Bright and early every morning, we say goodbye to Truett and Kirsten as they head off to school for the next 6 hours, where they spend that time making friends and learning things in a structured environment, under the supervision of teachers, in whom we place a great deal of trust.
And everyday, when I pick them up from school, I’ll ask them the same question, “How was your day, guys?” Because 1) I’m interested to hear about their day and 2) If anything bad were to happen to them in those 6 hours where I’m not able to be physically present to watch out for them, I’d want to know immediately.
Most of the time, they’ll say “good” or “okay” or “boring”, which in view of point 2, is a good thing.
***
If you’ve been around the blog, you’d know that I don’t use this as a space to rant or to make a big deal of things, but there’s something that I’ve got to talk about and I’ve got to do it here.
My kids go to Gongshang Primary School. It’s a great school with great teachers. Truett has been blessed with really nice, caring teachers who go above and beyond their academic learning duties to ensure that the kids are nurtured and cared for. And Kirsten adores her form teacher, whom she describes as the funniest, kindest, best-in-the-universe teacher ever. From my interactions with her these past 6 months, I’m inclined to agree.
This is part of the post where things start to go very bad. I have a dear, dear friend whose kids also go to this school. Poh and Josephine are the sort of friends one is grateful to find in a lifetime and we’ve spent many fun hours babysitting their kids.
We’ve recently discovered that two of their kids have been unfortunate to be in classes where the teacher (same teacher for both kids) has been abusing the kids in her class both physically and emotionally for several months.
Abuse?? That’s serious.
Yes, it is.
The Incidents:
1. The one with the kneeling.
On 2 separate occasions, students who were difficult in her class were made to come to the front and kneel down next to her desk in full view of the entire class as punishment.
Kneel. Seriously, KNEEL??!!
Why is this an acceptable form of punishment for a child??? Even if the teacher considered herself to be the goddess deity of divine discipline, there is no reason why kids should be made to kneel before her in remorse. This is wrong on so many levels, I can’t even.
2. The one with the SUMPAH.
Not as bad as kneeling, but one kid was made to put up 3 fingers and swear to the entire class that he would not be naughty ever again.
SUMPAH, ok, SUMPAH.
3. The one with the taunting and name calling.
One time, a kid who had myopia walked up to the front of the class to have a closer look at the board and got scolded for doing so. When he explained his poor eyesight, she said, “Too bad that you can’t see, go get new specs!”
Another kid did the same thing and was told, “Go back to your seat! Go get new specs, you don’t have money to buy one?!”
Kids that forgot to bring their science books 2 days in a row were called “retarded monkeys“. Classy.
4. The one with the throwing of things.
So far, she’s thrown a stapler, a water bottle, and many markers in the direction of kids whom she deemed was being naughty, with a marker actually hitting a child on the lip.
On this matter, upon investigation, her defence was that the marker slipped out of her hand and accidentally hit the child in the face. I’m no expert at throwing things, but in my entire life, whenever I’ve had things slip out of my hands accidentally, they’ve landed on myself or within 50cm of my body 100% of the time. 0% of the time has it flown across a room and hit someone else in the face. There was this one time when I flung a popcorn kernel at the husband and hit him in the face, but that time was completely on purpose.
Also, it doesn’t explain all the other times she threw things but missed. Surely objects can’t be accidentally flying out of her hand at students with such alarming frequency.
In fact, the students in the class all know that the teacher enjoys throwing things so they have to be alert and dodge when it happens, which is kind of like playing a terrible game of whack-a-mole where they have to be the mole.
5. The one with the humiliation.
On several occasions, she publicly called out a student whom she knew was a Christian, told him that he was a disgrace to God and should be ashamed of himself.
This was painful to hear this because we all make mistakes in life and kids (or adults!) should not be told that they are a disgrace to God.
What’s even more heartbreaking is that this kid went home after hearing this, held his Bible, went to the store room alone and sobbed. This makes me so sad and so mad at the same time.
6. The one with the threatening.
These incidents have been going on over a period of several months, and different parents have flagged up isolated cases to the school. Upon discovering this, the teacher intimidated the kids and warned them against complaining to their parents, along the lines of “I KNOW SOMEBODY COMPLAINED ABOUT ME. I WILL NOT SAY YOUR NAME BUT I KNOW WHO IT IS…”
***
I’m a big believer in innocent until proven guilty and a proper investigation has to happen, but as it stands, these incidents have been witnessed by many students in the class (plus a teaching assistant) and corroborated by several parents so as far as credibility goes, it seems very very unlikely that all these students would lie so convincingly about this one teacher.
Okay, so what’s been done?
Complaints against this teacher has been flagged up as early as March this year, with the form teacher and Science HOD being alerted about different incidents.
On Monday morning of this week, my friends met with the school principal to stage an intervention, and so far, this is the situation. The school has agreed to remove this teacher from teaching core subjects in these affected classes, but she will be reassigned to teach non-core subjects to other new victims. According to the principal, this is as much as they can do.
While it’s good that the school has acted swiftly, this resolution poses 2 problems.
1. The teacher will still be physically present in the school, where she will be able to ambush the students who told on her to exact revenge. She has proven that she is vindictive enough to threaten the kids and will go to great lengths to make sure they suffer, so all she needs is one opportunity with one kid alone in an empty classroom or hallway to abuse them as she pleases.
Sure, maybe this won’t happen and the kids will be safe, but if I know that there’s a possibility of danger being posed to my child every single day, I can’t possibly continue to put him in harm’s way.
2. Shuffling her to other classes doesn’t stop the abuse, it just gives her new victims to abuse. Perhaps she may be smarter about this in future, but the next time a child misbehaves or infuriates her in class, she’s just going repeat the abuse. With the knowledge that she has a track record of behaving in this manner, it’s our responsibility to protect these kids too.
While the investigations are ongoing, they’ve asked the principal to suspend the teacher from all interactions with students and reshuffle her to a desk job at MOE, but according to the principal, this is not possible.
They’ve also contacted MOE regarding this issue, only to be told that the teacher cannot be reassigned out of the school.
What next?
I don’t know.
I’m not here to name and shame. But I do know that kids are being abused by a teacher who is supposed to educate and nurture them, not humiliate them and abuse them. This isn’t right. And now that this teacher is facing disciplinary action, it’s not right that she’s still physically present in the school to exact her revenge when the opportunity presents itself.
It’s really hard to be in a position where you’re helpless, having to send your kids into an environment where they’re in harm’s way for 6 hours a day every single day, not being able to protect them.
All I know is that the kids’ well-being is paramount and we need to do whatever it takes to make things right.
14 Comments
I am absolutely appalled by this! While the school has seemingly done what it thinks is right, I feel it might be in the children’s best interest if the teacher is suspended till investigations are complete. No child should have to fear going to school, and I know that if I were one of the kids in her class, I would dread stepping into school, and possibly running into this teacher.
I don’t know what I can do to help, but I shall share this post, with the hope that it gets shared by others too, till something more effective is done.
Adeline´s last post ..DIY Maternity Photoshoot 2016
Thanks for sharing, Adeline! You’re right, kids should not have to be afraid of going to school, knowing that they could be hurt/humiliated/terrorised by a teacher.
This is appalling. Despite so many complaints and protests, the teacher is not removed? Perhaps then when there is an injury (something hits a child), the affected child’s parents could consider lodging a police report? I know for sure that once it’s a police case, it’s an immediate suspension. Or if there’s a need to skip the P and go to the superintendent or Director General in HQ, the parents should so do it. Obviously the teacher has got her back covered in this school.
Motherkao´s last post ..The day my little girl said she hates me
I agree, suspension is necessary while investigations are ongoing. The school must reduce the access of the teacher-in-question to students, “new” and already affected. As a parent, while I try to remember that one is innocent until proven guilty, I cannot allow the existence of any probability, regardless of how small, of further damage being inflicted on children especially those already affected. I hope the school and MOE will rethink their options and act swiftly.
My 3 children r from GSPS. Eldest son is in NS now n 2 nd son in Sec 1. Youngest daughter is still in GSPS. When my daughter was in P1, she was so scared to go to school as d teachers kept scolding n shouting at them. There’s time where I have to drag her to school. When my son was taking his PSLE last yr, he’s science tr wasn’t teaching them but kept scolding them n tat was d best science class tr. Luckily he has a gd science tutor. This tr should be teaching them as they r taking PSLE n not wasting time scolding them. I did feed back to d principal to tell d trs to be more loving, caring n have more passion in teaching. Worst is before their PSLE , d principal can walk to d class n tell them “……..” Which I was so shocked n I better not review as my daughter is still in GSPS. I’m wondering why this principal still here after 8 yrs? Is MOE doing their job? PSLE results getting worst each yr, is MOE gg to do something? I realized those trs tat keep shouting n scolding r those old trs. I don’t want my kids to be impatient , not caring n loving. Instead I want them to learn to be loving, caring n patience. As they spend most of d time in school, they will learn from it. Let’s pray tat our kids r in gd hands.
When I was in Singapore, my teachers behaved like this. They would relentlessly bully me and, when my parents complained, stepped up their behaviour and made live that much worse for me. The school did nothing. The bullying got so bad that I actually considered committing suicide as a method for getting out of my situation. Thankfully, I never did.
Other than complaining, I think that there is one thing that the parents can do. I think that it is vitally important that parents make it clear that this behaviour in adults is ABNORMAL. Yes, there are going to be awful people in life, but that you don’t have to assume that just because they’re in power that that behaviour is acceptable. I think that it’s important for you to let the kids know that this is abusive behaviour. If not, they’ll end up putting up with terrible behaviour from friends, employers etc later in life because they assume that such behaviour is normal.
Further to the above (which I forgot to add), I think it’s important to let your child know that they can tell you ANYTHING, even if the teacher makes threatening remarks to them, that you will protect them and that it’s okay for them to speak to you.
Thanks for this, Selphie! Sorry to hear about your experience but I really like what you wrote about explaining to the kids that such abusive behaviour is abnormal. Sometimes kids just don’t have the capacity to deal and they’re afraid to speak up so they keep it all inside, thinking that they have to live with the abuse.
[…] Ling, a blogger who runs the site Mother Inc, recently published a blog post detailing transgressions carried out by a teacher on her friend’s children, who also goes to […]
[…] Ling, a blogger who runs the site Mother Inc, recently published a blog post detailing transgressions carried out by a teacher on her friend’s children, who also […]
1. keep complaining to the principal, 2. keep complaining to moe, 3. visit the school every single day, talk to the principal and teacher and 4. complain to the area MP. last resort is call the local news agencies. sorry but also make a police report whenever a kid got any signs of bruises.
no wonder more people are home schooling their kids…
Hi, this is an article that I have received via circulation by concerned mummy. My suggestion is if MOE won’t budge, approach the MP of your area. If the parents affected can go together for the meet up with MP. It will even be better. Another alternative is to approached the publication agencies… Namely straits times, newspaper etc..
Hi, can I ask for your permission to reproduce this article on our Singapore education portal http://www.domainofexperts.com? Explicit mention shall be made about it having first appeared on your site Motherinc and Daphne cited as the original author. Hope to hear from you again! ?
Hi Daphne, I came across this news and your blog recently and I’m shocked I have a similar case like this now. I have just wrote an email to MOE too, they direct me to address my issues with school personnel which the reason why I didn’t approach them is because I hv heard few cases from the same class parents that the Principal rejected seeing 1 of the parent, causing her waited in vain in the office. To avoid such humiliation, I think the best channel is thru MOE. Thru out the 1.5 yrs from P1-2, my gal had received scolding like ” you are liar” over a misunderstanding minor issue ” I dun like to mark your work, hope you go P3 last class soon” “ask your mother stop giving me long long email for I will not reply” “your mother only know how to talk talk talk, she dunno how to teach you? you are just like your mother” “stop giving me that sleepy potato face” All these are said in front of the class, smearing the mother’s image in front of my child, humiliating and embarrassing her till she tries very hard to hold her tear. She told me she don’t want to go school and she hates her teacher. My concern is what if the Principal is the type who side their teacher, trying to sweep everything under the carpet. Is apology enough to let the matter rest? I am very hurt and paranoid. Not only 1 but many who are in the same plight but they didn’t report for fear the welfare of the child in class. Is this tolerable? taunting the child, traumatizing and humiliating her students on and off. I believe the teacher has some character building issue which her conduct is really way over board, she gets uptight easily and blow out trivial matter with straight forward comment in the handbook without further understanding with parents. They are only 8 yrs old, how can a teacher without qualities able to teach. This is frustrating. I can feel the victims in your article. What is wrong with this teacher?