REMOVE THE BULLIES

Feb 21, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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So you think that there is too much hostility, animosity and aggressiveness in our Parliament? Try our schools!
In Parliament, the personal vendettas are not hidden. Parliamentarians make no bones about how they feel about the other side from across from where they sit. They heckle; they taunt and they even force the Speaker by their ungentlemanly conduct to walk out on his own House.
And when the sitting is over, the battles are continued in the media. One parliamentarian even complained about uncomplimentary comments in the lunch room.
It is not easy being a member of the National Assembly but most members look forward to attending sittings. The same cannot be said of all the children in our schools.
There are many children who wish they could roll back the years so that they could once again return to the joys of school life. But there is a silent majority of children who hate every minute spent in school.
And the reason why these children dread going to school is because they are often picked upon, taunted, bullied and insulted. And you think it was only in parliament these things happened. There is far more violence in some schools than there can ever be in the entire life of our parliament.
Some children are so fearful of what will happen to them at the hands of some of their peers that they often cannot sleep at nights. They are anxious about their fate. School is one hard labour camp where they are subject to abuse.
Sometimes it is at the hands of one child. Sometimes, it is at the hands of gangs or groups of their friends. The victim does not know what to do. If they dare to complain, they are fearful of being met with more abuse including possible serious violence.
So each day, they go through mental torture in an institution that is supposed to make them better persons.
If they stay away from school, their parents would be worried and begin to ask questions and the truth will have to be told and this may mean further abuse by those whom they will have to complain about. They may even be physically injured and these days weapons are being found in schools.
There are children who have their monies taken away by bullies in school. There are children whose lunch is eaten for them each day without their consent. There are children who have to bring money each day for some other child or face abuse. There are children who have their personal possessions from pencils to cell phones taken away. And there are many who are hit and pushed down for no reason at all.
This happens in both the private and public schools. This abuse is not a product of the school system. The bullies bring these traits from home. It is imported behaviour and it must be rooted out.
The problem is how does one root out something that cannot easily be detected. Most teachers are not trained to look out for the warning signals.
Most of them do not see a problem in the child who stays by himself or herself, who is withdrawn or who is disturbed in school. The teachers often feel that this is the child’s natural personality and never suspect that it may be because of bullying.
Some children live with the memory of abuse long after they would have graduated from school. Some try to forget; some go to their graves with the secret of being bullied and otherwise abused in schools.
Others strangely come to accept the insults, the taunts, the beatings and the dispossession of their belongings as part of school life. It should not be.
This past week a school child died after reportedly suffering from blunt trauma at the school he attends. It is said that he may have been pushed down.
His death should be an occasion to bring an end to all forms of abuse in our school system. Last week the women of Guyana rose up to deplore violence against their sex; it is time for parents to say that they would no longer tolerate bullies in schools.
There should be an end to this form of abuse, those parents who cannot control their children, who cannot stop them from bullying other
children, taking away their belongings or blackmailing them for money and items should be asked to make alternative arrangements for the education of their children.
If a child is a bully; if he or she cannot control his or her aggression; if he or she cannot exercise restraint, then that child should not be allowed to interfere with the education of others.
This is not advocating that the “bad eggs” be dumped. With the support of his or her parents and teachers, the errant child should be given an opportunity to change. But if it is found that the behaviour persists after numerous warnings, then that child has to be transferred to a special school trained to deal with such errant behaviour.
The Ministry of Education has to be firm on this. Regardless of the policy of no one being left behind, when it comes to ill-trained children who make the life of others a living nightmare, marching orders would be in order.
Now this is a topic worthy of an opposition parliamentary motion.

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