Time for the law to take care of teachers, too

Nadine Molloy Young, Contributor

THE STUDENTS who attack teachers, usually in groups and with weapons, are not the normally expected undisciplined students who have access to and take advantage of counselling and other interventions in our schools. All secondary and some primary schools have these programmes and make good use of them at varying levels. These programmes are ministry initiatives and/or school-developed. All policies and interventions are non-confrontational in approach.

The students who attack teachers are the ones who exhibit criminal behaviour by attacking sometimes with very little immediate warning. They are substance abusers who have access to hardcore weapons. Some are aligned to groups external to the school that will back them in their conduct and actions, if necessary. Entry and exit to and from many schools is easy, owing to a lack of perimeter fencing. These students' attendance patterns are also erratic most times. Many parents of these students cannot be found or have no control over them, or behave just like them, if not worse.

Unreachable students

In the main, teachers do not complain much about undisciplined students, they deal with them; they do every day. Those students that teachers complain about are the one's the schools' counselling system cannot reach with their level training and resources. Their behaviour manifestations are criminal and extremely dangerous and disruptive. Recent events have shown them to actually be life-threatening.

The advice to defend one's self is not about starting a fight, it is about trying to save one's life when a knife is at one's throat or when you are being inflicted with multiple stab wounds, or when five boys are punching and kicking you mercilessly so that you must seek medical attention. It is about the indignity of female teachers running away with their torn clothes and partly exposed bodies. It is the indignity of your reduced status when you return to face the class that snickers at you. There are still the big black-and-blue teeth marks on the teacher's hand. It is the indignity of having to say, despite teachers' best efforts in most instances, defend yourselves, when all the teacher did was to give a simple instruction.

The very threat of these precarious circumstances is enough. It is sad, but when death stares you in the face, your survival instincts will kick in.

Learning, the primary focus of schools, in this atmosphere is greatly compromised. As one person indicated to me, "Such action on the part of students, in my view, destroys the platform on which both parties - teachers and students - exchange knowledge and skills, indeed destroys the platform for relating."

Missing police?

Where are the police when called? There are times when there are no vehicles to transport them to the school or there are not enough officers to be deployed to the school, among other reasons. A school resource officer (police) was recently stabbed. The evidence speaks for itself; serious injury is being done despite interventions and the support of the law. Are teachers concerned about reprisals? They are very concerned. The threats are made daily. Sadly, the schools are experiencing exactly what the wider Jamaica is experiencing.

Students only have to report that they have been abused and the teacher may be investigated, arrested and tried. The law takes care of children, as it rightly should. What of the teachers? We now need to introduce penalties that seek to offer teachers greater protection, and the Jamaica Teachers' Association has begun that discourse. This has been done in other countries with good results. We also need to seek redress for teachers who are so affected on the job. The costs to the teacher in medical bills and security and to the school in time lost cannot be left to the teacher. What we are certain about is the need for a solution and, indeed, what we are working towards is a speedy response to this growing problem

The will has to be found under a zero-tolerance policy to remove from schools to institutions so designed for them those students who represent a violent/serious threat to the safety of the school community. Expulsions are not encouraged by the education ministry, but it must be supported now. It may not be long before we are called to mourn a teacher whose only wrong was to attempt to instruct/reprimand a student. Teachers cannot continue to be regarded as mere collateral damage.

Nadine Molloy is president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association.