Bullying at Queenstown

Last week a Venezuelan schoolgirl attending Queenstown Secondary School was physically assaulted by a group of her female classmates while students from the same school as well as others cheered on the bullies. The incident occurred in a very public place – not far from the Bank of Guyana – and was recorded on video. While this particular case has special characteristics, it has to be recognized that bullying in general is on the rise in schools across the country. The full extent of the problem is not really known, since it is only the worst cases which ever come to public attention.

The rise in bullying is just one feature of the larger breakdown of discipline in schools. The education system does not exist in isolation from the society at large, which could hardly be described nowadays as a fully rule-governed polity. The values which the schools are transmitting to pupils, or at least are supposed to be transmitting, are no longer in correspondence with what obtains in many of the homes from which the children come.

Nothing illustrates that better than what the mother of one of the Venezuelan student’s assailants said in defence of her daughter’s behaviour: “My daughter was one of the students involved in the fight. If you watch this video she push my daughter first. Most naturally my child has to represent herself and my child fight back… ” she said. There is no reflection here on what preceded the incident in school, or what was being said at the time the victim reacted with a push, if indeed she did. There is even less concern exhibited about five schoolgirls hitting one defenceless victim; it is just a matter of her daughter having to ‘represent’ herself.

It is this attitude which is part of the reason for the violence experienced by teachers as well at the hands of students’ relatives. The current view held by some parents seems to be that the child is always in the right in relation to authority, no matter what misdeed they may be guilty of.

And where discipline is concerned Queenstown Secondary by all accounts does not stand out as a shining example of a well-ordered educational institution. A Venezuelan mother who has a daughter at the school described it as “a school without rules, discipline, norms or respect. My daughter [who is 15] has been a victim of bullying and discrimination many times at school.” She went on to say that she was fearful for her children when she sent them to school. “For a long time, I have seen horrifying videos of fights that are becoming more frequent within the Queenstown institution where my daughter studies,” she said.

It was not just the other students who had caused problems, she further commented, but that her daughter was also verbally abused on one occasion by a teacher who made ethnically prejudicial remarks about her. When she followed up on the situation, the mother said she received no satisfaction. It was a Brazilian student at the school who had provided her with the background to the beating of her daughter. The girls involved outside the Bank of Guyana had fought with her too on the same day. They had come asking for money, and one of them started arguing following which the Venezuelan student defended her. It was this, it was said, which led to the beating.

According to the Venezuelan mother, her daughter and her friends had been complaining about being bullied by other students at the school who demanded $100 every day, threatening them if it was not forthcoming. If they didn’t pay up, then they would “push them, stick their feet out to make them fall, [and] ugly looks and shoves [would] begin,” she said. “I wonder if these parents send their children to school hungry, and that’s why the children behave like this?” she mused. One can only remark that bullying does not depend on hunger for its stimulus, although there may be a few instances where it might seem like a short-cut for a hungry student. That aside, the story of the $100 demands has the definite ring of truth about it.

In the circumstances it is worth repeating that Queenstown Secondary does not appear to be a wellrun institution. As such it can only be asked what the Chief Education Officer is proposing to do about the break-down in discipline there, other than playing musical chairs with the students involved in the beating incident by transferring them to different schools. This was clearly not the first case of its kind, and what is emerging now is that bullying seems to have become ingrained in the culture there. The Department of Education is responsible for schools in the city, and this time the responsibility cannot be held at the door of some regional authority.

Of course this time there is a complicating dimension to the story since the child who was attacked was Venezuelan. The Ministry of Education could reasonably anticipate that in some places Venezuelan children of secondary school age at least, might face problems with their classmates. We are teaching that Venezuela has illegitimate claims on our territory, and that its government has threatened us and purported to annexe Essequibo. Yet here in the city and peri-urban areas we are welcoming Venezuelan nationals into our schools. Where bullying is a problem, therefore ‒ and bullies always have a propensity to victimise outsiders ‒ there is a likelihood they will be picked on, and that in their case this will be perceived as justified.

How this seeming complexity is handled – after all, the Venezuelans have fled Mr Maduro’s country and would not want him to extend his reach here – will depend on the attitude of the school and more particularly of the teaching complement. One wonders if all the staff in Queenstown were as understanding as they should have been, particularly in the light of the comment about a teacher mentioned above.

The mother of the Venezuelan student was invited to a meeting with government officials which included Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn, who she said, treated them kindly. However, she described the meeting as a “smokescreen … so they could say that they did something.” In fairness to Mr Benn, the matter doesn’t fall within his bailiwick; it is really for the Ministry of Education to deal with.

What was most disturbing about what she had to say, however, was that during the meeting the girls who had inflicted the beating along with their mothers were laughing at her daughter, and “to top it off” the school head had an “ironic smile.” Surely the Education officials present took note of that, so why did they not intervene, or at a minimum speak to the parties afterwards? And as for the Ministry, it has said that it took several actions in relation to the incident including counselling, suspension and transfers. The impression on the part of the Venezuelan mother last week was that this had not gone into effect, so perhaps Mr Saddam Hussain would like to comment about whether it has now been implemented.

Whatever the case, the Venezuelan community in this country has expressed dissatisfaction, and is calling for more significant moves to be made to ensure the safety of students at Queenstown Secondary. Another Venezuelan Queenstown parent who is an advocate for the girls was quoted as saying: “Truthfully, we are not happy with this situation … with small penalties … the girl did not receive the help we thought she would.”

And this is the issue, the minor penalties are not sufficient either to send a message, or to confront the bullying problem at the school. Mr Hussain needs to go back to the drawing board where bullying is concerned, and get help in crafting an anti-bullying policy for all schools, as well as an approach to help integrate Venezuelan children into the system so they don’t become the victims of bullies. Where Queenstown itself is concerned, he needs to mount an investigation into what is going on there, and how all the staff from the head teacher down are responding to the challenges – or if they are responding to them at all, which they may not be. A school without rules or discipline or respect will fail utterly in its educational objectives.

In the case of Venezuelan students there is the matter of the language, which will be far more of a problem for those of secondary age than young primary school pupils, who will pick up English almost by a process of osmosis. But that ability is lost the older a child gets. It is a technical issue, and while the Chief Education Officer has said there are afternoon English lessons these have not yet been made compulsory, although he is looking at doing so. Perhaps in places like Georgetown he might also consider sending children over a certain age for compulsory English instruction before they are placed in schools. While this might help them from a communication and understanding point of view, ultimately language teaching will not solve the bullying problem; the Ministry of Education has to look at that issue in its own right and come up with a viable policy.