The death of a school child

Dec 04, 2023 Editorial

Editorial…

Kaieteur News – A young child has died on the East Coast of Demerara, the victim of alleged bullying and in that most innocent of spaces, a schoolyard. It is the day that was dreaded, one that was wished would pass us by. One young life snuffed out in an instant of recklessness, another now blemished by the work of his cruelly thoughtless hands. There are two families, and two communities, including a school family, left to struggle for a way forward.

Violence in our schools, and around them, has too often been in the news. It is not at epidemic levels yet, but definitely at worrying levels currently. This is not about reports of crimes committed against children, but of mostly by students against their fellow students. There is a news splash, and then there is a lull. That is, until the next incident of violence in a local school seep into the national consciousness.

The sources pointed to as being responsible for this unfolding violence are many. Single-parent homes and poverty, the absence of a disciplinarian and mentoring figure in the home, the influence of television and its endless diet of violence, the presence of gangs, and membership in them, the relentless pressures from peers and succumbing to them for a sense of belonging. All have contributed in some manner, either individually or in some combination. The presence of one pair of components is fed by, or leads to, a connection with one or more of the others.

The Ministry of Education has its plans, programs, and procedures that are meant to get in front of the violence that threatens the ambience of school days, classrooms, and schoolyards. There is the sense that teachers are trying hard, but there is also that feeling that cannot be suppressed: they are hesitant in some circumstances, meaning, that there is the fear that if they move too assertively, they run the risk of paying a price. The first is the wrath of an offended parent or family member that has to be faced. The second is that there may be an unnecessary and unearned blotch on their record, which could have been avoided. Further, school administrators on the premises have their hands full balancing numerous interests of educating and maintaining order, plus managing staff and parents, to identify a couple. Those away from actual school premises accumulate the latest knowledge and guidance from experts, and then pass those onto those running schools.

It is training and preparing for the unexpected and upending, either in result or accompanying attention. But how does a regular teacher or a headteacher anticipate what unfolded at that East Coast Demerara school? How could any adult school presence be in that required state of perpetual alertness that enables him or her to get in front of a gate swung with force that injures fatally? One idea that has its followers and critics has been for more authority placed in the hands of headteachers, and for discipline to be enforced more confidently. Another is for more school counselors and social workers to be on compounds. Still another is for parents to be held more accountable for the actions of their children. One terrible development that Guyanese now have to deal with is of parents attacking teachers in the open. A few years back this was unheard of, and unimaginable.

One of the challenges in the current Guyanese environment is the level of violence that surges and strikes with increasing frequency. Attitudes are hard, and those are followed by harder words. Some come from the bowels of social media, and make their way into the streets, into exchanges about national issues. The local divisions only add another layer of hardness that is edgy and brittle. The impressionable young of Guyana are not existing on some remote island, but are well aware of what flares here, and what gains traction. Some children absorb the talk and reality of violence in society, perhaps in their own homes and communities, and that becomes a part of their makeup. Other children are terrorized, and families end up living with bitter loss. Now, one child is gone, and another is poised to be gone in another direction.

bullying, child death, Editorial, recklessness, violence

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