Shocking revelations

PEOPLE WHO KNOW my interest in education often tell me of some of the shocking things that go on in Barbadian schools today.

However, nothing prepared me for the revelation published in your Thursday, September 26 edition of the DAILY NATION.

The headline on Page 4 read:

Teachers, parents: Deal with bullies. The first paragraph read in part: “A number of teachers at the Alexandra School were reportedly absent from the school yesterday and a call is being made for an urgent intervention by the Ministry of Education at the St Peter-based institution.”

Reportedly it is claimed that the recent stabbing incident at the school was a result of an “innocent student” bullied and threatened by another who they (the teachers) said was terrorising the school for the past three years.

First question: How on God’s earth does a single student “terrorise” a school for three years? Second question: Does the school have a principal and a deputy? Third question: Does the school have a management team comprising the principal, deputy principal, year heads and heads of department? Every school should have a management team under whose purview all areas relating to conduct and behaviour should come. That whole management team should have the right to decide on the suspension or expulsion of any incorrigible student. Teachers’ lives and the lives of students could be at stake. If teachers as a body insist that a student or group of students is no longer within their capacity to control and that those delinquents pose a clear and present danger, then those students should be expelled and sent to a reform institution set up for such miscreants. One last question: Does the school have a functioning Parent-Teacher Association?

How did this situation go on for so long? I thought the rubric was that if you saw something you should say something.

Teachers generally do not speak up because many are hoping to rise though the ranks in a profession that offers little chance for mobility. The top ranks in education are riddled with people who have risen above the level of their competence. Finally, did the Minister of Education know what was going on at this school and perhaps others? One parent claims that she wrote a letter to the principal and the Ministry of Education about certain incidents involving her child , but she states “I have never received a response.” How could that be?

But there were more shocking revelations. The press report noted that: “Gangs led by a delinquent student have been operating at the school threatening students and staff, beating students and stealing their lunch and other possessions as well as smoking weed on the school premises.” How many of these weed-smoking students are already showing signs of marijuana-induced psychosis? Are schools becoming the breeding ground for extortionists? This is not uncommon in many schools.

At a school that I knew well there was talk of a certain student extorting money from younger pupils. Interestingly, the student was from a well-to-do background. Two parents at the Alexandra School are reported as saying.

‘There are about eight gangs operating at Alexandra School.

My son was beaten and bullied from the day he entered the school in first form. This has taken a psychological toll on him to the extent that it has seriously affected his grades and sometimes he stays home because he is afraid to go to school.” Some older boys are known to have ties with criminal elements outside of the school. The story is told of an elderly man who saw a boy not at school on a particular day. The gentleman asked why, only to be told by the boy that he had been suspended from the school. The old man questioned whether the chap was missing his education.

The boy responded that he was not missing his education but was missing the money. What money, asked the man. The boy replied that he used to make some “good money” in that school. A word to the wise. We await the great transformation.

– RALPH JEMMOTT

DAILY