Earlier this month Malaysian news reported that M. Vasanthapiriya, the 13 year old Penang student who attempted suicide back in January after being accused by her teacher of stealing her iPhone had died.
Having followed the story these past few weeks I was, and still am consumed with grief at the news of Vasanthapiriya's death. While police investigations haven't revealed much of the details as of yet, what the case tells us clearly and undeniably is that a teenager took her own life after a teacher (with the help of colleagues) drove her to act on the guilt and shame she was made to feel in a way someone still in the prime of their innocence would.
All else is irrelevant, including the missing iPhone, which, as Vasanthapiriya's father had had to point out, embarrasingly enough is replaceable. What this whole case shows, along with last year's death of 11 year old Mohamad Thaqif Amin Mohd Gaddafi as a result of being physically abused by his teacher – or, "disciplined" as some would call it – resulting in his limbs being amputated, is that a) a lot of people end up in the wrong profession, b) corporal punishment as enforcing discipline in the school – another great legacy of European colonialism which sought to "broadcast authority" over natives – is still perpetuated by some retarded Malaysians today, and c) many adults are just bullies looking for someone to pick on.
I don't come to that conclusion lightly. My conclusion is in fact informed by years of experience in the Malaysian public school system. From the sixth grade to the twelfth, I had my school experience forever blighted by some of the worst, dark-hearted bullies who called themselves teachers. I'm not about to go off on a revenge rant, or share some sob story, but what makes the tragedies of Mohamad Thaqif and Vasanthapiriya so sickening is how these issues are only now coming to light, and after damage has been done.
Nevermind the many students who were often too vapid to be around, as the school as an institution for learning can become too much like a factory priming the subervient herd. But with teachers abusing their authority and leaving permanent psychological scars on the student with smug satisfaction, the world becomes a dark place. So dark in fact that at age thirteen, and feeling the true torment of depression as a teenager for the first time, I wrote a poem about it. It was a cry from my soul. And it was published in a 1999 edition of a Chicken Soup book.
I stand by that poem, despite its mediocrity. Because over the years I still hear from strangers around the world – high school students – who had come across the poem and expressed gratitude and relief for a little poem having helped them feel less alone in a difficult time, much like how I had felt at that age.
School became a demoralizing place for me. So some mornings, after my father dropped me off at the school entrance, and attendance was taken at assembly, I broke from the crowd of students and headed to the back entrance. And I walked the two miles back home, where, with my parents both at work, I'd sit in my room and read. Books like The Catcher In the Rye by Salinger, Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Golding's Lord of the Flies, and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. To me, I could finally be in the right company, and educate myself through the best teachers. Because cutting school became a necessary habit of mine to escape an unbearable environment, it only gave teachers more opportunity to ridicule and verbally abuse when I was present in the classroom.
I never forgot a single one of them, and truth be told, if there's a reason why I teach now when I can it's because of all of the sadistic teachers I've had, who picked on the defenseless because it gave them pleasure or a sense of dominance. Everything that they were, I am not. No doubt these sort of situations go on constantly in Malaysia, and elsewhere, but the normalcy of it all makes change seem almost like an incredible notion. A distinction between a strict teacher, and someone with wickedness in their heart needs to be acknowledged.
Vasanthapiriya and Mohamad Thaqif are just the two victims we've heard about, and only because their lives ended in tragedy. It's time for more of these adult bullies to be exposed as the uncivilized brutes that they are in failing to do their jobs responsibly and professionally as teachers. If you can't conduct yourself in such a way then you don't belong in the most honorable profession there ever was.
I don't come to that conclusion lightly. My conclusion is in fact informed by years of experience in the Malaysian public school system. From the sixth grade to the twelfth, I had my school experience forever blighted by some of the worst, dark-hearted bullies who called themselves teachers. I'm not about to go off on a revenge rant, or share some sob story, but what makes the tragedies of Mohamad Thaqif and Vasanthapiriya so sickening is how these issues are only now coming to light, and after damage has been done.
Nevermind the many students who were often too vapid to be around, as the school as an institution for learning can become too much like a factory priming the subervient herd. But with teachers abusing their authority and leaving permanent psychological scars on the student with smug satisfaction, the world becomes a dark place. So dark in fact that at age thirteen, and feeling the true torment of depression as a teenager for the first time, I wrote a poem about it. It was a cry from my soul. And it was published in a 1999 edition of a Chicken Soup book.
I stand by that poem, despite its mediocrity. Because over the years I still hear from strangers around the world – high school students – who had come across the poem and expressed gratitude and relief for a little poem having helped them feel less alone in a difficult time, much like how I had felt at that age.
School became a demoralizing place for me. So some mornings, after my father dropped me off at the school entrance, and attendance was taken at assembly, I broke from the crowd of students and headed to the back entrance. And I walked the two miles back home, where, with my parents both at work, I'd sit in my room and read. Books like The Catcher In the Rye by Salinger, Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Golding's Lord of the Flies, and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. To me, I could finally be in the right company, and educate myself through the best teachers. Because cutting school became a necessary habit of mine to escape an unbearable environment, it only gave teachers more opportunity to ridicule and verbally abuse when I was present in the classroom.
I never forgot a single one of them, and truth be told, if there's a reason why I teach now when I can it's because of all of the sadistic teachers I've had, who picked on the defenseless because it gave them pleasure or a sense of dominance. Everything that they were, I am not. No doubt these sort of situations go on constantly in Malaysia, and elsewhere, but the normalcy of it all makes change seem almost like an incredible notion. A distinction between a strict teacher, and someone with wickedness in their heart needs to be acknowledged.
Vasanthapiriya and Mohamad Thaqif are just the two victims we've heard about, and only because their lives ended in tragedy. It's time for more of these adult bullies to be exposed as the uncivilized brutes that they are in failing to do their jobs responsibly and professionally as teachers. If you can't conduct yourself in such a way then you don't belong in the most honorable profession there ever was.
No comments:
Post a Comment