An unwelcome internet phenomenon is trending in Trinidad and Tobago: videos of secondary school students fighting, recorded on mobile phones and uploaded to online social media networks.
Visit one of several hundred Facebook pages like "YouTube search bar and you will find even more.
The videos are recorded in very public places. Many take place in the street. The young people fighting in these videos are apparently students, to judge from their being fully dressed in their respective school uniforms.
The level of violence is concerning. In several videos, students hit each other with chairs. a drain on the side of the road.
Generally, these are not armed confrontations, although there is one in which a student reaches into a backpack and pulls out a knife threatening to stab the boy he is fighting with.
In the wake of recent student-on-student violence in Trinidad and Tobago's schools, several questions arise. Why are these youths behaving so violently? How can we change the violent culture that seems to be taking over? As important as these questions are, we must also ask a simpler if less obvious one: why does no one step in and take action?
The Bystander Effect
In almost all of the videos posted, there's a large crowed gathered around the fight. In the background, students scream obscenities intended to egg on and even escalate the confrontation. But who is the person holding the cell phone recording the incident? And why is is that, rather than use the cell to call for help, their response to violence is to video record the incident and then upload it to Facebook or YouTube? One possible explanantion, from the field of Social Psychology, is a phenomenon known as the Bystander Effect.
First demonstrated in a laboratory experiment by John Darley and Bibb Latane in 1968, the Bystander Effect explains cases in which witnesses to serious crime do not seek to help a victim. This experiment was developed in the wake of the 1964 murder of New York City resident, Kitty Genovese. Upon returning to her apartment from her job as a bar manager at 3 am, she was attacked, stabbed several times and eventually died of her wounds. What made the case interesting was the fact that several of her neighbors heard her crying out for help, but no one took action quickly enough by intervening or by calling the police. Several social experiments in years that followed only helped to reinforce the idea of the Bystander Effect, which is that the greater number of bystanders witnessing the incident, the less likely that any of them will help.
Stop, Look, Listen...Upload?
Psychologist Daryl Joseph, said there were two sides to the Bystander Effect: "One side is that people, including young people, are very fascinated with 'bacchanal'--violence and aggressive behavior. The other aspect of it is peer pressure, where people who think differently on the situation might be afraid to jump in and do something about it, for fear of being ridiculed or victimised. Stepping in is just not cool."
Asked about the possible link between violence in homes and violence in schools, Joseph said, "It's wider than just the home. Violence is being seen as an acceptable means of resolving a dispute in Trinidad's society today."
Ironically, in the wake of recent incidents of physical violence among students, several voices have been calling for the re-introduction of corporal punishment in schools, which is in itself viewed by some as an act of physical violence. It's "a tricky subject", Joseph said.
"The reason corporal punishment was stopped in the first place was an attempt to stop the abuse of corporal punishment. I don't think that re-introducing it right now will put things back to where they were 20 or so years ago. Students threaten teachers now. Students are often involved in gangs--they retaliate."
Attention Seekers Gone Wild?
Peter Wilson, General Secretary of Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers' Association (TTUTA), who spoke to The Guardian about the online student fight videos, said the people getting into fights in schools could just be looking for attention, seeking an audience. To compound the issue, the young people who are now recording these fights now have immediate access to large online audiences.
"I don't think that the technology in itself is causing it [fights], but maybe the technology is expanding the audience. Often these fights are a question of rank or status."
Wilson suggested that the school violence was mirroring an uptick in violence in the wider society.He expressed his concern over several social problems in the community such as the breakdown of family life, drug use and organised crime. He said these issues were becoming the "norm in society today" and are thus becoming a part of school life in Trinidad and Tobago.
Loose Ends
All of this discussion enevitably leads to more questions on the issue.
Have the youth of T&T become victims to this social phenomenon known as the Bystander Effect? What would be the realistic course of action to solve the problem? What is to blame for the issue of student violence? And how can we possibly hope to change something that may very well just be part of human nature?
We at The Guardian would like to hear from you, the people of Trinidad and Tobago. So tommorow, June 11th, at 1pm we will begin an online discussion for all who wish to join on the topic of school violence. Tweet your thoughts to the hastag #TTSchoolFights or comment of the Facebook status that will be posted at 1pm sharp. We look forward to hearing from you.
Two things are for certain, school violence has never been more in the public eye of Trinidad and Tobago, and some form of action must be taken to see that these fights stop and stop immediately before more young lives are damaged or lost.