Put students first, stop protecting each other, teachers told

 

Student activist Ain Husniza Saiful Nizam says some teachers even tried to influence other schoolmates to disregard her complaints by saying, ‘she’s autistic’.

PETALING JAYA: Activists say that the toxic culture within teaching circles of covering for one another must be put to a stop, with the wellbeing and education of children being the top priority.

Speaking during a “Kita Nak Borak” online forum on safety in schools, student activist Ain Husniza Saiful Nizam said that when she brought up the issue of inappropriate rape jokes made by her physical education teacher during a class on sexual harassment to the adults at her school, their first instinct was to downplay her concerns.

“First, my counselling teacher tried to deflect my problems, saying I was emotional and sensitive. So I went to my class teacher and told her what happened. I also said that my counselling teacher didn’t give me much help and that I was wondering what she (class teacher) could do.”

However, according to Ain, the class teacher started giving excuses for the counselling teacher, assuring her that he was probably working on finding a solution despite him not expressing anything of the sort to her in their earlier discussion.

“It’s a toxic pattern of grown adults trying to cover for each other and not taking care of their students,” she said.

Education activist Cheryl Ann Fernando said this was not uncommon, and symptomatic of the cultural perception among teachers that they must protect each other within the community.

She added that because it’s “very easy to make students that complain look like they’re the crazy ones,” teachers are able to discredit and dismiss concerns that are brought to their attention.

However, she said that this did not necessarily stem from an unwillingness to help, as many teachers simply are not equipped to properly deal with complaints regarding sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct.

“They need to be trained. So, get them up to speed on things like the Child Rights Act, what are the right and wrong things. When we provide this kind of training and awareness, maybe we will see a change,” Fernando said.

Meanwhile, Ain said that while about half of her peers were in support of her #MakeSchoolASaferPlace movement, “almost all” her teachers have opposed her attempt to initiate any change.

“They are even indoctrinating other kids at my school, telling them ‘oh, she’s autistic, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about’,” she said.

Just yesterday, it was reported that Ain had received a rape threat from a male classmate, which her father Saiful Nizam Ab Wahab reported to the police. The student later apologised for making the threat and Ain’s father then accepted the apology. - FMT