(Observed in the superintendent‟s office, the Undesirable school, November 2010) When I was working in a superintendent’s office, three school boys in the 11th grade were sent to the office during school hours because they had fought in their classroom. A and B fought against each other, while X was the one who incited them to fight.
Three minutes later, their teacher appeared:
- Stand up. Do you know why I sent you to this office?
The students stood up and said nothing. The teacher received a phone call while she was preparing a pen and a blank sheet of paper. When she finished the call, she asked again.
Teacher: Do you know why I sent you to this office? I am asking you. A, speak.
A: I had a clash with classmate yesterday.
Teacher: How serious was it?
A: Normal.
Teacher: What does „normal‟ mean? Did you curse? Fight? Did you call friends to help you beat the other one up? Did you threaten the other one?
Then B interrupted: „I heard others say he called his friends to support him to beat me.‟ The teacher turned to B.
Teacher: What happened?
B: Yesterday I was just looking at him. Then he asked „Do you like to look at me?‟ I said yes. Then the others nettled us.
Teacher: Ok, I am writing the report about what you said. Who provoked you?
B: I don‟t remember. A beat me first.
Teacher: You must speak out. If you don‟t, I can‟t help you. Who provoked the fight?
B: Bang
Teacher: Speak. You don‟t need to be afraid. If you don‟t want to be like the victim killed next to the school entrance gate few weeks ago, you must speak.
B: Trang B
Teacher: Who else?
B: I don‟t remember
Teacher: Did X provoke you and A?
B: Yes
Teacher: Who else? If you don‟t say who, it will be worse for you.
B: That‟s all
Teacher: Then what happened?
B: When the class ended, P came over to me and hit me.
Teacher: How did he hit you? Was it a punch or a kick?
B: A punch.
Teacher: Where?
B: To the face Teacher: When?
B: At break time between class 4 and class 5.
Teacher: Did you hit back him?
B: Yes.
Teacher: I am writing. A proactively beat B. B defended himself. What did you do then?
B: A went back to his seat.
Teacher: Then in the afternoon you two went to your extra study class, didn‟t you?
What class?
B: Mathematics. Teacher Tam.
Teacher: Who told you that A called his friends to come to beat you up?
B: Trang
Teacher: Ok I am writing: B heard from Trang that A called his friends to come to beat up B. Where did his friends come from? Are they students here or from another school?
B: I don‟t know.
Teacher: That‟s all that you know, is it? [Turning to A] A, speak.
A: Tuesday last week, we all attended the extra-study class of teacher Van. I did nothing to B, but B looked at me. I asked him if he liked looking at me. Then he suddenly called my father‟s name and Nguyen‟s father‟s name.
Teacher: Why was Nguyen involved here?
A: I don‟t know. They had had conflict or something. Then I told B to concentrate in his study. In the next class, Khanh Anh told me that B called my father‟s name many times. Called his full name.
Teacher: Had you had conflict before? Had you stared at each other before?
A: No, never.
Teacher: Then in Teacher Tam‟s class you both only stared at each other, didn‟t you?
What kind of staring did B make so that you cursed him?
A: He stared at me. He called my father‟s name. I didn‟t say a thing about his parents.
Teacher: What did you mean when you asked „do you like looking at me?‟ This question is different from „Why do you look at me‟. Asking in this way, you wanted to provoke him, didn‟t you?
A looked at the floor, said nothing. Teacher then turned to B.
Teacher: Why did you call his father‟s name?
B: He mentioned my father‟s name first. My father‟s name is „Hoc‟ [Hoc means
‘study’ in Vietnamese].
Teacher: Then when he reminded you to study, you thought he called your father‟s
name, didn‟t you?
B: Yes.
[Teacher turning to A]
Teacher: Did you really care about his study? Why did you remind him like that? Did you mean to mention his father‟s name?
A: No, I didn‟t. Trang A reminded B to concentrate in his study, so I imitated her.
Teacher: That‟s it. I am writing it down. Because of a stare, A provoked B. Then B mistook that A called his father‟s name, then the fight started.
B: No, A knows my father‟s name. His name is on the student list you gave us.
Teacher: It doesn‟t mean that he noticed your father‟s name.
B: Yes, he did. We often read that list to see the names of each other‟s parents.
Teacher: Ok, I got it. You both have grown up. You are already in grade 11. Parents are the ones who give you your life, so they are respectable. You should not bring in the personalities of another‟s parents when you have conflict with each other.
Then the teacher turn to B, chastised him for being naughty in class and a poor student. After that, she chastised A. He was the class monitor and a very good student but he behaved badly in this situation. However, she finally forgave the students and only asked them to write a self-criticism report.
„Fighting is bad. It is not good for even the winner. The looser feels offended. Did you know about the two girls in our school who hated each other just because one dressed more beautifully than the other? We had to move one of them to another class, but their conflict was still maintained. Then they quarrelled with each other, and called their friends to come to fight against each other. It is pity that the friends of one girl wrongly hit students that were not involved. It‟s no good. You both are very bad. You cursed each other, hit each other. Go home, write a self-criticism report. I wrote an invitation letter to your parents, but because you two showed a sincere attitude, I forgive you. This is the only time, remember that. If you clash again, I will send you to the school disciplinary committee.‟
The teacher then turned to X: „Why did you provoke them? You saw your classmates
were having a clash. Why didn‟t you stop them? If you were not so good, at least you should have stayed away from their clash. Why did you add fuel to the flames? Are you happy when others fight? I will invite your father to school. Your father must come. I will not see your mother or your other relatives. If your father doesn‟t come, you will be expelled from my class. I do not want to invite your father to school, but you have recently done very poorly in your studies. Your chemistry teacher asked me to see your father. Some other teachers also told me about your studies. Now you are involved in this clash; you incited your friends to fight against each other. Is this the way a good friend reacts?‟
The students looked at the floor and kept silent. The teacher finished writing the report. Then she and the students left the room.
As in the case above, most teachers usually just investigate the problem by questioning the students involved, and then ask them to write a self-criticism report about their misdemeanour and promise not to fight. Parents may be invited to the school if the fight is serious. The conflict still remains. Students A and B in this case are quite meek, so after that meeting they just ignored each other. However, in many other cases, students still seethe with anger and then fight against each other behind the teacher‟s back.
That may be one reason why students avoid letting teachers know about their peer conflicts, even keeping them hidden from potential victims. Once the teacher knows about their conflicts, it is very likely that they will be punished, but the source of the conflict still remains. Besides, if a student facing a threat of being beaten asks the teacher for help, s/he may suffer revenge from his/her antagonist more seriously than if the student had kept silent. This kind of threat helps keep student violence a hidden but nevertheless very real part of school life.
The fact is that many teachers avoid going to the root of their student‟s problem including violent confrontation. As in case 1 described at the beginning of Chapter 3, Dung‟s teacher acted as if she did not know anything about Dung‟s fight even though Dung was seriously cut and hospitalized for over two weeks, and all of his classmates – and even most of his schoolmates – knew about his fight. I am quite sure that homeroom teachers usually know their students quite well. All homeroom teachers have some students who frequently report to them all information about other students in their class. Hence, if a homeroom teacher does not respond to a student matter, it probably means s/he does not want to handle it.
„How did your teacher treat you after you were discharged from hospital and went back to school?
As normal, because she did not know about my fight.
How come? Your fight was quite serious and all of your classmates knew about it, right?
Yes, the students all knew. But my teacher said nothing about it, and treated me as usual, so I thought that she did not know about my fight.
How did you explain your hospitalization?
My parents told her that I had an accident, and she said nothing.‟
(Boy, grade 12, academic performance: average)
Should we question the teachers for their cursory treatment of their students‟
conflicts which often lead to violent confrontations? Theoretically, they could do much better to handle their students‟ conflicts and consequently avert potential violent confrontations, which is part of their job. However, it is actually difficult for
them to get to the roots of their students‟ conflicts. The education system in Vietnam puts such high importance on academic achievement. If a school reveals that there is a high rate of violence among their students, its rank and consequently perks for the staff will be heavily affected. It seems understandable that school authorities prefer to avoid dealing with student violence, preferring not to reveal it.
[Interviewee]: Yes, the regulations appear very strict, but implementation and punishment are weak. Why? Because school achievements are of great importance. Teachers often hide student misconduct in order to maintain a good achievement profile.
[Interviewer]: I observed many instances of teachers handling student misconduct when I worked in the superintendent’s office. It appeared to me that teachers took student misconduct quite seriously.
[Interviewee]: When a case is brought to the superintendent‟s office, it turns out to be a fait accompli. Those cases are often reported to the superintendent, but the teachers have to handle it. Teachers only bring the misconduct of a student to light when a student does something really terrible, or does a bad thing but refuses to pay a bribe.
(Boy, grade 12, academic performance: average)
In addition, another reason why teachers tend to avoid dealing with student conflicts and violence is that teachers are not trained to deal with youth problems. Because there is no social worker or psychologist working in the school, teachers have to undertake this job, even though they are not professionally trained. Hence, even though many teachers really care about their students and want to teach them good manners, the way they treat their students sometimes misleads their students about their good intentions. The result is a teacher-student conflict rather than a real
change in the student‟s behaviour as teachers expect. I myself mediated some misunderstandings between students and their teachers when I worked at S3 as a school social worker. The teachers thought they were helping students rectify a mistake, while the students believed they were being scolded, humiliated, and punished because the teachers disliked them.
Secondly, income is another obstacle for most teachers. Their salary is very low in comparison to the minimum income they need for living; consequently they have to take on many extra classes to earn more income for their family.23
„The very slow growth in teachers‟ pay over the 1990s created hardships for teachers and contributed to the institutionalization of such practices as illegal fees, the private provision of after-hours „extra-study‟ classes by nominally
“public” teachers, and various forms of academic corruption‟ (London 2011:
23)
Despite their low salary, the performance requirement for teachers is very high, and teachers work under very high pressure from not only the school management board but also receive frequent inspection visits from officials such as from the Department of Education at the district level. It is hard for a teacher to take good care of his/her students when faced with a constant struggle in their own lives.
It is noteworthy that while some teachers avoid dealing with the matter of student violence, most of the students try to avoid letting their teacher know about it. It seems natural that no one wants anyone else to know about his/her misconduct.
Furthermore, among students who are victims of violent attacks, there is commonly
23 For example, the salary of a high school teacher with 10 years of experience is about VND 3 millions (roughly equal to ÚD150) per month; rental for an old small HDB (low-rent) flat in inner Hanoi ranges from VND 4 - 7 million per month.
a fear of retribution from the antagonist if a student tells an adult about the conflict.
(Olweus 1993, DeRosier 2007) However, with regard to student violence in Hanoi, this pattern is not only a natural reaction but also one that is socially conditioned.
Students do not trust adult justice.
„Teacher? No, even if we are the victim, we will not let the teacher know [about the fight]. Why? Because we may be punished too. Teachers will deduce that where there is smoke, there is fire. So it will be assumed that we victims are also in the wrong.
„In general, both teachers and parents have difficulty understanding. They will think that we probably did something hurtful to them [the perpetrators] and were beaten up by them, and not accept the fact that once someone makes up his mind to beat us up, they will find a way to do so. This is very common nowadays. As you may know, they sometimes beat us just because they find our appearance unpleasant to them. Sometimes because of we dyed our hair, or just because of the way we walk . . . Parents and teachers cannot understand that. Adults think in their own way.
„We don‟t want to tell our parents [if we get beaten up], and even less so do we want to let teacher know. Ok, if we tell the teachers, what will they do? Can teachers tell them not to beat us up? Can teachers help us ward off the blows when we get beaten up?
„Teachers cannot really help. And if these students are from well-to-do families, then their parents pay a bribe so that they are kept in school, and they do more terrible things to us.‟
(Boy, grade 11, academic performance: good) The teachers tend to avoid handling their students‟ violent conflicts, while students normally try to keep their peer conflicts secret from their teachers. Accordingly, while more than half of the respondents reported that their parents did not know
about their last violent confrontation with peers, close to three quarters of them (74.1%) reported that their teachers were also ignorant of this. Only 37 out of 175 respondents involved in a student fight in the last school year reported that their teachers knew about their fight. Since the number of teachers aware of violence suffered or perpetrated by their students is quite small when divided into groups, the following figure describes the absolute number of teachers, not the percentage, according to their response to student violence.
As shown in Figure 21, telling parents when students become involved in acts of violence, showing disapproval of their students‟ misconduct and asking them to take responsibility for what they did (such as apologising to the one they beat up or making compensation where applicable), and scolding the students appear to be the three most common reactions of teachers to student violence.
Figure 20: Percentage of students reporting their homeroom teacher’s response to their most recent peer clash
5
10 9 2
1
10
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
No response Disapproved and asked me to take responsibility Scolded Beat me Said nothing, ignored me Told my parents
The proportion of teachers who responded to student violence in an aggressive manner is quite large. Nine out of 37 scolded, and two others even beat their students. It is noteworthy that five other teachers (equal to 13.5% of those who knew about the violent conduct on the part of the student) responded in a different but still negative way, notably ignoring the misconduct of their students and treating them as
if nothing had happened; one said nothing to the student but ignored him/her since then.
In summary, it appears that teachers play a minor role in resolving students‟
conflicts, whereas the peacekeepers in schools have to be the teachers, as asserted by Toby (1988). The reasons why the teacher‟s role is weakened are partly because students often keep their conflicts secret from teachers, and partly because teachers seem unprepared to help their students get out of their peer conflicts. In cases where some teachers tried to handle student conflict, not all of them had enough skills as social workers to resolve the problem.
School security guard and superintendent
The responsibility of the school security guard is to watch security in school. The superintendent‟s job is to supervise disciplinary matters and report them to the school management board in a timely manner. School security guards are assigned to watch at the school gate, while the school superintendent is to do a walk around the school to check if school activities are carried out in an orderly way and as scheduled.
Hence, if a violent student confrontation erupts within the school property, their job is to stop it and report the happening and give the names of the students involved to the relevant teacher. However, it was observed during my field study on my research site that the school security guards hardly ever intervened in student fights. If they saw a fight, they often called the superintendent to deal with it. That is said because they are afraid of revenge from the students.