Adults can help fight school wars

If you’re a cop, firefighter, or soldier, you are aware that doing your job could cost you your life. That should not apply to teachers – yet classrooms are becoming war zones. Last week, teacher Gadimang Mokolobate was stabbed to death by a pupil in Zeerust in the North West.

And in Gauteng, a pupil threatened a teacher with a gun.

Elsewhere in the country, violence in schools, including sexual assaults, has risen dramatically in the past six years.

Experts say violence at schools is a reflection of broader South African society. Exposure to violence and brutality within families and in the communities in which pupils live rubs off on young people.

Families in which there is violence between adults, or parents spank children, are not good role models for how to solve problems, say experts.

If children see adults unable to resolve problems without force, they may do likewise.

While there is a crying need for improved policing and security in schools, the reality is that adults need to realise that not only are they a huge part of the problem, they can also be the solution.