Dear Editor,

I read the story about the teacher who used a belt buckle to blind one of her students and I am outraged! It is extremely problematic that over a year after the incident happened, the teacher’s name is being hidden from the public. However, the pain and suffering of the child and mother are splayed in the January 16 Sunday Observer for all to see. If the teacher did not do anything “wrong” and her actions did not warrant punishment on the part of the Ministry of Education, why is this newspaper refusing to name her?

If what the boy’s mother said is true, then the principal, Olga Clarke, should be held accountable for not reporting the incident.

It is also the responsibility of the PTA of New Providence Primary School to stand up and declare that it is unacceptable for the teacher to mistreat any child under any circumstances. They also need to demand that policies be put in place to prevent any of this from happening again. To do so would have been to assure all the students that their parents were solidly behind them, and cared about their safety while they were at school. But that has not happened. Why?

I can now see how we have become our own worst enemy. So anxious are many Jamaicans to endorse corporal punishment that we are no longer able to make distinctions among the types of harm done to our children in the name of “disciplining” them. Whether or not parents agree with corporal punishment in general and think that it’s perfectly fine for a teacher to beat their child is actually immaterial.

What is a serious problem is the conciliatory attitude that many Jamaican parents take towards authority figures, and which allows some teachers and principals to continue to justify mistreatment of our children. As parents, we sit back and do nothing. The few who do speak up are treated as hostile and threatening to teachers. I know for sure that no teacher could have done this to my child and I did not hold a constant vigil outside that school gate, at the Ministry of Education and at that principal’s house until I had obtained justice. And I would be within my right as a parent and a citizen of this country to do just that.

So I am wondering what is it that makes parents feel so cowed and impotent that they cannot speak up in one voice in support of their children? Do parents really believe that they do not know what is best for their children and that teachers always know best?

What is the message that we as parents are being sent by the Ministry of Education? That we send our children to school at our and their own risk? That we have no right to expect that our children are kept safe from harm for the six-plus hours when they are in the charge of the teachers and principals? What is the message that we as parents are sending to our children? That whatever happens to them must be their own fault? That we really don’t want or know how to defend them in the face of harm, whether intended or accidental?

If we as parents do not speak up for and on the behalf of all children – not just the ones we like and admire, but all of our children – more of us will find ourselves forking out money for medical bills and funeral costs. And when it is our turn, what will we say? “I didn’t think it could happen to my child.” But it will.

Parents need to speak up all the time, and every time, even if our own children are not directly involved. In a system where there are clearly no guarantees that school officials will be held accountable for whatever they do, we can’t afford to remain silent. Our children are counting on us.

Verna Kitson

verna.kitson@gmail.com