|
 |
LETTER OF THE DAY - Arm teachers for self-defence!
published: Thursday | February 21, 2008
The Editor, Sir:If a thing is seen or heard often enough..it becomes a norm. Are we going to sit back and allow these vicious attacks on our Jamaican teachers to become a norm? Just under a month ago the media broadcast a situation at a primary school in Manchester where a teacher was severely chopped and beaten by residents of a community, simply because he tried to 'discipline' a student. A few months before that, a teacher at Islington High School in St Mary had to be shielded from a student, simply because she told him to remove an item from his person which did not form a part of his school uniform. Lo and behold, Monday's news, February 18, along with both popular TV stations, highlighted that teachers at the Ocho Rios High School staged a protest because a parent and uncle to two students walked on to the school compound, armed, determined to abuse a teacher who had also tried to 'discipline' the son. A teacher from the said school also related five other incidents where teachers from that same school had been attacked. When is this madness going to stop? When will the law enforcers of this land make an example out of these perpetrators? Each day that police officers and soldiers turn out for duty, they are faced with unpredictable, precarious and life-threatening situations. This is not daunting to them because they are trained and armed to deal with these situations. Each morning that teachers turn up for work, they are faced with the same unpredictable, precarious and life-threatening situation, as some of the students who they teach are from homes where criminality is the norm and certain socially acceptable behaviours are foreign to them. Yet, the teachers are neither trained nor armed to deal with the level of violence that blatantly confronts them on a daily basis. Police and soldiers are waging a war on crime. The same level of widespread crime in the society is also rampant in the schools, hence teachers are also waging war ... not only on illiteracy, but on crime too. Since the schoolyard is fast becoming a Gaza Strip, my panacea is to arm teachers too. Send them on training seminars at the JDF and the JCF academy where they will learn the art of self-defence. At the end of the training, equip them, too, with the same weapons that law enforcement officers carry: assault rifles, sub-machine guns, batons, tear gas canisters, bulletproof vests and helmets. Equipping teachers with these weapons will enhance their ability to respond effectively to a wider range of contingencies. Forget the dainty high heels and stockings or shirt and tie. Garb teachers in military uniform so as to fit the profile of a zero-tolerance approach towards crime and violence of any sort ... aimed at them or otherwise. With this solution in mind a catastrophe of this magnitude will not repeat itself. |
|
|
|
