There have been so many incidents of violence at schools this year, that I have already lost count.
Last week’s incident at Livingstone High School is just another example of how it appears to be spiralling out of control.
A boy used his fists to beat up a 14-year-old girl, after she checked him about touching her friend inappropriately.
In fact, while she was down on the ground, this young man took the cowardly opportunity to kick her in the face.
And he really laid into this young girl, as if he was fighting another boy.
It sounds almost too crazy to be true, especially as so many of us are trying to awaken the country’s men to protect and defend women and girls.
In another incident recently at Pelican Park High School, a teacher was forced to defend himself when one of the school boys hit him with the fist, when he apparently made a remark the boy didn’t like.
All of this is very foreign to me and sometimes I think that I am too ou doos for our times. Especially since my kids are constantly reminding me how times are changing and how old- fashioned I am.
But I counter by saying that respect and good manners shouldn’t go out of fashion!
Now, don’t get me wrong.
I had my fair share of schoolyard altercations with fellow pupils. And there were definitely a few teachers that I didn’t smaak much.
But I can’t recall ever wanting to physically attack them.
I can’t recall any other school kid of my time doing anything similar.
We would talk tough about how we were going to do this and that to teacher so and so. But that was just boy venting.
Similarly, disagreements with other kids were mild compared to what’s happening now. Largely I think we were just poep scared of our teachers.
And even more so of our parents, if they ever found out we were disrespectful to any onnie. So when I see a video of a school girl angrily throwing her book at her teacher’s face, while giggles can be heard from her classmates, I wonder in astonishment at what’s going on.
I may well be ou doos, but I do believe that it’s preferable to what’s happening in classrooms at the moment.
Teaching is still a calling for teachers, most of whom struggle in appalling conditions, with limited resources, packed classrooms and then still children with utter disregard for them. While young girls are now also starting to make themselves guilty of such abhorrent beha- viour, I stick by my belief that men are still largely responsible for society’s ills.
And by that I am referring to absent fathers, emotionally unavailable fathers or fathers who give their kids far too much rope.
The saying goes, “the men we may hate tomorrow, are the boys we are raising today.”
I’d like it to read “the adults we may hate tomorrow, are the children we are raising today.”
So please do a good job.
Having your children fear you a little is not a bad thing.