Question 1: To what extent is bullying a problem at your school?
I want to believe that at my school bullying exists, yes, but at a very minimal level.
Question 2: What are there some of the major causes of bullying, that you would… The cases that you would believe are the major causes of this?
I’ve already looked at what may have caused the bullying. What happens at the secondary school level, specifically, you may find that there are bigger children taking advantage of the smaller ones, a stronger child taking advantage of what we would call a weaker child, to that extent. I really haven’t come across other cases of bullying where persons are bullied because of their status or parental status, and that kind of thing; so for example, there’s a teacher with a child, and the teacher seem to be well off, but that doesn’t seem to trigger any sort of negative or bullying situation towards his own child. So the causes of bullying, from the principal’s perspective, as I said, it is at such a minimal level at my school, it is very hard to pinpoint. No one has launched any kind of formal investigation as to find out what may cause the bullying per se.
What I would have experienced also, is that, there might be children who would have demonstrated bullying tactics and so on, and it would have emanated from lower classes coming up, so that the children, teachers would say that the child would have always had that kind of tendency towards other children in terms of that bullying. So if you look at the primary school sector then it would be a situation that might have been observed from teachers with students from first year, as they come up the different levels. But there are situations that I would have made, for example, sometimes it is very hard to see because sometimes even a child who might have been accused of bullying, end up being bullied by some other child in another context and so on, so there’s a number of different situations.
Some of the situations could be, one of them might be seen as trivial, children who might want to take a pencil, more or less because they don’t have a pencil, and they might probably feel that they are bigger and more powerful than another child. There is also situations at the school, for example, where people are bullied to take their money and lunch and that kind of thing. It also is very, very hard to pinpoint a particular reason as to why a child is bullying other children because… And it doesn’t happen on a daily basis, so that a child may exhibit a certain bullying behavior today, and it may not come up again for the rest of the term, so it’s just that sort of cases that are unrelated more so, and it’s hard to pinpoint a situation where you could say that this child is habitually bullying other children, specific to my school.
Question 3: What do you think of some of the responsibilities of the TUTTA, TSC and Ministry of Education in addressing bullying in schools?
Well, they are all major stakeholders in education, and the issue of bullying in our nation’s schools surely would not resist or rely on any one particular stakeholder, there must be a collective and a collaborative effort. The Teaching Service Commission job really is to hire teachers. The TUTTA fights for the rights of teachers.
The MOE should be really one facilitator hiring and training of teachers, so that really the greater responsibility that I, as far as I can see, rests with the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Education should be the one to put systems in place, although they tried doing that now through the School Support Services, alright? But teachers in the main are not really trained in areas of those type of deviant behaviors, so that the major player there in terms of responsibility as far as I am concerned would be the Ministry of Education. They are the ones who are responsible for setting the parameters on how teachers teach, and should train them also to deal with bullying in schools and of course, with collaboration from the Teacher Service Commission and TUTTA. TUTTA has a larger role to play in terms of lobbying for that type of specific training that is required in dealing with bullying in schools and other deviant behaviors. The TUTTA can only call for it, but the Ministry has the responsibility of supplying that training that is needed or any other type of personnel that will be necessary to help student who has that type of deviant or bullying characteristics.
Question 4: Who are the greatest victims or perpetrators of bullying in schools?
Well again, I’m confined to my school context. I have worked in two other… In other schools, but as principal I’ve worked in two schools; one a very small school, this one a bigger school. And the perpetrators, it is hard to say because coming from a rural sort of perspective, where these schools that I’ve worked in resides, it’s hard to say. Children tend to react in different ways because of their home context, so it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what would allow students to be bullies, right? And one would really have to investigate for the background that these children are coming from or the home, what is happening in the homes, because sometimes children live what they see, and if things are happening at the home that are affecting them psychologically and so on of course they come to the school and play out what they learn and what they see at their homes and in the different communities and so on, so that it has to call for a greater field of investigation, so maybe some part of your recommendation might be to allow for that investigations into the internal structures of bullying, chiefly the homes and closer communities and so on, as it affects students.
Question 5: What role do the principals play in reducing bullying?
Well, the principal role primarily is to safeguard the health and safety of the students, alright? So that the bully… The bullied and the bullier, if those are the terms, the bullied and the perpetrator of the bullying. The principal has to safeguard both of them, so that policies… Principal have to work with staff and PTA, and also Ministry of Education personnel through the school’s support services to help both parties, the effected and the perpetrators, and so it calls out for the principal role to expand greater in terms of expanding into the internal disciplinary matrix and exercising whatever they can implement under the Ministry of Education guidelines, because the most a principal can do is suspend a child for seven days depending on the severity of the act of indiscipline, with the Ministry’s zero tolerance on violence and so on. You are called upon as a principal to put out the seven days suspension for students who would have breached the Ministry’s code, alright? Because there are a number of different guidelines, for example, there is the Ministry Code of Conduct that spells out how students should behave and interact with each other as students and the teachers, adults and so on, and so those are the framework together with what the Ministry, whatever is in regulation, to help shape whatever measures that the principal can use to help the child.
At the end of it really, the principal is not just there to suspend per se, but really to bring some kind of help for the child. Mainly at the primary school now is to refer the child to School Support Services to see what can be done so that help can be given, as I said before, to the child who have been bullied and the bullier, but it can only happen through that sort of referral system.
Question 6: What measures do the Ministry of Education take against the school principals that do nothing to stop bullying?
Well, I don’t know in terms of the Ministry’s guidelines as it relates to… As I pointed out to one of the principal’s primary function is the health and safety of students, so that from the time a principal fails to act on helping a child he would be in breach of that fundamental regulation and it will come under misconduct, so that the principal, the Ministry has it’s guidelines and regulations well spelled-out in terms of the parameters in which a principal would operate, or is called upon to operate in the case of safeguarding children, and that is paramount health and safety issues, of all kinds, is the number one priority of the principal’s role at our schools. So the Ministry guidelines are clear, and if the principal does not act on safeguarding a child, in any case, the principal will be called into for disciplinary action; so for example, this is not really related to bullying, but things of within you sexual offensive act that you have, I think I am forgetting the name of act, but it really says that if a child voiced that he or she is being abused, in any way… Be it physically, sexually, in any way, and you don’t react, and it goes to the police, you will be arrested.
So in the case of bullying, I don’t in this case if you’re extending your study in terms of bullying student or situation where a person could be bullied into a sexual circumstance, and if that is the case and the child mentions something to the teacher or principal, any adult for that matter, the act states that it must be reported to the police, so that even if a teacher knows, the teacher has to report to the police, not to the principal, to the police, and if the principal knows, he too, or she, must report it to the police, otherwise they will be in serious trouble. Yeah, they will be breach of misconduct.
Question 7: How important is discipline in managing the vice?
Discipline is broad and sometimes we use the term quite loosely, alright? So in the context in which you’re framing it here, I’m getting the sense it’s sort of loose, so that if you’re going to talk about disciplining towards the vice… It is a number of different factors, because the school accepts children who are coming from a range of different social context, and we have varying levels of discipline, and so the school now would have in it’s core day-to-day functioning some policy that speaks to discipline, discipline and how we treat with indiscipline, mainly they call that a discipline matrix, but without… As I said it you, what a principal has to work with really is suspension, and it really calls for the stakeholders to be involved in that disciplining management portfolio.
At my school for example, what I try doing is using what the Ministry has given to us through the School Support Services, so my first reaction then would not be to suspend that child per se, but to try to bring help to the child, and if the teacher and then principal, my management staff, cannot help, then we refer the child to School Support Services as an appendage to the school. The School Support Services include guidance officers and school social workers. They will take up the case depending on how it is framed, and one of those two persons would begin working with the child to bring back the child to, I guess, a disciplined child to alleviate the vice, but beyond that, really our hands are tied as principals.
Question 8: Besides counselling and discipline are there other ways through which schools can manage bullying?
Well when you say besides counselling and discipline, everything else that when you take out, you remove counselling every other tactic would be geared towards discipline…So it would be difficult as to having those two categories and asking for a third category as to what else can be done, alright? But what else can be done really is consultations with parents and so on, through the PTA, lobbying with other stakeholders, there are other persons there; for example, at my school there is the… We do RI, although it’s a government school, we do RI, and according to if the child is affiliated to a particular religious denomination, one can ask the lead of that denomination probably to intervene after consultation with the parents, so I just kind of calling up pastor, a priest or a pundit or imam, to talk to that child, without the parental consent. So in terms of treating with a child, we have to embrace all the stakeholders, so it has to be a collaborative effort, even at the local level, being the school level, alright? So part of that matrix would be an inclusive response including the teachers, the staff, the PTA, parents and other major stakeholder, like the religious bodies or whoever. There might be for example, they will be an independent counselor within the school, or within the community more so, who might be willing to give some assistance outside of that formal structure of the MOE. I know that you mentioned counselling already, and that was a second kind of counselling, but in this case I think it’s going to be different from what the MOE is offering, so that an attempt of using all other strategies, beyond disciplining at the school level, and counselling at the school level, any other sort of enterprising response that can bring help or aid to the child, and by extension even the family would be employed at this particular school in question.
Question 9: How significant is the Trinidad and Tobago Education Act in empowering principals, especially when they need to handle bullying?
You see, you step out now into the legal framework, and the legal framework really is just guidelines as to what not to do, so the regulations really doesn’t say much in terms of help for a principal, right? In layman terms they said, “Our hands are tied.” Because as a principal, all we can do really is pass on the buck as far as I’m concerned, so a child is bullying and so on, we would have spoken to the child or interact with the child on three or four or five different occasions, and we have reached the point we say, “Okay, we’re going to refer the child now to School Support Services.” Beyond that now would be suspension, and that’s the end. So the regulations are very broad yet one can see it’s very, very narrow and doesn’t really offer much help for the principal in terms of really bringing assistance to the children, and on both sides of the bully and the bullied.
Question 10: How important is religion, morality and personal initiative in dealing with bullying?
Well, to be honest with you, even children who are deeply involved in church sometimes are bully themselves, alright. What I have found is a lot of times children react in a particular way because of certain context, chiefly home context or community context. By community context I mean perhaps the influence that probably key personnel, be positive or negative, is having on the child or the child’s home in a given community, so that if there is a negative influence from outside the home even, in the home, and resides in the community, and a child can feel empowered because of the background of the person in the community and so on. You find that person so that, it’s not really religion, as far as I’m concerned have nothing to do with it, I think it’s more of a social networking as it was, that impacts on the child who is described as the bully, so it’s not emanating within the school. So take for example, the schools in the secondary sector there that the Ministry simply would have had to intervene. It has nothing to do with the school, it has nothing to do with religion as far as I’m understanding, but other domains from within communities, that these students are free to affiliate with, because the school environment really is a slice of the greater community. If bullying is happening in your school, it means in the bigger community where that school resides a lot of bullying is happening. So that the children are just really living out from the greater experiences that they would have gotten outside of school.
Question 11: Is training provided for teachers by the principal on how to treat with cases of bullying?
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