the traditional school environment.
When a student’s resort to violence has been influenced by substance abuse, for example, expulsion will only expose that individual to a full-time environment with a potential for escalated drug use that then makes him or her a menace to a much larger segment of the community.
If the provoking factors stem primarily from abuse or other antisocial influences in the household, again expulsion on its own would only compound the circumstances with a higher probability of more violence being the result. If mental illness is at the forefront, then dismissal from the school environment with no avenue for appropriate treatment does no one any good, especially the students.
When students display a tendency towards violence there has to be a clear regime of responses that kick in before it becomes student-on-teacher violence. We would find it hard to believe that the cases of violence highlighted this week started with attacks on teachers, who are seen as figures of authority in the classroom. More than likely, peers would have been subjected to some form of aggression before the teachers suffered.
We also hold the position that while the acts must be condemned, the circumstances investigated and the students made to understand there are consequences to their actions, the society must also be responsible enough to demonstrate that mistakes, even serious acts of indiscretion, at such early stages of the teenage years ought not to be fatal. Treatment, rehabilitation and direction toward a productive future have to be part of what we offer these misguided youth.
We must be firm and decisive, but we must also be humane.
