Recent reports about the behaviour of students suggest they are terrorizing the schools and are out of order. These reports are disturbing and a cause for genuine concern.
To solve a problem, we should first find the root cause.
Children are born knowing nothing. Nothing about culture or history; nothing about manners or respect; nothing about cursing or swearing; nothing about teachers or school; nothing about discipline. Therefore, here is the perfect opportunity to instil positive behavioural practices. So what went wrong?
I have mental pictures of mothers and fathers, and of grandmothers and grandfathers, holding up babies and saying things like “googly goo”, “gi gi” and “mummy and daddy feet chile”. All the while the baby is smiling and laughing with uncontrollable euphoria. What a start to life – for the baby. What an opportunity to mould a life – for the parent. Oh, what power! What responsibility! For responsibility to realize its true meaning, it needs someone who is trustworthy and who understands that it is a moral obligation. That it is a job.
Having arrived in this world void of knowledge, the child learns from its immediate environment, which is the home. The child learns whether deliberately taught or not. It learns everything through observation and displays such knowledge through mimicking. It learns whatever is presented – good and bad, sensible and stupid, clean and nasty, kind and unkind, right and wrong.
Can we blame the child for anything? I think not.
It should now be clear that preparation for the world ahead has to take place in the home – what to eat, how to dress, manners, how to speak, how to read, how to write, respect for fellow man, religious teachings, knowledge of the laws of the land and so on.
Most parents do these things but not for sustained periods. These have to be taught and reinforced every day of the week.
Some modern-day parents think that rearing a child takes up too much of their time and does not allow them to enjoy their lives. But the job of parent has dire consequences if not performed as required. Consequences not just for the parent or the child but for the entire society.
The more parents neglect their duty, the more dire the consequences become. Can we blame the child for this? I think not.
So now the children of neglecting parents are sent to school. Children who were left unattended so parents could go out and party. Children who don’t speak properly, who don’t dress properly, who curse properly, who disrespect properly, who have poor hygiene practices, who fight if someone accidentally touches them, and who suffer from low self-esteem.
They are sent to a teacher who has to do what is undone and undo what has been done.
But lo and behold, just as there is a modern-day parent, there is a modern-day teacher. Most modern-day teachers teach the subject matter only.
“If you learn you learn; if you don’t learn you don’t learn” is the general attitude.
So where is the child now? It is between a rock and a hard place – having left an unfulfilled environment for an unfulfilling one.
The teenager is still a child but more daring – a modern-day teenager; less patient, more challenging; less scared, more exposed. This teen will test you, all the while looking for guidance from you and for you to show self-confidence. If the guidance or the confidence is not forthcoming, the teenager dismisses you, the teacher, and does not do “your work”, not realizing that they are hurting themselves.
The behaviour that results requires disciplinary action, but does the teacher institute discipline? No! The teacher refers it to principal. No matter how minor the offence, it is referred to the head of the school.
Now here two things happen.
Firstly, the student is now seen as a “bad boy” because the principal has to support the teacher and punish the student; otherwise, the system will break down, and also, the minor infraction is recorded on the student’s card and is there for eternal reference.
Secondly, when students are constantly being sent to principals for minor matters that should have been handled by the teachers, it trivializes the principals. Hence, in the view of the teen student, the principal becomes just another teacher or the only respected teacher.
However you look at it, the concept is an ingredient for lack of confidence in his teachers and frustration with school. Thus the teenager feels he is on his own.
Is he mature enough to be on his own? Sometimes he is not and you then read about him in the news where there are problems at certain schools.
So who is to blame? Certainly not the child (the teenager). But one thing I can tell you is that it is scary to know that that modern-day child who was ill-prepared will become a modern-day parent. Can we now solve the problem?
• Mac Fingall is an entertainer and retired secondary school teacher.
