Expulsion not a solution

RUDY CHATO PAUL, SR

SOME OF us would have heard the Prime Minister in her post-cabinet briefing on June 5 addressing the issue of school violence. To say I was surprised by the stand she and her cabinet took is an understatement.

The PM advocated expulsion of students involved in fights and other serious disruptive behaviours. She went on to advocate criminal charges be brought against such students, and also those who resort to any form of violence against teachers and/or principals.

For the record, I am no “bleeding-heart Democrat” or anything of the sort. However, I try to be both pragmatic and reasonable. Neither am I apologising for anyone’s decisions and/or behaviours, be they students, parents, teachers and/or principals, school counsellors, or any of the many other players in the educational matrix of our young people.

The PM currently advocating expulsion and criminal charges is the same PM who was instrumental in getting rid of “licks" in school. I remember it well as I too was against corporal punishment, and continue to so advocate. See, I received way beyond more than my fair share of “licks” for something outside of my control: public transportation. I also recognise that people are free to change their stand on issues.

As someone who spent a significant amount of time in education, tertiary nonetheless, I understand all too well the frustrations of adults who seemingly are unable to “control” the behaviour of children. Perhaps therein lies the problem: the need to control. Many of my students were teenagers and young adults. Their understanding of the world and the implications for their often erratic and unconventional behaviours are not often well thought-out.

One cannot understand school violence without an understanding of the many variables that lead up to that. Parents come in for their fair share of blame, and in some cases rightfully so. Even then there are factors that shape parents’ decisions and behaviours. A major factor being economics.

It’s widely acknowledged that we have much more than our fair share of single parents. This is a reality which must be confronted head-on. Single parents, most being mothers, striving to make ends meet – to put food on the table, to keep a roof above their heads, struggling from paycheck to paycheck, unable to satisfy the most basic needs, while trying to maintain a stress-free facade – is no walk in the park.

Add to that mix a frustrated teenager or two in school battling the peer pressure of trying to keep up with their classmates who appear slightly better off, blinging with the latest cell phone, sneakers and/or haircut/hairstyle. And while it is easy for adults to argue that the children should resist peer pressure, highly-paid professionals are responsible for flooding various forms of media with ads targeting them to "get this, eat this, wear this, buy this, use this...”

Then we seek to punish the children who take out their frustrations on each other, for reasons even unknown to them. I am not advocating a hand-holding session of get-togethers, chanting “kumba yah.” What I am pointing to is that many of today’s parents were once victims of a system which failed them a generation or two earlier.

We are all aware of intergenerational poverty, where that vicious cycle continues unbroken. What do we think will happen to children who are expelled from schools in their teenage years? How do we see them ten, 20, 30 years down the line? What do we expect when a teenage girl is expelled from school?

Serious decisions are proposed on young lives with no understanding of the long-term consequences. While these children are too young to be called adults, or engage in adult-making decisions like consensual sex, the purchase of cigarettes, or alcohol, drive a vehicle, their lives are being permanently altered by adults who often make similar decisions, and in many cases worse.

Expelling students, much like the call for the death penalty, is a knee-jerk reaction by adults who refuse to think outside the box to resolve issues which they never had to confront, until today. Expulsion is not a solution. What most of these children need is professional help, not from adults who are as dysfunctional as they are. Where are the school social workers in this dilemma? What is their role? Are they overworked?

It has often been said that we cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater. That missing generation will find us one day.