Educate teachers and learners about the dangers of violence in all its forms

DR SHEETAL BHOOLA

Recent media reports have highlighted several incidents of learner and teacher misconduct at public and private schools in South Africa. The descriptions of misconduct are many but are predominantly associated with violence.

The continual media reports of unsafe, violent and non-conforming behaviour of teachers and learners at private, public and Model C schools indicate to the world that our youth and future leaders have adopted violent behavioural attitudes as normative practices. Post-apartheid, this should not be the case.

Historically, during the apartheid era, violence was used as a means to communicate grievances and take a stand against the unequal regime that perpetuated divisions in race and class. Today, post-democracy, we, as a society, remain ridden with violent tendencies that originated in our past. Violence has become synonymous with struggling democracies globally.

Academic scholarly publications have indicated that there is an association between the prevalence of violence and young democracies that continue to struggle for equitable distribution of necessities. The perception that only war is an indicator of how violent society is needs to be eradicated. When the youth of any society chooses violence as a means to communicate emotions, thoughts and world views, then we can deem that that society will become increasingly violent.

School violence is defined as “any behaviour of learners, educators, administrators or non-school persons, attempting to inflict injury on another person or to damage school property” (Mncube, 2013:3). However, all variations of violence impact learners. The variations can include violence experienced in their communities and families. Behaviour is usually learnt through socialisation and engaging in the environment in which one lives.

The high prevalence of violence within communities and homes has an influence on the way violent behaviour is perceived by learners. Violence and deviance can become normal for young people, especially if they are witnessing it often and then noticing that there are no consequences for the deviances.

But fundamentally, the psychological impact of being a victim of violence within one’s school and community has a significant impact on the development of our society. More importantly, the process of teaching and learning is disrupted and loses its value. Children can quickly lose concentration and be discouraged from attending school.

Verbal violence is also prevalent and can be described as bullying, criticism, blame, accusations, demeaning comments, derogatory language, condensation and light sarcasm which can be misrepresented as humour. Even though it’s a form of non-physical aggression, the impact on the individual is emotional hurt and intimidation.

Psychological violence involves manipulation, gossip, social exclusion or spreading rumours about others. The perpetuation of this behaviour once again affirms that it is acceptable in society. Many of us perceive violence as only physical but fail to realise the enormous emotional and psychological impact of verbal and psychological violence.

Schools should be educating our South African youth on how to identify the three forms of violence and know the difference between them. Educators and heads of schools seem to prioritise physical violence over verbal and psychological violence. Media reports predominantly report incidents of physical violence.

The recent debacle at Reddam House in Waterfall, Gauteng, described an orchestrated violent event by boys on the school premises. As a nation, shouldn’t we be concerned that if youth at the age of 15 years could plan to physically beat each other up for recreational purposes or to sort out differences, then how violent are our youth becoming?

One can only imagine the level of psychological and verbal violence that the boys would have experienced before the physical violence. The focus has been on one pupil who has been expelled, but perhaps we need to address why the boys chose to box each other up and what the build-up was. In that way, we can determine the root of the problem, which is often verbal and psychological violence.

Amid families and friendships, verbal and psychological violence has been the cause of the breakdown of relationships. South African youth need to understand what psychological and verbal violence is and avoid normalising the behaviour.

Verbal and psychological violence can cause lifelong damage and impact self-esteem, belief systems and emotions in the long term. We often hear of childhood trauma, but many of us don’t take into account the lifelong impact of unhealthy and harmful words and experiences such as exclusion, alienation and manipulation.

South African schools and the Department of Basic Education should be prioritising the education of verbal and psychological violence to school pupils and educators. If educators are aware of the impact, they will be more empowered to manage conflict in the classroom and challenging happenings that include psychological and verbal violence. In addition, all schools should regulate consequential behaviour and punishment for such behaviour.

Dr Sheetal Bhoola is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Zululand, and the director at StellarMaths (Sunningdale).

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