Dennis Kelly, principal of Charlie Smith High School in St. Andrew, buries a strap in a makeshift coffin while students look on. The burial of the strap represented an ending of corporal punishment at the school, during Peace Day celebrations in 2006. The school has been affected by recent outbursts of violence. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

A little over a week ago, schools in the Arnett Gardens community were forced to shut their doors due to a sudden outbreak of gang violence. Charlie Smith High School was closed for three days, while others closed down for a week.

Children from the community make up at least 80 per cent of the student population of the schools within Arnett, so when the internecine gang war erupts, not many turn up for school.

"Many times, some students don't come to school because of fear. Some have moved out of the community because their families are relocating," Charlie Smith's principal Dennis Kelly said.

As a result, the school's student population has dwindled over the years. In just three years, the student population fell by nearly 40 per cent, moving from just about 800 students to 500. And not many of the 500 students have been attending school either. Their teachers are just as fearful.

"Some of the teachers who have been here long enough are thinking twice about whether they too should remain under the prevailing circumstances," said Kelly

Teachers feeling the effects

A talk with some of the school's teachers proved this was true.

"The teachers, especially those of us who are new to the environment, are feeling the effects more than the students," a guidance counsellor told The Sunday Gleaner. He is one of about 17 teachers who began working at the school last September, and for him, the experience has been traumatic.

For another young male teacher from a rural community in St. Catherine, the experience seems even more frightening. He is now contemplating his future with the school.

He relates: "In the staff room, there is a big window. Every morning, I come, I look through the window, take in some breeze ... I came school the Monday and there was a bullet [hole] right over my window. I said to myself: 'This is not what I signed up for.'" He adds that if another job presented itself now, he would resign.

"Teachers cry, teachers shake ... When me hear the gunshots start, me try crawl - you know like when you watching a war show and soldiers crawl with them gun," he says, recounts the last incident when gangs clashed just outside the school compound about a week ago.

But, while the teachers are traumatised, for many of the students the sound of rapid gunfire is almost a normal event in just another normal day.

"I was in a class teaching and deep in the lesson when a youth said: 'Sir, you hear that?' Me hear some bullet and me get low," the guidance counsellor related. "All dust was on my mouth too. Some of them duck, but some of them want go outside and as much as you say come back them ask you: 'What happen to you sir?'" he explains.

This behaviour is typical, the guidance counsellor says, because the children have grown numb to the situation because it happens so frequently.

"There are some children who are traumatised, and those who are traumatised are those who have received gunshot wounds and survived. Because there are a couple like that, as you see the thing (gang warfare) start, them come and run to us," he explains "[For] the others, you don't see any deep trauma or deep depression, the only way is if it affects them directly - like a brother or a sister (is injured or killed), but to anybody else, is just a normal killing."

Violent children

Growing up in violence makes many of the children violent and hard-headed, the teachers feel, and that makes teaching even more difficult.

"Inner-city students are different from other high-school students. Fighting is a regular thing and some students, you can't really talk to them. Some of them, you try to bring positive things to them and it makes no sense," said another male teacher.

The situation is made worse by a lack of interest from the community, the teachers say, maybe because most parents have given up on the idea that their lives can be improved. But, for Principal Kelly, some of the lack of interest is due to the fact that many of these parents were themselves not ready for parenthood. As in any other poor community, teenage pregnancy tends to be high.

"The family-life structures have broken down. You have less and less committed parents coming to parent-teachers' association (PTA) meeting. In fact, a lot of the parents have never come to the PTA meeting because they don't think it's in any way important," he said.

Many of the students are taken by aunts or some other relative, he says, at the time of admission. Their biological parents, particularly fathers, are never seen because they are either dead or in prison or migrated.

Rebuilding the community

He says the school is doing all it can to help rebuild the community, but clearly, its best is not good enough. He wants the Government to step in and develop more comprehensive and stringent legislation to hold parents accountable for their children's actions.

"I think we (the school) are doing the maximum in our section of community. I think we are doing 100 per cent ... I think we really need a rebirth of the whole matter of community building," he said.