See A Wrong... Keep Quiet

From KH1 I went to KH2 and I saw there in 7 months probably sounds unbelievable. There is a teacher who is known to use profanities in class. I shared a PE class with him and it looked like he did not return the exam papers to his students. Further conversations with students imply that he has been like this for many years. Yet the school does nothing about his ways.

Kids from the less privileged backgrounds with parents who don't know any better. I think I am seeing for myself how they are 'bullied' too. Unable to make these kids see the importance of learning, many teachers just plod in the way they know. It is common to see teachers teaching but students behaving as if there is no teacher in the class. When punishment is meted up, it is often harsh. The cane is used because the school doesn't know what else to do to keep the kids silent. The cane is used because the kids refused to do their homework. The method salvaged some but generally we are losing more than we salvage. Public caning used to be a norm but I heard it hasn't been happening since I left. It is a bit peculiar how my leaving would stop such a practice.

If my first encounter with the teacher bully filled me with surprise, I no longer am surprised at the existence of such teachers. In the past 7 months, I have heard stories from students how the teachers have slapped them on their faces or used the rubber bands to flick their ears. I have also heard from students how teachers show their power at the slightest bit of excuse. One kid even told me that his teacher crumpled his folio because the papers weren't stapled. How do you expect kids to love learning with such kind of behaviour.

You get reasons that these kids are repeat offenders. Teachers tell you they can't change. These kids are labelled hopeless and incorrigible. And I wonder if it's us who have lost our way or the kids.

Everyone is looking for quick solutions without looking at themselves or how they have also contributed to the problem. You have Principals who keep coming up with programmes because the grades are falling. You have PKs who chase the teachers to discipline, manage, run projects or programmes. You have GKs who breathe down the teachers' necks for reports and more reports. And finally the poor teachers who have to receive all these brick brats from the top people.

I was reading some messages on the School Social Media App. These days, they use WhatsApp, Telegram to run the school. A teacher reports on the app that students are missing from class. The response from the PK HEM can be something like this. "Go record it in the school system." If you check again later, nothing is done. Gone seems to the days when PKs go running round the school to look for these kids who have played truant. These days digitalisation simply means that. Record it into the system and it will appear as a statistic. And so, the state of the discipline continue to slide. Everyone is pushing the responsibility to everyone. It feels to me like the education system will implode.

I had a conversation with a friend. He said that schools should appreciate and keep teachers who still want to truly teach. I replied Principals don't want that. They want obedient teachers. Obedient teachers that form the pack and move as a pack, values be damned.

So is education really about education these days? Or education never was really education. Perhaps too, the real education never did lie within the institutions. Perhaps real education lies outside the grasp of the institutions. Real education would grow the mind and will. Institutions are set by parameters, not just the physical but it dictates too what you are to learn and master.

Public schools are in a dismal state. It's tiring just to try to do the right thing. Perhaps too, just sit back, do as everyone. That's what most are doing. The rot has set in too deep... and to restore it would take more than just political will. A whole generation is now being lost... and it's always the poor who lose more.

All those sweet sounding words.. all the noble talks about making a change in the lives of the kids... they are just words amidst a decaying and crumbling system. Sad.