INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS
Police scan Spes Bona school in Athlone with sniffer dogs after a shooting occurred there. File photo: Thomas Holder
Durban – Violence in education takes varied forms. My experience began when I had to take someone to register at his township school at the beginning of the year.
I was reminded of the chaos of the TV series Yizo Yizo – youngsters milling around, coming in and leaving the school, pockets of haphazard order among a generalised confusion. Taking a firm commitment in favour of proper schooling, I took him straight out and registered him at another school.
At this point metaphors about frying pans become relevant. I was asked to join the school governing body, and took the role seriously. At the first meeting, a teacher got up to read a letter, in Zulu, written by a group of girls. Whatever my limitations of language, it was obvious that this was an accusation of direct and constant harassment of girls by a member of staff.
The girls had had enough, and the matter was formally reported to us, to the provincial department, to the police and to all relevant agencies. Members of the body said that we must take this seriously. A manager from the department arrived, met us and told us he would send an official to investigate.
At this point I became aware of how the forces lined up. We heard later that the official’s action was to meet the girls and shout at them, saying it was their fault for inciting the member of staff to do what he did.The police never seemed interested, and did not interact with the governing body.
While the issue dragged on, I arrived at the school once and was asked to listen to a girl who had said she would kill herself. She sobbed for 30 minutes. One teacher, a compassionate woman, phoned the girl’s grandmother, and I could see the anguish on her face as there was a torrent of abuse, blaming the girl for making the staff member do this.
We asked her to leave the room, and I then went to speak to her. Gathered around her in the staff room was a group of five girls, talking to her, stroking her hair, and promising they would find her a place to stay. One group at least had done the right thing in the situation.
Somehow it seemed impossible for the issue to get addressed. And then one day a prefect found a girl crying. He asked her why she was crying; the same staff member was standing at the gate beating latecomers on the hand.The prefect asked him to stop. He was ignored, so the prefect pushed himself forward and told the youngsters to pass.
This challenge to authority did not go unpunished. In the confrontation that followed, the prefect made the accusation of sexual harassment. And now the governing body was asked to expel the prefect. That failed, and the issue finally got the attention it needed from the department; the staff member left.
My experience touched on only part of what we face. A study of school violence by the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention sets out the full range of issues that make schools places that are not safe for young people (and for some teachers) – including bullying, assaults, corporal punishment, robbery, teasing, humiliation and cyberbullying.
While some areas are better than others, no place or group is immune; young people and teachers are left angry, humiliated, hurt and despairing. And nor is tertiary education safe. We will soon be hearing research evidence on disquieting patterns of violence in universities, not least the full extent of gender-based violence. Violence tears the fabric of our education.
The point is made that violence in schools reflects the violence in the broader society, and the study reveals high levels of violence in many homes. But a further point is needed – one reason society invests in schools is precisely so they are not a place for the reproduction of violence, but a place where a vision of hopeful possibility is preserved.
That sense of hope can still be found amidst the violence, not least in the sense of justice of teachers and pupils.
We need people to collaborate across sectors to address the issues: we need strategies for non-violence in education. That is the title of a national conference the International Centre of Nonviolence is holding at Durban University of Technology until tomorrow. We – academics, pupils, teachers, NGOs, officials – will work together to understand the nature of violence, explore the initiatives that work against it, and develop specific plans for tackling it (details on www.icon.org.za). It promises to be a hopeful event.
* Crispin Hemson is the director of the International Centre of Nonviolence(ICON), based at Durban University of Technology.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.
The Mercury
