For anyone who has followed my blog, they would have realised that Agnes Wong, also known as my PGFNB, is a professional pain. This 44-year old woman has made it an art form to use her self-inflicted suffering to get her way with things. Having said that of her, she helped me discover the Almighty through her kids - Nicolette a 14-year old sweetie and Marcus a 10-year old little hug bucket. Despite being born from awful parents (they're father is even worse than the mother), the kids have turned out surprisingly normal. Although I never had the chance to develop a parental sort of relationship with them the way I had with Thui and Yooga, I have soft spot for them and it irks me when people go out of their way to make life difficult for them.
Anyway, life has decided to stick one poker at poor Nicolette who until recently was doing quite well at Outram Secondary School, the same school that produced the late President Wee Kim Wee and current Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng.
It all started on Wednesday 6 October, 2010. Nicolette and her a friends were asked to look for an 18-year old boy who was supposed to be in their class. The girls sent an sms to the boy who didn't take too kindly to being sms'ed. A few nasty smses were traded between the boy and the girls and finally the boy received an sms telling him,"You should play more polo, those only balls you'll ever have."
By 1pm, the boys mother stormed into the Principle's office claiming that one of the teacher's had sent a vulgar message to the son. The Principle had to investigate. The teachers mobile showed she didn't send this message. The investigation went further in an effort to prove that she didn't instigate the girls into sending the message. The mother insisted on being present at the investigation and the Principle agreed with this. Mother was present when the head of the art department and the teacher in question started talking to the girls. The offending message was discovered and Nicolette confessed that she sent the message (she was one of five).
Tempers started to flare. The mother yelled at her in Mandarin and Nicolette told her that she didn't understand. The Head of Art Department claimed that she calmed things down and then left the room. Upon leaving the room, the mother started calling Nicolette names (slut, bitch etc). The teacher thought she could calm the situation by telling Nicolette to apologise, which she did. The mother told her that the apology was not accepted and she would pay with more than just saying sorry. The mother made a call and a group of unknown people were seen to gather in the school corridor.
The discipline master instructed the girls to go home in groups and instructed the teacher to walk Nicolette home. The teacher not only took her home but took her to the police station to make a report, which she did. After making it, she found that one had been made against her for verbal abuse.
Both Nicolette and the school management agree on this rough outline of events. At this stage, the main point here is that it must have been traumatic. Let's put it this way, most grown adults feel shaken when they are yelled at. It is traumatic when someone tells you that you need to "pay" and you find that there are people hanging around waiting for you to do I don't know what. I don't think I would be wrong to say that the fear most of us would feel in the situation would be multiplied by a 14-year old who's never really been in rough situations.
What I find troubling is the reaction of the school management to this incident. Yes, I agree that they have to investigate. I agree with the fact that they have to give both sides a fair hearing. What I disagree with is what they seem to be doing with the facts and the solution that they are trying to work towards - we're looking for a cover up.
Let's start with the fact that a serious breach security took place. A parent had a chance to scream and even threaten the safety of a 14-year old girl on school grounds. The head of art admits that the situation became tense between the mother and Nicolette. Instead of staying in the room to control the situation, she left and abdicated responsibility to a junior staff. On their own, these incidents are serious.
The fact that the mistakes were made is bad but if people act to remedy it, a lot of problems can be averted. You can even forgive the mistake if appropriate action is taken quickly. You would have expected the school to make a police report. An incident had taken place on their grounds and making a police report would have registered that they were serious about not allowing such incidents to happen.
It also doesn't take a genius to realise that Nicolette and the boy in question will never be able to work in the same environment. One of them has to be transfered out of the place. As I've said earlier, the girl is traumatised by the incident and since the boy is the root of it, she's more likely that he is to suffer from emotional trauma from being around him.
How did the school react? Well, to quote the Vice-Principle,"Moving forward, we need to get Nicolette back into the main stream." The Principle says he will provide assurance for Nicolette by giving the boy a "Stern Warning" to have "Nothing to do with Nicolette," and if he breaches that,"Internal Disciplinary Measures" would be taken.
Erm, let's work this one out. This boy sent his mother down to abuse Nicolette. She knows it. Then this 18-year old also happens to be in the form class next to her and they're even in the same art class. So how is he going to have "Nothing to do with her."
Then what exactly is an internal disciplinary measure? I'm all for schools having their own methods to deal with naughty children. However, this isn't an issue of naughty children. This issue involves a criminal one. Police reports have been made and so you really can't just leave it at "Internal Disciplinary actions."
The Principle's lack of commitment to solving the problems was compounded by the Vice-Principle and the Head of Department. The Head of Art was quick to defend her position. She kept reminding us that she cooled things down and she was unaware of things when she left the room. Erm, sorry, you had the feeling things were going to happen - you, as the senior person should not be abdicating responsibility to your junior staff.
The Vice-Principle was really stupid. He talked about bringing Nicolette back into the main stream. She would be given full use of the school councilor. All of this, however, would be difficult if Agnes escalated things by reporting the incident to the Ministry of Education and her Member of Parliament. Er, excuse me, a police report has already been made, there by showing external parties were already involved. What did he expect her to do? Sit back and accept the assurance that her daughter would be safe in the place she had been threatened? Common sense would suggest otherwise.
The worst part of this incident was the fact that the teacher who took Nicolette to the police station was taken to task for it. They questioned her about why she was so fond of Nicolette and suggested that this was something inappropriate.
Once again, let's start with the obvious. One of the school's student had been a potentially dangerous situation. What exactly did they expect the teacher to do? Walk her home, pat her on the back and tell her that it would be OK? I don't know but I think common sense would have shown that the teacher would have been neglecting her basic responsibility if she had not accompanied Nicolette to the police station.
Seriously, I don't what's going on here but it seems to me that the bureaucrats want to cover this incident to save their hides. Nobody seems terribly upset by the fact that a 14-year old was threatened on school grounds? It's just a case of shut this up, get things over with and move on. Erm, how exactly do they expect Nicolette to move on if they're not doing anything serious about taking care of her?
Nicolette is not my natural daughter and I never really had the chance to get close to her, I'm usually closer to Marcus. My relationship with her mother sometimes descends into acrimonious terms. However, this shouldn't detract from the fact that this decent teenager has been traumatised and the system which is supposed to help her is busy screwing her royally so that someone's arse will be covered.
I'm not against people keeping their jobs. What I really loath is the fact that in this situation, the people here are so involved in trying to keep their jobs that they're forgetting to do their jobs.
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