Thursday, June 19, 2008

Should kids who cannot cope with school stay on?

There is this Form 5 boy, I shall call him Im, whom I know quite well since he was 15. This year, he will be taking his SPM or O-Levels equivalent. After spending 11 years in the mainstream schooling system, one would expect him to be able to cope somewhat.

Well, it's not happening. He has been on a downhill slide these last 3 years. When he was 15 (Form 3), it was still possible to keep him quiet in class and make him complete his work. He was an insolent kid, even those days. But you could still reason with him and he still tried to see sense in the things that you say to him. However, he obviously was not cut out for the academic stream.

A year down the road, with the kicking in of the rebellious stage, so common among boys his age, his behaviour worsened further. He became really 'biadap' (uncouth) in class. He would sit in class, nonchalant to whatever that took place during lesson. He would show the rest of the class that he dared defy the teachers and worse still he would disrupt the lessons on purpose. And no amount of advice worked! He was too far gone! You can see from his face that he actually felt proud of his 'achievements'. And he started to gain the admiration of some of the students, usually those not so confident ones.

This year, there are 3 of them like him in the same class and the figure is set to rise. Both his followers are the quiet type of students who are not very confident of themselves. They too find it difficult to cope with their lessons and by misbehaving, they too find a form of escapism from their problems.

As for the rest of the class who want to study, they have taken things into their hands. They have started a small book and ask the teachers to record his misconduct....with the hope that when they can gather enough incriminating evidence, they can then bring them to the school authorities, hoping that action can be taken on him eventually...I guess most of them would be most happy if the school expels him. I feel sorry for them because this is truly a case of 'kerana nila setitik, rosak sebelanga susu'. Is it worth it? In trying to salvage one, we jeopardize the rest of the kids in the class.....

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

During my time, We have exactly one like him in our class. NOt only he is disrupting the class, he tries to find fault with us by teaming up with the gangster and such to create havoc. I would definitely want him out of the class. Or even school!

Anonymous said...

hmm... why not expel him now???

AJ7 said...

you may not be aware..we're supposed to keep them until F5. If we expel them, then they end up in another school...or they go appeal, then they end up in the original school. Personally, I think going out to work would knock some senses into them.

Anonymous said...

in that case, just put them in a special room during school and ignore them... too bad. life's like that.

AJ7 said...

Special room, you mean something like detention. 'Not enough' manpower. Many years ago, a staff was allowed to take them to the field to mow the grass..which actually was a good idea. Made them so tired that they had no energy to disturb their classes! LOL! It was good...those days! The boss was also okay with it!

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