Shoot the messenger - the Hong Kong solution to school violence
I am a gweilo teacher and usually I feel I'm given sufficient credibility by my colleagues. But sometimes an incident occurs that reminds me not to take this for granted. One Friday I was on playground duty. Our students had kicked a ball over the high fence dividing our school from one next door. A barrage of bottles, cans and rubbish came back. Immediately our trouble-makers swarmed to the fence shouting obscenities and threats. I dispersed them and moved kids away from the area as the barrage continued.
I was the only teacher in the playground and I couldn't watch every part of the fence. But I did notice our local gang moving further along the divide. Before I could reach them, they had lobbed pot-plants into the neighbouring schoolyard and fled.
The rest of my afternoon was spent trying to convince my discipline team that this was pretty serious stuff and action needed to be taken. I had to hunt out the witnesses and prefects, get their statements, identify the recalcitrants and badger the discipline team to pick them up. All the time I was made to feel it could have been a misunderstanding because the kids may not have understood my instructions. (Perhaps they thought I told them to throw pot-plants over the fence.) Let's not rock the boat. Let's try to put the incident behind us.
So at the staff meeting after school I thought it sensible to point out that the playground was insufficiently staffed with two teachers, one on each side of the school, trying to supervise so large an area, and that if anything bad happened, the principal could be held liable for not providing sufficient supervision. After a short discussion the meeting decided I should no longer be required to do playground duty. Don't examine the problem. Don't consider the real danger of someone being hurt, or the equally serious danger of gang tactics at work. Don't think about legal liability or culpability. Move the whistle-blower somewhere else. I call this the 'Hong Kong solution', but that may be unfair.
The implications of their decision are that: I am incompetent; the students don't understand or obey me; I'm less of a teacher than my Chinese colleagues; and, they have super powers enabling them to see around corners and through walls - I think these are all incorrect.
If I were to take legal action against the next door school - their inadequate supervision leading to actual physical assault, distress and aggravation to me - I wonder if my own would see the necessity of increasing playground supervision. I doubt it. But it might be worth rocking the boat.
ROD LANDER
Teacher
