A recent question to occupy the public mind space is the safety of school children. As I am primarily responsible for ensuring safety on the school campus, my time spent worrying about it leads me to a factual observation. The statistics show that students are most often at risk from each other. In the years since our inception, the infirmary records frequently show instances of students either deliberately or carelessly inflicting minor injuries on each other. The teacher’s role in the few instances when hostility has not been detected in time for preemptive action is to break up the scuffle, provide first aid and console the victim, counsel the aggressor and finally, inform the parents of both. Recently, teachers have shared that a lot of their teaching time is diverted into continual monitoring of student interactions and this is stressful. From enjoying quality teaching time with students teachers are now wary about what might unexpectedly erupt in the classroom, and whether, despite doing everything to contain a situation, they might still be blamed by the authorities and the parents. Given this almost daily scenario, they merely roll their eyes at ‘real’ emergencies like fire or earthquake for which we prepare with regular school drills.
We inhabit a universe that does not guarantee preservation of human life or limb at will. Our petty human effort to counter its harshness, however, should focus not only on natural disasters but also try to detect the enemy within. The quick flaring tempers and casual impulsive violence, both verbal and physical, of our young school children makes me wonder whether we are evolving into a more dangerous species with every generation? Some parents I have met try to pin the blame for their child’s misbehaviour on school, friends or the Internet, and obviously, children do learn abusive behaviour from their environment, both human and digital. But that is not the point. It is more psychologically disturbing that many children seem to enjoy bullying, show no moral restraint, nor even feel any guilt. They are not afraid of authority figures like teachers or the principal. When I ask them whether they are satisfied with the outcome of their impulsive actions, some shake their heads, genuinely regretting losing their temper. These children are fallibly human. A few others, however, admit with equal honestly, that they do not regret hurting someone. They only dislike the consequent fuss and trouble they face about it.
So, how do we reason with youngsters with no recognition of our civilised values? These children seem to perpetually see themselves as aggressors, dominators, controllers and everyone weaker than themselves as potential victims. When teachers do not punish violence with anger, they misread this as weakness and try to indirectly bully the teacher by misrepresenting facts at home. Parents are thus manipulated by their children’s lies into aggressiveness towards teachers. Or maybe, we adults are instinctive bullies, just waiting for an opportunity. My current focus, however, is our children.
Now, at this point, parents might conclude that the best way out of the situation is to avoid schools with students like this. Let me clarify that increasingly, like a horrifying alien takeover, such children are everywhere. In schools, in your housing societies, and maybe, unknown to you, inside your own homes! It’s a chilling real life situation, where even a qualified counsellor may fail to correct a mindset that believes everything right if done by ‘self’ and nothing wrong that is done to ‘others’. I have seen cold unfeeling eyes looking out of sweet young faces, and this is the enemy within that we must confront and not refuse to recognise or deal with. Tomorrow, these same children will be out in the world as potential spouses, parents, bosses or employees, with the willpower to perpetuate violence in all their relationships.
I do not offer any instant, direct, sure solution. But I believe we adults are not helping the situation with our incessant competitive focus on life. We inadvertently teach children to be afraid of life as we urge them to be more competitive. We also lower their self-esteem by our criticism when they fail to perform to our expectations in this fostered competition. We compare our children with their peers and then judge them. We claim to be aware of the evils of judging or comparing but that does not stop us from belittling our children and blinding them to whatever positive qualities that they do possess. We possibly do the same to ourselves. We compete with others, ceaselessly judge ourselves in comparison with others and overlook our positive talents and qualities in doing so. This process is self destructive, and it makes us see others as competitors for scarce resources and in general, induces a fear of life. We disguise this fear, even from ourselves, by putting on a quellingly aggressive attitude. Our children watch us and acquire a corresponding framework of values. Only, unlike us, they do not yet know how to dissimulate and pretend to be otherwise. This competitive world is reflected in our educational hierarchy topped by maths and science, whereby art, music, dance and sports are relegated to lesser importance. This is not some old fashioned, bygone belief, but a very well disguised driving force in a smoothly hypocritical world.
Science is equivalent to knowledge. Art teaches us to look at life critically and objectively. Sports require team spirit as well as focus and discipline. Introduce unhealthy competition and we have cheating and manipulation in these fields as well. Cooperation within the community and competition with others has made certain human groups dominant in our history. The highest point of any historical civilisation is judged by its creative and scientific achievements. But dare we use this rating scale on our modern world? If we do, then in spite of phenomenal technological and scientific strides forward, our news headlines highlight a world dominated by power play, destructive threats and blackmail. We are in a singularly inappropriate position to point a moral finger at our children. They merely hold the mirror up to the ‘civilised’ adult world.
We may not feel personally implicated in the faults of wishing to compete, dominate, control and hurt others, but I would question that. Let’s learn to see ourselves through the eyes of our dependant family members, children, friends, servants and employees for the objective truth. Then, we may be better equipped for guiding the lives entrusted to us by society. We must realise as parents, that our children belong to human society, not just to us. We are responsible for the social role they will play one day. If as adults ourselves, we are able to accept both our limitations and our strengths with humility (an old, unfashionable, forgotten value), then we can come to terms with our own existence. We will not then need to constantly compare and judge – maths versus music, 99.9% versus 100%, my child versus the champion, success versus subsistence, assets versus losses, angst versus peace, and so on, endlessly. After that, social violence against the weak may reduce and parenting, improve. Children can go back to being scared of the outer dark and teachers be free again to enjoy teaching – maths, music, and how to conquer your fear of the unknown.
Dr. Sanjukta Sivakumar
Principal