This morning I am disturbed. My first sight was the Jamaica Gleaner’s headline “15-y-o fondled in class“. Now besides the inaccurate use of “in class” , the story bothered me on several levels.

Apparently, the incident, in which a group of male students were fondling a female student, happened in a classrom in the presence of a male teacher. As with the recent incident involving a group of boys raping a young girl in the presence of a church deacon, this story highlights some of the problems with our society.

Obviously we need to be worried about our young boys who at this young school age have had ideas about sex and women created and guided in this heinous direction. But also more disturbing that they could additionally recognize the lack of authority and even implicit support of the witnessing adults. They show no concern that they might get in trouble for their actions.

Many parents struggle with the idea of sending their children off to pre-school or day care as infants. They worry about what kind of people will be looking after their child, will these people care for them as much as they the parents would, will their children suffer? Eventually, they get used to the idea because the teachers are there to look after the children - they will make sure nothing happens to them. And yes, teachers do have a responsibility, besides teaching students, to look after the children in their care. The teacher in this incident may end up being charged with negligence under the Child Care and Protection Act.

Stories like this one, and others I have heard about sexual activities beginning at the preparatory and primary school level, make me very concerned and even more appreciative of a perhaps overlooked reason for parents to ignore the socialization benefits of sending your children to school and consider instead home-schooling. It’s bad enough that we can’t expect all parents to instill proper values, and that we can’t prevent the media from exposing children to adult (and often immoral) ideas, but the idea that those to whom we entrust our children for their own education might contribute to this level of depravity scares me.

What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches. 
 - Karl Menninger