How can we stop the bullying?

Watching out for potential victims and bullies, redesigning schools, examining factors surrounding bullying, and sending bullies to boot camp, might help.

WHEN I became a father, I realised that the safety and well-being of my child, and later five children, would be my topmost priority. It wasn’t the As or Bs of education that I prioritised, I only wished that they would be safe and healthy (and that they would love reading as much as I do).

I had not anticipated that when I read about the lack of safety and health that other children faced, I would feel so bad. That I would feel a knife-like pain in my heart when children fall off buildings, suffer bullying, burn to death in a madrasa, and inhale toxic gas from a polluted river.

We might not be able to stop all the dangers children might face, but surely we can do something about the pandemic of bullying that is sweeping through our schools, especially public schools and boarding schools.

To me, bullying is now a pandemic because it seems to be largely uncontrolled.

I have advised all my children that as long as I live and have money, my grandchildren will not attend public schools or boarding schools.

My children have experienced enough bullying themselves for me to conclude that the Education Ministry treats bullying cases as one-offs and not a pandemic or even a worrying trend.

I would like to ask the ministry staff whether they have considered the issues that I will lay out here to ensure bullying does not occur.

Taking action after a bullying incident to me is like, as the Malay saying goes, nasi sudah menjadi bubur (the rice has become porridge), meaning it’s too late by then. So, do teacher training institutes teach how to identify potentially bullied children?

Off the cuff, I can think of identifying students who seem morose and unresponsive when they were previously alert and happy.

Then there is identifying potential bullies, and I think they would be those who love to talk loudly and are often surrounded by their cliques, and who display cruel behaviour or use cruel words.

Noticing such simple things could mean the difference between a traumatised or even maimed child – or God forbid, a child dead from suicide or pushed from the third floor of a dormitory.

Are all teachers trained to spot these telltale signs? We should not leave bullying to be handled only by counsellors, every teacher must possess the ability to identify potential bullying situations.

Even a short interview in private with potential victims would go a long way towards helping them. And a private word with potential bullies and their minions could put the fear of punishment in them.

Secondly, are our schools ­spaces and structures safe?

I have supervised architecture students in designing schools without blind spots and negative or unused spaces that could be hotspots for bullying.

For instance, why should all the teachers be lumped together into one staff room? Why not disperse them in many rooms strategically placed on all floors of the classroom blocks so that they are within hearing distance and viewing angles of classrooms when there are no teachers in them?

My son was punched by a bully right after the teacher left. That boy remained in the school even after I complained because his mother was the Parent-Teacher Association’s chairperson.

I took my son out of that school the same day and later enrolled him in a private international school. I had to cough up a lot of money but it was worth it because a child’s school life should be an enjoyable time, not one full of fear.

Has the ministry studied such “bully-proof” designs? When I proposed such a design, some of my former students working in the Public Works Department reported that senior architects there didn’t like my suggestions because they made their regular school designs look weak. Instead of discussing safer school designs, overly large egos ruled the day.

Thirdly, has anyone studied the by now hundreds (if not thousands) of cases of bullying over the last few years to identify the issues: profiles of bullies, spaces where bullying occurs, repeated offences by the same bullies, etc?

I would expect that PhD-holding civil servants in the Education Ministry should have done some research to provide guidance for teachers and head teachers – if they haven’t, why not?

Why blame politicians who are ministers that come and go with elections when those who are longest on the job of protecting our children aren’t getting any positive results?

Finally, I think we should have some sort of a boot camp for bullies that will train them in a militaristic fashion to sow discipline and respect.

When they “graduate” in say, six months, they can be sent back to school as a probationary student with mandated biweekly reporting to a case officer or the school counsellor.

Any repeat offence, then back they go to boot camp.

Now, the question here is does the ministry have this kind of camp? I don’t mean juvenile detention centres as those are about crime. Bullying is about disrespecting others and believing they are beneath dignity.

Thousands of SPM A-pluses cannot make up for even one case of bullying. Bullying is a failure in our teaching ecosystem that can destroy not just a victim’s life but also the perpetrator’s.

Our children are the most important reason we exist in this world, and their safety and health should never be compromised or dismissed callously.

Prof Dr Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor of Architecture at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Studies at UCSI University. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.