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Unruly pupils must be tackled

Pupil hits teacher
Pupil hits teacher

The claims by the parents of a female Vereeniging pupil who attacked a teacher in class are beyond shocking.

I am at a loss for words. If her parents are capable of making such a dumb statement - that she was provoked - I am tempted to suspect her behaviour was learnt at home.

I went to school at the height of corporal punishment. Even then, parents seldom blamed teachers. Aggrieved parents knew that the principal's office was the place to go to if they wanted to lodge a complaint.

As pupils we were in no position to take the law into our own hands.

While driving in the village where my former primary school teacher lived, my cousin told me that she had passed away, and showed me where she was buried.

I jokingly told him that I felt like vandalising her grave because she used to beat us a lot. There were teachers who crossed the line in terms of punishing pupils, but it was parents who sorted out such incidents.

I was shocked by some comments on Twitter that the teacher deserved to be attacked, because she is white, teaching a predominantly black class.

These types of people should be excluded when we talk about nation building because they have nothing to offer.

I'm disappointed that the pupil who shot the video has also been suspended.

Without that pupil we would not have known about the incident. To me, suspending him/her is no different from punishing a whistleblower.

Most pupils and teachers who have been suspended and later expelled were caught thanks to someone filming unfortunate incidents.

As much as we should be outraged when teachers abuse pupils, we should be equally outraged when the roles are reversed.

Richardson Mzaidume

Pimville

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