Minister's comments come after case involving Mee Toh School pupils goes viral
By Hariz Baharudin, The Straits Times, 12 Mar 2020
A case of bullying at Mee Toh School - that has gone viral on social media - involving Primary 5 pupils "is wrong and cannot be tolerated anywhere", said Education Minister Ong Ye Kung.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Mr Ong said that he was "dismayed and troubled" after finding out that a group of pupils at the school had picked on a Malay classmate and written her "nasty notes".
"This is bullying, (it) is wrong and cannot be tolerated anywhere, especially in schools," he said.
The case first came to light when Twitter user @4YSLZ posted last Friday that her sister's classmates had thrown some notes at her.
She uploaded photos of these notes, which had insults on them, such as "you are Dumbo the elephant" and "you look so ugly and you really turn me down, you make puke".
The Twitter user wrote: "My heart broke today. It was my sister's birthday yesterday and one of her classmates threw this to her face as a 'birthday present'."
The post has been shared more than 4,000 times.
According to the Twitter user, this is not the first case of bullying involving her sister. She said her sister's uniform had been scribbled on with markers in the past.
She alleged that her sister, who is one of "only a handful of Malays" in the school in Punggol, has also been called other names and has been cyber bullied.
In his post, Mr Ong said that the school will ensure that pupils understand the seriousness of their actions and will follow up with appropriate disciplinary actions.
By Hariz Baharudin, The Straits Times, 12 Mar 2020
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Mr Ong said that he was "dismayed and troubled" after finding out that a group of pupils at the school had picked on a Malay classmate and written her "nasty notes".
"This is bullying, (it) is wrong and cannot be tolerated anywhere, especially in schools," he said.
The case first came to light when Twitter user @4YSLZ posted last Friday that her sister's classmates had thrown some notes at her.
She uploaded photos of these notes, which had insults on them, such as "you are Dumbo the elephant" and "you look so ugly and you really turn me down, you make puke".
The Twitter user wrote: "My heart broke today. It was my sister's birthday yesterday and one of her classmates threw this to her face as a 'birthday present'."
The post has been shared more than 4,000 times.
According to the Twitter user, this is not the first case of bullying involving her sister. She said her sister's uniform had been scribbled on with markers in the past.
She alleged that her sister, who is one of "only a handful of Malays" in the school in Punggol, has also been called other names and has been cyber bullied.
In his post, Mr Ong said that the school will ensure that pupils understand the seriousness of their actions and will follow up with appropriate disciplinary actions.
The incident goes against "very fundamental values of what we stand for as a society", Mr Ong said.
"It does not matter whether the students might have done it out of mischief or that they are only Primary 5 students; the fact is that the victim felt that it was a racist act, and that makes it even more unacceptable," he added.
Responding to queries from The Straits Times, a spokesman for Mee Toh said that the school has met the student's mother, and that it does not condone bullying, including racist remarks.
He added that "appropriate disciplinary actions" will be taken.
Children bully one another for various reasons, including differences in race, gender and physical appearance, according to Singapore Children's Society (SCS) chief executive Alfred Tan.
Clinical psychologist Carol Balhetchet told ST that bullying at such a young age can be traumatising to children, especially if they look and feel they are different from their peers.
"The last thing a child that age needs is an attack on their personality or their physical look, as it diminishes the self-confidence they are only starting to build," said Dr Balhetchet, who has worked with children for two decades.
National University of Singapore sociologist Tan Ern Ser made similar points, saying that apart from counselling both the victim and the bullies, the school should also continually reinforce that bullying is unacceptable.
"Teachers should make it a point to 'look out' for their students, and be sensitive to tell-tale signs like missing school, looking miserable and having no friends."
SCS' Mr Tan said that schools, teachers and students all have a role to play in combating the problem of bullying.
"Teachers and students should be educated to respond to any bullying incident and support the child who is bullied. Schools also play an important role to reach out and support the bully, with the intention to teach the bully positive life skills in relating to peers."
MOE's three-pronged approach to tackle bullying
By Ong Ye Kung, Published The Straits Times, 11 Apr 2020
Since the Mee Toh School incident, I have received many e-mails and Facebook private messages from parents and students sharing their personal experiences with bullying. I thank you for your trust and confidence, and for doing so in a private space.
In the incident last month, a group of Primary 5 pupils at the Punggol school wrote disparaging notes to a pupil that were subsequently shared by the victim's upset older sister on Twitter.
The incident received a lot of public attention - the victim was a Malay girl and it happened at a school started by Buddhist groups. Racial sensitivities surfaced - something we must always be mindful of in multiracial Singapore.
The truth is that bullying can happen to anyone, whatever race, religion or gender. Children who are perceived to be different, including those with special education needs, are especially vulnerable. Bullying is not merely unacceptable, it is wrong.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) will act - on three fronts to tackle bullying.
First, the place of morality in our education curriculum. We are placing greater emphasis on the teaching of moral values as part of our curriculum review of Citizenship and Character Education. I have announced this in Parliament recently and we have started to roll out the new lessons.
Growing up, our children falter and make mistakes as they explore the boundaries of proper behaviours, and figure out cultural norms and sensitivities. With guidance from parents and teachers, they become more respectful and socially skilled at interacting with others, and responding to conflicts without feeling or inflicting hurt.
So, we must start inculcating moral values from young, but we must also recognise that learning right from wrong is part of growing up. For example, most children know that stealing, telling lies and hitting someone are wrong, and it would take a very defiant child to commit these acts. As they grow older, they would also need to know that to mock or make fun of a classmate because of how he or she looks or behaves, cannot be dismissed as "just a joke". It is disrespectful, unkind and hurtful. It is bullying. And the harm done is just as great. The act is as wrong as stealing or lying.
Second, we need to develop a social climate of mutual respect and kindness in school, where bullying is frowned upon. If you do something unacceptable to social norms, people around you will speak up and call you out.
Students should be encouraged to come up with campaigns against bullying and talk about it in class, so that we are not just bystanders, but "upstanders".
Individually, every student is a peer supporter when they show acts of kindness to the victims, no matter how small, be it providing a listening ear or going for recess with them so that they know that they have a friend who cares.
Third, we still need discipline. Our system of discipline is built around shared norms, and hence is only as effective as the strength of consensus around it. It is quite common for me to receive appeals from parents against disciplinary actions taken against their child. They will dispute the facts and findings of the school, justify the actions of their child, or argue that their child was, in fact, the victim.
On social media, we may come across a bullying incident with a simple narrative. Sometimes they may well be accurate, but often teachers are dealing with a far more complex situation. It involves friendships, misunderstanding, souring of relationships, failure to resolve issues, escalation, retaliation, bystanders roped in to take sides. Schools need time to go through the intricate web of events and at the same time attend to the safety and social-emotional needs of all students involved.
And when the wrongdoers are identified, the school will take disciplinary action against them and engage the parents. Schools do not discipline students lightly. It is critical that in disciplining wrongdoing, the school and the family stand on the same side, or the child will suffer in the long term.
I have asked Second Minister Indranee Rajah to work with MOE colleagues to strengthen our strategy on discipline against bullying and build consensus around it - among educators, parents, students and stakeholders.
I will keep an open mind. But personally, I think the disciplinary system needs to be firm but fair, and especially for younger children, to be educational and restorative.
What teachers and counsellors did at Mee Toh is instructive. They made the bullies go through the incident from the perspective of the victim, which was effective in helping the 11-year-olds understand the harm of their actions.
The school engaged the parents of the wrongdoers, who were supportive and cooperative. The narrative that action was taken only after social media publicity is simply untrue. Even as we seek to right the wrong for the child being bullied, we must protect all young children from vigilantes.
In the Mee Toh case, the school and the wrongdoers received many vitriolic comments from certain netizens. Hate begets hate. Respect begets change. If we are to make each other better, we must start with respect, and start with ourselves. We must constantly reflect on our own words and actions. We must understand that action and words, which we think are "no big deal" or justified, can be very hurtful to others. And that is how bullying often begins.
To children, we, as adults, are always their role models - if we act like bullies, online or off, they will too.
Ong Ye Kung is the Minister for Education.
No comments:
Post a Comment