It is time to listen and act
Elspeth Duncan
A few days ago, a friend and I were discussing how, as young secondary-chool students, we dreaded receiving order marks for bad behaviour. Back then, the mere concept of an order mark was sufficient to ward off tendencies to major mischief.
I cannot recall bullying incidents in “our day” at St Augustine Girls’ High School. Under the strict rule of “Auntie Anna,” any attempts at troubling another student were kept to a level of innocence more definable as “teasing.”
I recall a quiet student who came from a humble background. A group of us deduced that she could afford only one school shirt, and that she wore it daily without washing it. We assumed this because of the rings of sweat, in varying earth tones (from deep brown to pale yellow) on the white cotton under her armpits.
A few of us named her “Chromatography,” as the graded underarm hues reminded us of the separation of colour pigments in the chromatographic process.
We never called her “Chromatography” to her face. It remained a private name.
What was that “something” in us that prevented us from consciously hurting her?
Had we been another way inclined, we could have called her “Chromatography” in person…defaced her books by writing it as her “real name”…stolen her shirt (when she changed into her PE uniform) and strung it up somewhere like a flag…given her deodorant or laundry soap as Christmas/birthday gifts…held our noses and made “poo poo” noises whenever she walked by…left daily notes on her desk with drawings of armpits from which odours emanated like steam…
While those things may sound reasonably harmless, they are not.
Even writing them as possibilities, I feel a pang of dread. Had we gone along those lines, how would that quiet student have felt? What would she have done? Would she have been driven to eventually take her life, as did Jayden Lalchan, the 15-year-old form four student of St Stephen’s College, Princes Town, who, as a victim of years of unaddressed school-based bullying, was recently driven to commit suicide? (May he rest in peace.)
Ages ago, before heading off to university in England, I taught English literature and language for a year at St Stephen’s College.
In those days there was a stick called “Perkins” that every student feared. Anyone who misbehaved would meet the painful tail end of that rod of punishment.
A few days ago I was trying to remember the name of the teacher who walked along past classrooms daily, slowly tapping Perkins on the railings for students to hear. That menacing tap, tap, tap meant that any mischief had better be curtailed immediately…or else!
I reached out to one of my past students, Darren (currently a Facebook friend) to ask him if he recalled which teacher had used Perkins.
“Perkins was De Coteau,” he replied, referring to the now deceased former principal of the school. “I know that well. Got to taste Perkins.
“I can’t believe all this bullying,” he continued, before referring to Perkins again. “Strokes was passing left, right and centre.”
“I know. That is why I was remembering Perkins,” I said, admitting to him that I would not want to be a teacher or a student in a TT school today.
“Students have too much rank,” he concluded. “It was the other way around in my days. We respected teachers. We knew the consequences of misbehaviour. There are no consequences now, sadly.”
Throughout TT there have been reports of increased indiscipline and bullying in schools.
Jayden’s tragic death shines a light on this painfully prevalent issue, currently arousing many across the nation to rally against the scourge.
Heart-breaking online photos and videos of Jayden show a sweet, innocent, smiling, shy-looking boy…playing with dogs…posing with his parents…clearly much loved and loving.
The harrowed face of his mother as she courageously responds to media interviews…His father, silently holding a protective arm around his wife’s shoulder…
Theirs is an unthinkable grief that none of us can begin to imagine.
At this moment, how many children and adults in TT are calling out in various ways for help, considering that final “way out” of a world in which they are bullied without visible hope for recourse or resolution?
Our nation must no longer ignore their cries.