Dear Editor,

Recently, I came across a video on TikTok in which a Jamaican mother, visibly enraged by allegations that her child was being bullied, appeared ready to confront the situation with violence. In the video, she spoke of her son as a “bad man”, suggested that both she and her son were armed, and declared that she would rather visit him in prison than bury him. Her remarks suggested that she was prepared to accept the possibility of her son being imprisoned for a violent act rather than risk losing him to violence.

As an educator, I found her response deeply troubling, not because a mother should not defend her child, but because of the ease with which violence appeared to be presented as an acceptable response to conflict. What concerned me even more was the message being communicated to her son. Rather than encouraging him to seek help or resolve the matter peacefully, her response appeared to reinforce the idea that violence was a legitimate means of standing up for himself.

The incident prompted me to reflect on a much larger issue confronting our nation — the contradiction between the values we demand from our children and the behaviours we, as adults, continue to model.

The school is a microcosm of the wider society. It does not exist in isolation from the homes and communities in which our children are raised. The attitudes and behaviour that children encounter outside the school compound inevitably find its way into our classrooms. How, then, can we continue to express outrage at the indiscipline and violence exhibited by some of our students without examining the examples being set by the adults around them?

As a society, we have become far too comfortable glorifying the very behaviours we condemn in our children. A simple disagreement between two adults can quickly descend into an exchange of expletives, insults directed at someone’s mother, and even threats of physical violence. Rather than questioning such behaviour, we often find ourselves laughing or applauding the individual who delivers the most offensive response. We have become so accustomed to these exchanges that the ability to insult another person is sometimes celebrated as a sign of strength.

What message are we sending to our children when we celebrate the very behaviour we later punish them for displaying?

We cannot expect our children to resolve disagreements peacefully when they regularly witness adults doing the opposite. We cannot condemn students for using abusive language towards their peers while casually directing those same expressions at others in their presence. Neither can we insist that our children exercise self-control when we readily excuse our own outbursts on the grounds that we were angry or provoked.

The language we use around our children matters. This is not an argument against Jamaican Patois or the richness of our linguistic identity; rather, it is a call for us to recognise the influence of our everyday interactions on the behaviour of our children. When adults respond to the slightest disagreement with a barrage of expletives, children may come to regard such conduct as an ordinary and acceptable way of communicating. We must stop treating the ability to curse someone into silence as an admirable quality. Our children need to understand that it is possible to disagree without being disrespectful.

This contradiction is particularly evident in the relationship between parents and schools. We expect students to respect their teachers yet some parents openly insult or undermine these very individuals in the presence of their children. When a child hears a parent refer to a teacher using derogatory language or witnesses an adult respond aggressively to a disagreement with school personnel, what lesson is being reinforced?

Certainly, teachers are not above criticism, and parents have every right to question decisions or raise concerns about their children’s education. However, there is a fundamental difference between challenging a teacher’s actions and disrespecting the individual. If we expect our children to communicate respectfully, even when they disagree with authority figures, we must demonstrate that same respect in our own interactions.

The issue extends beyond violence and verbal aggression. We express concern when our children begin bleaching their skin, yet some of these same children are surrounded by adults who engage in the practice or perpetuate the belief that lighter skin is more desirable. We condemn dishonesty among students while making excuses for our own dishonesty. Such contradictions undermine the very values we seek to instil.

It is, therefore, unreasonable to expect schools alone to correct behaviour that is normalised in the wider society. Teachers are entrusted with the responsibility of educating children and cultivating positive values; however, these efforts become increasingly difficult when the principles being promoted within the classroom are contradicted by the examples children encounter beyond it.

Kafash Thomas

teddensetkt@gmail.com