Expect the unexpected. That sounds rather cliche. But cliches do occur once in a while.
Today was the last day of school. As much as I had anticipated the unfavourable things that would happen today, little did I expect that today's highlight would be theft and how we combed the whole school in search of the culprit and to recover the missing items.
At roll call in the school hall today, my colleague had carelessly left her purse on a bench while she spot checked the students' bags. Immediately after spot check, she discovered that her purse was missing. She panicked. Inside her purse were her IC, driving license, ATM and credit cards. She also had about RM300.
But by the time I found out about it, it was already too late. Being the teacher on duty today, I had released the students back into their respective classrooms to begin their exam. Had I known about it, a sensible thing to do would be to quarantine everyone and to do a search there and then. Now that the students were released it would be so much harder to locate the loot.
Half an hour later, we decided to go ahead with the search. The first place we went to was the toilets. And guess what? The emptied Bonia purse was found in the boys' toilet. Hence, we decided that our culprit was a boy, and he was in the lower secondary level. This was so because the lower form students who came late often stood near the bench where the purse went missing.
Then all the teachers who were free were rounded up. They went from class to class to search the students and their bags. Some went to comb the hall and the area around the hall. Standing at Level 2 and looking at the scene before me felt somewhat like an episode of CSI in the school context.
My VP had another approach to investigate. He checked the record of the latecomers that day, and then called up a few targeted boys to interrogate them one by one. Finally it bore fruit as we got a name. We zeroed in on the class, and got everyone to empty their pockets. True enough, this Form 3 boy had more than RM300 in his pocket. Subsequently, all the cards were retrieved from a toilet tank in one of the cubicles.
The boy's father was contacted, and the school is going to propose to the Education Department that he be expelled.
Many of us teachers were shocked that a student that young would be audacious enough to steal his teacher's belongings so publicly. But for me, what scared me was the boy's response to his offence. I was there when the VP took the money and counted it in front of him. There was no remorse on his face whatsoever. He was cool and collected, and claimed that the money was his. When the money was taken away, he even had the cheek to tell the VP that he needed some money to buy food during recess! Is this a monster in the making?
For many of us, we were also glad that this boy was not our own. He was transferred earlier this year from a private school, and it was because of discipline problems as well. It was no wonder that he would do such a despicable thing.
Today was the last day of school. As much as I had anticipated the unfavourable things that would happen today, little did I expect that today's highlight would be theft and how we combed the whole school in search of the culprit and to recover the missing items.
At roll call in the school hall today, my colleague had carelessly left her purse on a bench while she spot checked the students' bags. Immediately after spot check, she discovered that her purse was missing. She panicked. Inside her purse were her IC, driving license, ATM and credit cards. She also had about RM300.
But by the time I found out about it, it was already too late. Being the teacher on duty today, I had released the students back into their respective classrooms to begin their exam. Had I known about it, a sensible thing to do would be to quarantine everyone and to do a search there and then. Now that the students were released it would be so much harder to locate the loot.
Half an hour later, we decided to go ahead with the search. The first place we went to was the toilets. And guess what? The emptied Bonia purse was found in the boys' toilet. Hence, we decided that our culprit was a boy, and he was in the lower secondary level. This was so because the lower form students who came late often stood near the bench where the purse went missing.
Then all the teachers who were free were rounded up. They went from class to class to search the students and their bags. Some went to comb the hall and the area around the hall. Standing at Level 2 and looking at the scene before me felt somewhat like an episode of CSI in the school context.
My VP had another approach to investigate. He checked the record of the latecomers that day, and then called up a few targeted boys to interrogate them one by one. Finally it bore fruit as we got a name. We zeroed in on the class, and got everyone to empty their pockets. True enough, this Form 3 boy had more than RM300 in his pocket. Subsequently, all the cards were retrieved from a toilet tank in one of the cubicles.
The boy's father was contacted, and the school is going to propose to the Education Department that he be expelled.
Many of us teachers were shocked that a student that young would be audacious enough to steal his teacher's belongings so publicly. But for me, what scared me was the boy's response to his offence. I was there when the VP took the money and counted it in front of him. There was no remorse on his face whatsoever. He was cool and collected, and claimed that the money was his. When the money was taken away, he even had the cheek to tell the VP that he needed some money to buy food during recess! Is this a monster in the making?
For many of us, we were also glad that this boy was not our own. He was transferred earlier this year from a private school, and it was because of discipline problems as well. It was no wonder that he would do such a despicable thing.
Every teacher in your school was so cooperative in tracking down the culprit. I was not that fortunate. I lost my camera and the collected school fees of 16 students in the staffroom two years ago. None of my colleagues wanted to help me conduct a spot-check and I had to pay the loss at the end.
ReplyDeleteYup! We were determined to catch the thief. Our things do get lost in the staffroom too. And the school constantly reminds us to be careful with our personal belongings.
ReplyDeletehai, sorry to say, many of us have this "good boy i love, bad boy i despise" attitude..as a teacher, what is the good thing you done for the unfortunate kid? i am sorry for him as no second chance given to him from the school..he must come from a bad family background, he do not born with it. Do u give counselling?
ReplyDelete"For many of us, we were also glad that this boy was not our own" plz remove this attitude..
"We were determined to catch the thief." THIEF - you should not label a child a thief especially student in your school!!!!
you were never a thief? think! :) GOD BLESS YOU
You have a point. It is a very idealistic view of education that you have suggested, and I'm sorry I do not live up to your expectations.
ReplyDeleteWhat have we done to that unfortunate kid? To us, he is not "unfortunate". No one instigated him to steal. He did it on a whim and he probably did not think that he would get caught. I would be grateful if he would just show a slightest bit of regret for what he had done. But no! He was haughty and defensive.
Whether he comes from a broken family or not is irrelevant. Coming from broken families does NOT provide an excuse to steal. And yes, I will continue to say that he stole because that was exactly what he did. We have to call a spade a spade.
Of course he was given second chances. I suspect that his former school had given him enough chances before expelling him. That was why he transferred to my school in the first place. We accepted him here. We gave him a place here in the school so that he could continue his education. But what did he do? Did he ever appreciate this opportunity? He made himself a problem here too.
What we probably did wrong was that we had failed to mould him to be a better person than he was. Yes, we FAILED in that way and that was why he persisted to behave in such a wayward manner.
Anyway, in school, there are procedures to take when someone commits a wrongdoing. Stealing is considered a serious offense, and the school had written a full report to be submitted to the MOE, and thereafter suggest expulsion or suspension. The school has the authority to suggest, but unless approved by MOE, the boy stays.
For your information, the boy is still in school, and have stayed out of trouble since the past 3 weeks that we have begun this new semester. Let's hope that he'd learned his lesson.