When polite boys slap teachers

Anger surged through his young body, throwing a dark heavy blanket across his senses. Derek’s* arm shot up. The corridor reverberated with the sound of him slapping his middle-aged teacher right across the cheek.

When my 17 year old student from the home I helped out at related what he had done, I went numb with shock and dismay.

For this was the same pleasant boy who always greeted me politely, made an attempt to do his homework (well, at least most of the time) and had improved his command of the language by leaps and bounds. From not being able to string a proper English sentence together, he has progressed to communicating his thoughts relatively well using a decent range of vocabulary.

How could he have slapped his teacher?

In the three years I had known this intelligent teen, there had never had a serious discipline problem with him. There were others before him who had not been able to sit through a short English lesson, focusing (much to my dismay) on creating a ruckus during the sessions.

“That teacher was out to get me,” was Derek's version of the entire ordeal. What was I supposed to say?

Knowing the dismal situations that Malaysian teachers had to handle I guessed that Derek:

· may be right and the teacher was venting his own personal frustrations on him, or

· had totally misread the whole situation. In trying to help the troubled student, the teacher had unwittingly alienated the teen.

Two months down the road, Derek was ordered to stop attending school. Instead, from August onwards he had to stay at the home to prepare for his SPM (a Malaysian examination that 17 year olds sit for, somewhat similar to the O Levels).

It turned out, Derek had been keeping bad company, propellin him do things he otherwise would not have. As I observed my bright student who could have achieved so much more with a little more guidance in life, it made sense.

It also drove home the point that so many of our ‘problematic” students could have fared better if someone out there was willing to take time out of the rat race to spend time with them.

That’s the one thing that always strikes me when I walk into homes, especially those for kids under 12. They crave a lot of attention and there's no one there to give it to them.

Anyway, back to Derek. Boys will think and act based on what the rest of the gang condones. Teen peer approval is a matter of life and death, isn’t it?

Then and again, you know that doesn’t change much when teens metamorphose into adults.

If you think back in the last ten days, you may have been prompted to take an action that you normally would not, just to keep the rest of the team / gang / group / buddies / department / family happy. Be honest now, didn’t you?


(*Naturally, Derek is not my student’s name as I’ve had to change it.)