Teachers must deal with pupil conflicts differently to avoid tragedies

There seems to be no end in sight for the state of agony in South African schools if the recent events are anything to go by.

In the latest incident, a 19-year-old Limpopo schoolgirl committed suicide allegedly after a confrontation with a female teacher at her school. This was after the girl, Khutso Macial Mabiletsa, had apparently taunted the teacher on social media about her shoes, claiming they were ugly. Matters got out of hand when the teacher, accompanied by her family, confronted the girl at her home demanding an apology.

It seems the two families exchanged nasty words with Khutso ultimately apologising to the teacher. The incensed teacher refused to accept the apology and threatened to make Khutso’s life miserable. She went to the extent of threatening to exclude Khutso from writing her preliminary mathematics exam scheduled for that Monday, and also threatened to make her apologise in front of her peers. The threat of humiliation seemed to have been too much for the teenager who was later found hanging from the roof of the back rooms at her home.

This is a sad incident with repercussions for the two families, one having to bury a loved one and the other one having to deal with the ramifications of having contributed to the death of the young girl. According to the girl’s mother, the threats were too much to handle for her daughter and she wants the law to take its course. “She cried a lot that day because the matter was not concluded and she felt school was going to be hell for her,” she said.

The father added that his daughter had run out of options and that was why she took her own life. It is not clear how the mother wants the law to take its course on this tragic set of circumstances. The exams at the school were disrupted on Wednesday when parents marched to demand the firing of the teacher. According to a community spokesperson, the parents want the teacher, the principal and four others who have allegedly been previously involved in bullying pupils to be removed from the school.

First, condolences are in order to the parents who have lost a child and hoping that with the passing of time their pain will subside. As for the teacher, the insightful words of Don Paul Aprile, must ring true, “hindsight is a great teacher, but it is also an unforgiving reminder of what could have or what might have been”. Indeed, this matter could have been handled differently, which could have produced a far better and productive outcome than the current tragedy.

As a teacher and parent, because teachers act in loco parentis, the teacher should have viewed the girl as her child who had gone off the rails and needed to be brought back on track with love by showing her the error of her ways. As a professional, she should not have overreacted in the manner she did but should have instead reported the incident to the principal to seek his or her intervention. The child could have been issued with a letter, inviting her parents to the school to thrash out the matter. The school setting would have ensured that this was no longer a personal matter between the teacher and the pupil but one between the school on one side and the pupil and the parents on the other side. An official matter in other words, not a location or street matter. The adults could have discussed and agreed on a way forward to reprimand and even sanction the child, and equilibrium would have been restored.

It is important that teachers acquaint themselves with different approaches to the handling of conflict as this is an integral component of human interaction and organisational development. Emphasis should be placed on open communication that will need to the amicable resolution of problem in a win-win situation. Furthermore, conflict should and must not capsize the goals and interests of the organisation. The parties to a conflict should try to avoid winning at all costs by perpetually moving on the attack or defence, but always try to act in good faith.

What can never be overemphasised is the partnership between the parents and the school towards the nurturing of pupils. Without this co-operation, a lot can go wrong but parental involvement can lead to a better understanding of the learner’s family situation by the teacher, which can only benefit his/her education. Parental involvement can lighten the burden on the teacher’s load and ensure that learning and behavioural challenges are solved more effectively.

It is only through the consistent partnership between the school and the home that safe and excellent learning environments can be guaranteed for our children and tragedies such as this recent ones can be a thing of the past.