Wind In My Head: Voice of the masses
Wind In My Head
Monday, March 31, 2008
Voice of the masses
Dear Student who STOMPED this,I am sure you're feeling very pleased with yourself for creating such a stir. I am sure, also that you're feeling vindicated that justice will be served and your discipline master will be disciplined and dealt with and humiliated the way your friends were.
Unfortunately, your letter has not impressed me or those around me who have read it. In fact, it has blown up in your face because we all think that what you did was rather despicable. You have purposely and vengefully put up a good standing man to a public lynching he did not deserve. Understandably you are indignant that he meted out discipline and punishment for what was in your opinion an innocent act. Perhaps it is true that his ideas and values are of a different time but what you have done and what you have exposed him to is plain despicable and if nothing else, shows your adolescent penchant for rash pettiness and vindictiveness.
You feel that by doing this, you are alerting society to the injustices committed by an unreasonable disciplinarian. And you are supported by equally small and like-minded individuals who have risen to your call for a public lynching. Your bravado might be inflated by the bloodthirsty mob who are waving pitchforks and demanding a vigilante brand of justice.
What you have failed to see is that you have made it publicly necessary to question the integrity of someone who has done nothing but tried to serve the teaching community and taken upon himself the thankless task of trying to instil discipline into a bunch of youths who frankly wouldn't be none the worse to wear by being brought to the city gates and being subject to the biblical way of dealing with disrespectful. disobedient kids. I am certain, when you wrote the letter all you thought of was the best way to get back at this man.
Well, congratulations. You did it. Thanks to you, he will be questioned by the school, investigated by the Ministry of Education and he will have to walk through school and pretend to ignore and endure all the whispering that is going on about how he deserved everything that was coming his way. He will have to bear with those he is answerable to doubting his ability to do his job. Except that, he shouldn't have to. No one deserves to be called up by an investigative panel for such a non-situation. No one deserves such a mark on a so far immaculate and outstanding work record and performance. No one, who has shown nothing but loyalty to the institution and commitment to his job, who spends more time on his job than with his own family deserves to be treated with such disrespect and spite.
You've done what you set out to do. You've ruined a perfectly good man who perhaps by your standard is a little behind in the times but is a good man nonetheless. You've put him in a position where he has to defend himself, as a teacher, a disciplinarian but also as a husband, a father and most of all, an innocent human being. Was this what you had hoped for? If it is, then you have just proven all the sceptics of your generation right. There really is no hope and we really have failed at our job.
So, then, I have nothing else to say but good luck. I hope you sleep well tonight.
Yours sincerely,
An Adult.
Technorati Tags: Singapore, Stomp, The Straits Times
Ondine tossed this thought in at 19:39
