TWO LIMASSOL teenagers yesterday pleaded guilty to assaulting their schoolteacher and were released on £1,000 bail. They are due back in court on Monday where they will be sentenced.
The 16-year-old and 17-year-old classmates have been charged with assault and disturbing the peace. They were arrested and remanded in 24-hour custody on Wednesday morning after they attacked their 50-year-old English teacher when she tried to give them a surprise test.
The pair admitted to wrapping a curtain around her neck and then placing a wastepaper basket over her head. The students then all started to mock her, while they filmed the episode on a mobile phone.
“The situation has reached a point where it can no longer go on,” said Anna Farmaka, a retired secondary school teacher with 36 years experience. “Students need to learn the consequences of their actions. Things will only get worse if they are not dealt with decisively,” she warned.
Although Farmaka only retired from teaching four years ago, she said incidences of violence or disrespect towards their teachers were isolated.
“This incident is pinnacle of negativity. In the past we experienced bad behaviour, now we’re dealing with criminal behaviour,” she said.
Referring to Wednesday’s episode, Farmaka said the teacher had suffered the utmost humiliation. “She would have been terrified. I’d have resigned.” Farmaka added it was getting to the point where teachers now had to ask permission to give a test.
She said: “We need to take a stand. All too often nowadays we look for what the teacher did wrong or what sort of problems the pupil had. But, those problems do not legalise our actions. Just because a student has problems, does not mean that what he or she did is okay.”
However, parents and the Education Ministry worsened the problem. “Today the focus is on the teacher’s shortcomings and not the student’s. All too often if a child should be punished, the parent intervenes through someone they know and suddenly all charges are dropped. Now many teachers keep their students happy and give them the grades they want just so that they don’t face having their car windows broken.” Some teachers had even been forced to resign because they were so depressed with the situation, she said.
Farmaka said the problem needed to be dealt with once and for all. “Students should be punished with the appropriate punishment, including jail time if necessary. Parents must cooperate with the schools and be ready to accept educational punishments from them. The message that ‘if you do wrong, you will be punished’ must be sent out and students must learn there are rules of behaviour,” she said.
Doros Michaelides, a child psychologist and family councillor, said students today copied the violence they saw all around them – in the home, on the news, in the streets, in magazines.
“Kids tend to copy outside behaviour without knowing why. They see violence and adopt it, without understanding the responsibility of violence,” he said.
Michaelides said the increasing delinquency in schools was a social issue and that children had to learn there were limitations to their behaviour from their family. “Parents don’t teach their children respect and the children don’t get respect for what they are. They only get it if they behave in a certain way and so in adolescence they rebel to get attention,” he said.
He added: “There are a combination of factors that lie behind this increasing violent trend. It’s not just one thing.” A few included family, social and communal values had changed. “Children need to learn to respect themselves and others. They have to learn not everyone will like them and that school is not just about grades, but also about creating personalities and growing.”
