Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The moth­er of a teenage stu­dent who was re­cent­ly cap­tured on cam­era con­fronting a school teacher and us­ing ob­scene lan­guage to­wards her said her daugh­ter has since apol­o­gised for her be­hav­iour.

In a se­ries of videos shared on Face­book, Sher­ry Ann Ray­mond, a moth­er of eight, said she was left dis­ap­point­ed with her child’s be­hav­iour and that her daugh­ter had to own up for her mis­con­duct.

“I feel the pain that my daugh­ter car­ries on. Yes, I’m a moth­er and a hu­man be­ing. I am not a beast. I am not proud about it, so that is why I went to the school. An apol­o­gy did take place be­cause I went in school the same day it hap­pened and made her apol­o­gise to the teacher. My daugh­ter apol­o­gised to the teacher and every­thing was set­tled in the school,” she said.

Ray­mond said she will con­tin­ue to work with her daugh­ter in an ef­fort to cor­rect her ac­tions and urged par­ents to pray for their chil­dren.

She said, “I am still proud of my daugh­ter. I will not con­demn her. She is not the first child with that be­hav­iour, but I pray to God that He will watch over her and con­trol what­ev­er demons con­trol their chil­dren.”

Ray­mond al­so ap­pealed for stronger mea­sures to be im­ple­ment­ed with­in the school walls to curb vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline.

Ray­mond al­so con­tend­ed that de­spite the best ef­forts by par­ents to set their chil­dren along a pos­i­tive path, ob­sta­cles can veer them off course and that con­tin­u­ous sup­port is need­ed.

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion’s sec­ond vice pres­i­dent, Mar­sha Hug­gins, not­ed that a vi­ral video of a fe­male sec­ondary school stu­dent dis­re­spect­ing a teacher high­lights a trou­bling dai­ly oc­cur­rence ed­u­ca­tors face.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, Hug­gins con­demned the stu­dent’s ac­tion and lament­ed the fre­quen­cy of stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline which teach­ers are forced to grap­ple with.

Hug­gins said ur­gent mea­sures were need­ed to ad­dress dis­rup­tive stu­dents who tar­get teach­ers.

“We feel that we don’t get the kind of sup­port that we need in schools be­cause you can tell in a sit­u­a­tion like that, the teacher was pow­er­less, in an­oth­er sit­u­a­tion it may not have end­ed as well. That teacher ex­er­cised a lot of re­straint, we don’t con­done that be­hav­iour and there isn’t any­thing in the sys­tem to re­al­ly treat with that lev­el of in­dis­ci­pline,” Hug­gins said.

Ques­tions re­lat­ed to the in­ci­dent be­tween the stu­dent and teacher cap­tured on cam­era were sent to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly how­ev­er, there was no re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day.