TEACHERS have been criticised for punishing delinquent children says that the position of the Ministry of Education sometimes makes ‘a mockery of those guidelines.
The position of the Ministry of Education on corporal punishment is unclear and inconsistent. If you look at the rules you will also find that the teachers’ ability to take effective disciplinary action depends on what the Manual describes as ‘the climate of the school.’
The teachers point out that while the disciplinary Manual makes provision for expelled children to be placed in “Special Schools” such special schools “properly equipped to deal with those problem children, are non-existent”.
Under the guidelines for discipline that apply in schools, the right of the school “to enforce order and discipline” also applies “when the learner retaliates or threatens to retaliate against any member of the school staff”. This too is the subject of consternation and puzzlement among teachers and teaching administrators.
At the stage where retaliation against a teacher takes place, the situation has become far too confrontational for the school to take any remedial action. Sometimes all they can do is to protect themselves by calling in the police.
Very often the violence has nothing to do with normal in – school transgressions. Children bring their dispositions from home and from the society at large, and we must first seek to determine the origins of their disposition.
By talking about disciplinary codes and about applying rules without first understanding where the violence is coming from we are really putting the cart before the horse.
In the wake of the incidents of violence, teachers have called for a collective approach to responding to the problem, one that involves the Ministries of Education and Human Services, the police and parents.
Personally, I now see real attempt to pursue the collective approach. It gets worse in schools around the country. There are cases in which children are actually encouraged by parents and friends to disrupt and undermine the school system.
They were cases in which children have sold drugs in schools; where they walk with offensive weapons and where they are deliberately aggressive to other students and teachers.
In these cases their own reputations and the reputations of their parents are well known and since the rules say that the school has no authority to expel the child or children they basically become a burden to the school and a threat to good order.