Dr Rad­i­ca Ma­hase

Last Sep­tem­ber, Ana was ex­cit­ed to be­gin sec­ondary school. She had passed for her sec­ond choice, a gov­ern­ment sec­ondary school. When she start­ed, she was a bit over­whelmed and found it dif­fi­cult to make friends but gen­er­al­ly, she en­joyed school. By the mid­dle of Oc­to­ber, two stu­dents in her class had start­ed pick­ing on her. They took her lunch, ridiculed her, forced her to do their home­work and ex­pect­ed her to take notes for them.

By the end of the first term, Ana dread­ed go­ing to school. She be­came anx­ious and de­pressed, could not sleep and went from be­ing an A stu­dent to fail­ing her ex­am­i­na­tions.

Ana’s par­ents met with the dean who promised to speak to the class. In­stead of help­ing, this made the sit­u­a­tion worse. The bul­ly­ing in­ten­si­fied and the stu­dents re­tal­i­at­ed against Ana when­ev­er teach­ers or deans rep­ri­mand­ed them for their in­creas­ing­ly dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour.

By the third term, Ana was ter­ri­fied to at­tend school. Ini­tial­ly, her par­ents were told that they could not meet with the prin­ci­pal. By the time they were even­tu­al­ly al­lowed to do so, it was too late as Ana was al­ready too scared to re­turn to school.

Fear­ing that their daugh­ter would be phys­i­cal­ly harmed, or that, in her de­spair she might harm her­self, they had no choice but to keep her at home. She was ef­fec­tive­ly forced to stay away from school and did not com­plete her third-term ex­am­i­na­tions. With no res­o­lu­tion from the school, her par­ents even­tu­al­ly en­rolled her in a pri­vate school. They could scarce­ly af­ford it but they be­lieved it was the on­ly way to pro­tect their child.

When we dis­cuss school in­dis­ci­pline much of the at­ten­tion is placed on the dis­rup­tive child. We ask what is caus­ing the be­hav­iour, whether the child needs coun­selling and what might hap­pen if that child is sus­pend­ed or sent home. These are nec­es­sary ques­tions. Yet, some­where in that dis­cus­sion, chil­dren like Ana dis­ap­pear.

What hap­pens to the child who goes to school ready to learn but spends each day afraid?

Who pro­tects the child whose lunch is tak­en, whose school­work is stolen and whose aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance de­te­ri­o­rates un­der the pres­sure of bul­ly­ing and oth­er stu­dents’ dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour? Why should that child be the one forced to leave the school?

This week, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to stu­dents who are dis­re­spect­ful, vi­o­lent or per­sis­tent­ly dis­rup­tive. Her lan­guage may have been blunt, but she drew at­ten­tion to stu­dents like Ana, who are be­ing bul­lied, ha­rassed and in­tim­i­dat­ed. Al­so, to teach­ers who are ex­pect­ed to teach in class­rooms where dis­rup­tion, threats and vi­o­lence have be­come nor­malised over the past years. If we are hon­est, we will see that this part of the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent state­ment should not be dis­missed. I mean, how can a school ful­fil its pur­pose when chil­dren are afraid to at­tend, when teach­ers are con­stant­ly man­ag­ing con­flict in­stead of teach­ing or when chil­dren like Ana are ex­pect­ed to en­dure bul­ly­ing so that those caus­ing harm can re­main in the class­room?

I think the dis­cus­sion about chil­dren’s rights has be­come strange­ly one-sided. We quite right­ly ask whether a child who is vi­o­lent or per­sis­tent­ly dis­rup­tive may be deal­ing with prob­lems at home, learn­ing chal­lenges, ne­glect, amongst oth­er is­sues. We con­sid­er that child’s right to ed­u­ca­tion, coun­selling and sup­port. How­ev­er, we do not al­ways ask the same ques­tions about the child who is be­ing harmed; cer­tain­ly not with the same ur­gency.

Chil­dren like Ana are of­ten at a dis­ad­van­tage be­cause they are qui­et and com­pli­ant. The child who fights, threat­ens or dis­rupts the class com­mands every­one’s at­ten­tion while the child be­ing harmed may suf­fer qui­et­ly. The good stu­dent may be too fright­ened to re­port what is hap­pen­ing, es­pe­cial­ly if pre­vi­ous com­plaints have re­sult­ed in re­tal­i­a­tion. Be­cause that stu­dent con­tin­ues at­tend­ing class­es, com­plet­ing work and obey­ing the rules, adults may as­sume that every­thing is fine.

In Ana’s case, in­stead of be­ing pro­tect­ed, she was ex­pect­ed to avoid cer­tain stu­dents, change where she sat, sur­ren­der her lunch and sim­ply learn to cope. The bur­den was shift­ed to the vic­tim. The bul­lies stayed while Ana missed her ex­am­i­na­tions and even­tu­al­ly had to leave the school. Her par­ents now face the ad­di­tion­al cost of pri­vate ed­u­ca­tion be­cause the sys­tem failed to pro­tect her. What hap­pens to chil­dren whose par­ents can­not af­ford an es­cape? In ef­fect, the child who has done noth­ing wrong is made to pay for some­one else’s bad be­hav­iour.

The right of one child to re­main in a class­room can­not be al­lowed to over­ride an­oth­er child’s right to feel safe there. Un­der­stand­ing and ad­dress­ing the source of harm­ful be­hav­iour does not re­quire us to ex­cuse it, nor should it mean that oth­er chil­dren are forced to en­dure it. Ana has a right to ed­u­ca­tion but she al­so had a right to re­ceive that ed­u­ca­tion with­out fear. When the child who wants to learn is the one forced out of school, our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem has pro­tect­ed the wrong child.