Just when we accepted school children beating the dickens out of each other as the norm, now parents have followed suit setting no example for their children who have now deemed themselves the Steven Spielbergs of The Bahamas.
Grab a cell phone and start recording is the order of the day when the deadly school yard fights break out. No one bothers to part the fighters or shout for help from an adult. It’s far more important to record the fight and add the oh-so-obscene commentary to it.
Shall we remember the Wilson boy who died on Prince Charles Drive tragically at the hands of other students. This started in the school yard, recorded as usual and no one would help. His parents will never see him again …. ever …. and the young culprits charged, cried in court and ended up with a slap on the wrist.
Gone are the days of a little fisticuffs after school which ended in serious punishment coming from the school’s principal or a teacher. This was followed by more “cut hip” coming from your parents when you got home from school.
As far as I know there are people employed as security guards in schools in The Bahamas so my question is, where are they when the melee erupts in these schools. When the “video releases” are made on social media, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a security guard radioing for help or trying to stop the fights, nor have I seen a teacher involved.
Some time back, schools had an adequate amount of policemen show up before and after school, but I remember a former Prime Minister stating that policemen were not on the force to “babysit” people’s children. Maybe it’s time for this form of “patrol” to be revisited.
I mentioned that these fights are sometimes deadly and that is the scary part. These children who cheer on their schoolmates to inflict blows on each other do not think beyond the next blow which could be the fatal one. They don’t think that in a minute or two they could see the life drain out of their schoolmates eyes.
Stabbings are commonplace in schools, but how are the weapons getting in the schools? A policeman once told me that weapons are being tossed over walls or brought in by girls who are not searched equally as boys.
How many people are guarding the schools and why isn’t proper surveillance being done so that security guards can see or detect weapons being tossed over walls.
In fact, what is the policy in schools when it comes to searching students before they enter their educational compounds. If they are bringing in weapons into the schools, then they ought to be searched, even if for the safety of the other students who are actually there to be educated.
We can’t continue to ignore these incidents, as they can only get worse. Just last week, there were several fights, some including parents and on one occasion a grown man came to school to fight a boy for allegedly bullying his son. Parents were seen rumbling on the ground in viral videos scrapping it out for reasons unknown while in another video a father is “draping up” a student for bullying his son. What have we come to in this place we call our Bahamaland?
Now I won’t be a hypocrite here as my mom used to show up to school to “drape up” children if she felt they wronged any of her grandchildren. I will be the first to admit that this was wrong, but I wasn’t bold enough to tell her at the time. That’s another story ….
I am curious about what happens when these children are involved in these deadly fights. Are they expelled from school? Are they sent to reform school? What happens? And, are the police called in for parents who get rowdy with students or sometimes teachers?
Fights are recorded from start to finish by students with cell phones that shouldn’t be at school in the first place. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it against school rules to have a cell phone on your person? So right there the holder of the phone is in violation and some form of punishment should be meted out to them.
Schools should also go away from the lazy habit of not having enough surveillance and instead relying on the illegal use of cell phones for evidence in what went down during one of these now internet famous fights. School children are not your security guards!
At this point I think it is imperative that every public high school in the capital be outfitted with metal detectors and police officers. Whether or not we want to stick our heads in the sand like ostriches, we must understand that the world is evolving and this hostile behavior is being displayed by youth everywhere. Conflict resolution is clearly not understood by our youth and revenge is real. Metal detectors and full searches, no matter how long the line, is now a necessity to protect our young people.
I also feel that parenting classes and general counseling should be made mandatory by the Ministry of Education when children run afoul of school rooms and get involved in violence.
The sad thing is that all of this can be avoided if children would stop having children and families would go back to a proper structure where there is a mom, a dad and children who are raised properly.
Barbarians are being dragged up and that’s why they feel themselves and decide to beat, stab, maim and kill other people’s children. And, until we take these barbarians in hand and teach them otherwise, things will not get any better. That’s the long and short of it. Well, that’s how I see it anyway.
“AS I SEE IT” DISCLAIMER – The views and opinions represented in this column, “As I See It” belong to the columnist and do not necessarily represent those of the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas. The views and opinions expressed in the column are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. This column is for informational purposes only.
