I haven't been active for quite some time now. But now I am back with a new blog post about the recent furore in our school about the Stomp issue.
For those who have been living under a rock or have been absent for these past 3 weeks or so, here is the background of the Stomp issue. During one particular morning, on the 19th of July when the HP students were attending the Asia-Pacific Young Leaders Summit, the tower block classrooms were left unlocked. And so when a passing teacher came by and saw this, he decided to give them a punishment by temporarily confiscating all the items that were left in the open. This was done so as to warn the students of what might have happened if someone other than the teachers had happened to pass by. The students were told to go and collect their items back soon after. But apparently one student was still not satisfied and he ended up posting the whole incident onto Stomp, resulting in many people insulting the school because of it. And yes, the student who posted it is my CCA senior. Or was my CCA senior.
Anyway, now onto my main point here. Was what the teacher did right? Was the student's action justified? Firstly, I shall talk about the teacher's actions. I know that the teacher had good intentions, but was confiscating them really necessary? This was asked in Assembly, but seeing how serious the atmosphere was, I decided not to risk going up to voice my opinions. Elvis did it and ended up being used as a reference by several teachers... Well, since now I'm not in assembly and being observed by the whole of Sec 2 and their form teachers, I guess I can express my opinions here. Here is what I feel about the saga :
What he did was a rash decision, as everyone know. Not only was he not affected by the confiscation, what he did harmed the school's reputation along with drawing plenty of insults to the students in general, such as "immature, bratty, nerdy and spoiled". What he did was a very selfish decision based on his own whims, which in turn had degraded the reputation of Hwa Chong and its students as a whole. But how he handled the situation aside, I would like to question whether the school really did the right thing in the confiscation of the items. Not only did this make some students feaar that they may have left their valuables somewhere else and probably make them search the whole school for it (I did that for my pencil box), making them miss some lessons in the process, it made the teachers seem like thieves, which had prompted the Stomp article (the student complained that teacher's actions were almost like thieves). Why the need to degrade the image of the teachers with such an act?! You can't break someone's house just to warn the owner of the house's lack of security, and even if this is disproved by our vice-principal, there could definitely have been a better way around for this situation. Yes, the students were warned before hand, but there could have been another way of punishing them, one that would have seemed more "teacher-like". For example, the warning had something like the banning of their rights to bring such valuables to school. This could have been implemented. Like, tell the students when they come back from the summit that they are banned for one day to bring their laptops and such, and that all inconveniences would have to be endured. I believe that this would serve as a better deterrent than confiscating it and returning it on the same day, scaring them for mere hours, and even worse made some students angry enough to post on Stomp.
But don't get me wrong, I do condemn what the student did, but what the teachers did was not entirely right either, and I believe that what the teacher did may have played a part in making the student post on Stomp. But even though I feel this way, the teacher did have all the right to confiscate their items, and thus no blame should be placed upon the teachers, while the students who had failed to lock their classrooms were partially responsible for this incident along with the student who posted on Stomp.
Now, I'm going to comment on what Elvis had said, like all the teachers had before me. Of course, what Elvis had stated, to have perfect trust among ourselves such that even if we left the door to our classes open, there is no need to fear because of our trust of our classmates. What I would like to say to Elvis is that what he stated is extremely idealistic. Obviously it would be for the best if what he said could be achieved, but the big question here is a what if. As a certain English teacher I had once said, trust takes very long to establish, but breaks very easily (or something along those lines.) So, to achieve what Elvis had said would be close to impossible, as what he had stated is what the whole world is trying to achieve.
Thank you.
