This post is nothing but some personal ideas.
These days are making history. A girl was killed inside a school and apparently, a phone, some prefects and teachers are to be responsible for that. Some girls and boys who were imagining that they were in love had eaten kaneru to frighten the parents. These incidents may be just news for the majority of the nation. For parents, it may appear as a warning and for the students it sure is a shocking news. Since many have talked of the incidents in the above points of view, why not blog about the way i feel about this whole thing as a past prefect?
I was the deputy school captain of my school for the year 2006/7 . more than 3 years back, my thinking pattern was very very different than the present one. there are plenty of reasons which you 'll understand by the end of the post.
I still have no clear idea what was in that mobile phone to make her suicide. But I'm sure the school has a big share over her death. if the same incident happened in a boys college, he would be punished, may be kneeling in front of the office and that is all. so , what is wrong with all this girls' colleges?
First and foremost, I love my school because it is the place which made me who I am. If you enjoy being friends with me, you have to thank my school too. How ever, that does not mean that I only have to speak of the good side of everything.
Going back to the incident, if I was the Head Prefect of that school,and if I had the power to decide, what I would do is to talk to the child and let her walk off with the phone. no problem to both sides, she will get the phone and I will get her abide by the rules of the school. But, that is not the case, all the senior prefects would have got together and they decide what to do. This "what to do " part is dangerous. Being prefects, they have the power, but using the power in the proper way is not taught to them by the relevant authorities or simply, as any other human being, they need to use power to gain wealth and status.
It is true that I also had to take some actions to some "actions" when I was working as a prefect. but now, they seem stupid. totally stupid. Once I was talking with a younger sister of the school and she was saying that she was afraid of me. I asked her why. she said that I was strict. well, I would have been strict during the school time, but now i am not (although i think so, its up to you to judge). so the reason to think that I'm strict and a monster to be afraid of?
Tearing up a picture of prince william in front of her eyes! I didn't even remember doing it, but it seems it was embedded in her mind. I continued the conversation. Akki I was born in UK and I love that country. Prince william is the royalty of my mother country. It is true that he is a "guy" but still its nothing but a mere liking to collect pictures of the people you love.
I was sad. but was helpless. during the time when I was a prefect, we had to abide by the rules and if went other wise, it means the end.
Thus, boys were out of everything. Being prefect, I had to be of an exemplary moral character and according to the idea of the world in which I was living at that time, being good is all about being good and being away from boys.
If I go for a debate, a quiz or any other inter school competition, talking with boys was looked down upon by me myself. It's not that I hated guys. It was more like a virtual dungeon. I was under the impression that talking with boys and joking was a bad thing and each time I talked with them I was mentally counting the time and make sure I end the discussion before hitting the red line. It was such a difficult thing for me to talk with boys, let alone having a boy friend.
It was the result of both the school and the family. On one hand, I'm grateful for both the parties for keeping me out of the company of boys and on the other hand, I'm so sad that I missed a great company during the school time.
That is all about being a prefect in summary
Since I missed the company of boys during the school time, now I know what I missed during the past. I personally do not like being in love during the school time. How ever, not having the opportunity to be friends with boys is sure a misfortune.
When a girl with lesser understanding about the creatures called boys come into a society, she a sure to be an easy catch. But today hardly any school would admit the fact. For most of the girls' colleges are walling up the avenues for their students to mingle with boys. Its just crazy....
When such students become citizens of this big society, they fall in to the trap easily. Guys would come as lovers, friends, study mates, project team members etc to your life and who knows what their real intention is if you have no understanding of the way the mind of guys behave?
For me, luckily I met this guy who very well understood my situation and helped me to get away with my boy phobia. But, we cannot be sure that each and every girl would have that chance. Although I had no close male friends at that time, I believed in him and it is my luck that he is such a good person to be with. what if he turned out to be a crazy moron. When he was being friendly with me, I thought it was love but he was just being friends. That was just because I didn't know how is it to be friends with a boy.
When he first phoned me, I thought it was a sin to answer.
But today I laugh at the fact.
The reason is that today I have male and female friends alike and I think it is a priviledge.
However, during the school time, it was not. talking with a boy was considered a taboo and I used to look down upon the girls who had male friends. Any girl with a strict family back ground and would think the same. The situation would be dangerous if she was brought up in a girls only school.
Then, let us consider the present situation in sri lanka.
Mobile phones being prohibited
Facebook banned
Porn sites blocked
Movies with adult only content censored/prohibited
If i was a prefect, I would say yes to all these.
But as I'm not a school child anymore, these things stand just like bullshit.
To start with, I would quote "ඕවා මේ ලංකාවේ බ්ලොක් කරනවා කියන්නේ අනාගත පරම්පරාවම අවුල් කරවන වැඩක්. මොකද ඔයා හිතාගෙන ඉන්නේ අපි බැඳපු දවසේ රෑට කරන්න ඕනේ දේවල් අපේ අම්මා, තාත්තා කියල දෙයි කියලද? ඒවා ගැන අපි දැන ගන්නේ ඕවා බලලා තමා."
Note that this was uttered by a school boy in a conversation he had with me about blocking the porn sites.
Although not 100% correct, he definitely has a point there.
I do not encourage anybody to watch porn, but at least you got to have an idea about sex, no need to explain as I believe that the readership of this blog is matured to understand what that means.
Going back to the words of that teenager,it reflects how young people find a way to quench their thirst of curiosity. If one way is blocked, they will soon find another way.
The issue is the same with all the other taboo topics.
Now you might wonder what the heck me being a prefect has to do with this?
Well, being a prefect, I tried to be a goody goody person. No jokes, no friendly talks with boys and no any other non-sense. I even avoided chatting, emailing and IMing in sinhala thinking that it would destroy the image that the public have of me.
But to day, I'm different, may be different than a traditional girl who would not blog about porn sites being blocked. Coming into the university and of course reading made me completely a different person. The bottom line is that when you hang out with people, you can get to know the society and it is not what the school offers us or at least it is different than what the school promotes. (Now, that statement is personal guys. so, please do not get angry over it.It is how I felt)
This difference between the actual society and what the school wanted us to be makes lot of troubles.
With all those hushed up thoughts and feelings, I came out of the school in 2007. when I was feeling that society was diffrent than the one that we had inside the school it was too late. However, being a prefect, i have got lot of experince on how to deal with people. Being a silent girl those days, i observed the society and of course, made some terrible mistakes too.
But still, being prefect gives you the courage to carry out any task succesfully in life. for me, today I have managed well in the company of males because being a prefect gave provided me the right time to be open. so dear sisters and brothers.think of the chance and act carefully. And parents, im sure if you are with your children and be friends with them, many disasters can be avoided
Interesting post , glad about talking openly. In terms of economics what happens when you ban something ? The quantity would be less and demand would increase. Actually banned web sites are reported to have more traffic. Actually more people will reach those banned stuff and the Pornographic monitoring committee would have a time closing nearly 3 million porn sites all around the world. How are they going to block all incoming form through torrents , file sharing , etc. This is a dumb idea for sure.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you have brought the story of the UK girl and prince william story. I hate my prefects for something they did. It was my first day at this colombo big boys college and i was unaware that school didnt permit loops that hold the bet (all other schools do and i dont know the basis of this stupid rule yet). What he did was to cut the loops in middle making me look like a clown. That was my first school day thanks to a mighty prefect.
Who grant power to prefects ? The school . I wonder whether the power granted is legal at all. What most prefects dont understand is the fact that "with power comes responsibility" - you get the responsibility of students you look after and with the last suicide incident , prefects could even decide the life and death of a child. The powers of prefects should be regulated. They cant police the children because they themselves are prefects.
Some believe that dinosaurs became extinct because they were unable to adapt to the environmental changes. That whats happening to Sri Lankan society now. Teachers and authorities are not ready to accept the world is changing and a thing called an ICT revolution is taking place outside. While the world is preparing to give a "Laptop for each child" in the world the government is banning the mobile phones.
Well , deeps cant agree 100% about the proposition about the "educational value" of porn. IMO porn does not educate people how to have sex and if this proposition is true how did people learned those stuff when no porn or internet existed ? One of my friends who works in Family Planning association said that porn creates lots of misconceptions. People will try to experiment porn with their partners and that will sometimes makes their lives miserable and sex an unpleasant experience.
We should be happy we don't have that much of teen moms carrying kids to school. The mobile phone mania is a trifle compared with those stuff. I think it's the time to be open. Girls school authorities should be happy that girls hang out with guys and if girls get attracted to girls that would also be problematic. LOL :D
We should accept the change around us and take rational steps to manage the change and denying change will be of no use. A dialog should be built to speak about these issues. I appreciate your initiative.
Nice to see that deeps is back on the stage.
ReplyDeleteI agree that schools need to reform the way they think about what education is. The principals care about their recognition, not the schools. The way to get this recognition changes with time. For example, nowadays the most popular way to show the principal's dedication is to paint the walls around the schools with drawings.
But with this particular case, the Meusaeus incident, blaming the school is kinda overrated. When we look at the incident it is obvious (from what the school says) that no special treatment was given to the girls. They were treated in the same way that another girl would've been treated if that one had a cell phone. But when we try to find the culprits, the school is the first one we see. What about the girl's mental state? her impulsiveness? why she was scared to death at the thought that her parents would be notified?
I think this is a specific case with specific causes. Although it is true that the education system is not working properly, larger weight should be put on the parents. A child learns from parents first. They teach the child through example. Now I know, we would not blame them in this situation, but we should not blame the wrong person also, in this case the wrong institute.
Leo,
Porn!!! hmm, I would not talk about the educational value of porn, I have not enough facts to prove anything. Watching porn, on the other hand is not a bad drive, or a something out of ordinary. It is actually pretty normal, the craving. This is according to Desmond Morris who says that we humans are way sexually active than any other living being.
Personally I think some amount of porn should be there. But an overdose is not good. සිංහලෙන් කියන්නේ ඕනෙම දෙයක් ඔනවට වැඩිය ඕනෙම නෑ කියලා.
Deeps, as someone who went to an all-girls school I too share your experience regarding guys. It is just after going to uni that I got to have male friends and I too think its a great pity that I missed all that good company.
ReplyDeleteAs for prefects, yes, prefectship is great for ones character development - but the school should take care that prefects don't turn to bullies!
I think mobile phone ban is not going to solve anything. Maybe they're not an essential item for school kids but I suppose if you have working parents and you need to go to tution or stay after school and stuff they're quite useful. Especially if you live 20+km away from school. I never had a mobile until I got to uni, but I can think of several incidents that happened during my school days where a mobile would have been a lifesaver!
The problem lies not with mobile phones, but how we use them. If we use that same mindset, I guess we need to ban books and computers too!
As for the porn ban - thats just stupid. During uni days, I know that all my guy friends watched porn but that doesnt make them bad people - in fact they're pretty decent human beings. But I do agree that school children should not have access to porn because IMHO they're not mature enough to understand that porn is not real - that its just a fantasy.
Facebook is actually blocked in many offices - not just in SL but many countries. Even at my office FB is blocked. They even blocked Yahoo mail, but after issuing death threats to the sys admin we finally got it back! But of course the motive there is to stop misusing company bandwidth and time..
chamila,
yes I too am not sure if the whole blame for Kavindi's death should go to Meusaeus college. Having said that, I don't agree with the way they handled it either. All I do know is that noone (government/school) has taken pains to investigate and address the root cause of that tragedy.
Anyway great post Deeps! Keep writing. :)
honestly, this is the first time I got soooo long
ReplyDeletecomments. Thank you all for taking time and
effort to publish your thoughts on this.
@Leo sadeepa
"I hate my prefects for something they did. It
was my first day at this Colombo big boys
college..."
I wonder whether this a disease of the
prefects of BIG SCHOOLS because I have
never heard of a prefect in a rural school
engaging in such action against a student.
"What they hardly understand is the
responsibility that comes with power". I do
agree hundred percent with your idea!!
(Sorry I cant give you examples, but deep
within my heart I know it is true) This
reminds me of nothing but the politicians who mis-use their powers. When these children go up in the social ladder, they might end up being a problem to the whole society, so , it is the duty of the teachers to look deep into this issue.
But sometimes, children are so cunning to mislead the teachers too. therefore, a very careful monitoring of the prefects should be done.
"One of my friends who works in Family Planning association said that porn creates lots of misconceptions" --- yes can be true. if people like the one I mentioned get their first idea about sex via porn, that definitely going to be a problem. so that is why we should say yes to an education system that openly discuss these matters.
@chamila
I was referring to this post when I said that the school must have a share over her death. However, as you say, it can be a a "specific case with specific causes"
@niroshinie
Glad to find somebody who experienced so that I would ave at least one person to defend me :P.
well, I was surprised to read that your office administration blocked yahoo mail, it is just stupid. well but in consideration of the company's objective in doing it, we can come to the conclusion that it is another question of mis-usage and the correct usage. By the way, what about the web proxies then? were they too blocked?
Hmm, yes, school children are not matured enough to understand what it is all about, but ask from your university friends (UoM right? I have heard of that particular computer lab), they'll sure say they started during the school time. I do not know, where lies the culprit. But this time, it is the government. They started a havoc in the society by banning those web sites and people who have never heard of them now know what they are! and now, two of the ministers are fighting over the ban..just stupid...
well, I give thumbs up to china in a situation like this
@deeps
ReplyDeleteyep web proxies are blocked too sadly..and its UoC :)
Whatever, porn should be strictly banned, coz minors have access to it. Society was much better before porn sites and CD media came in around early nineteens.
ReplyDeleteWith porn existing its nothing bad for the adults. But not a bit good for the minors.
Without porn not existing its good for all.
There is a answer for that boy, take a boy and a girl who haven't ever watched porn nor have been taught on how stuff are to be done :P, get them married and do you think nothing would happen in the honeymoon day? :P
It comes in our DNAs ppl, Thousands years back, when the first generations of humans appeared on earth there was no porn nor others teaching them about reproductive stuff, they even couldn't talk :P
Just leave the porn ban as it is, coz nobody will die without porn :P. Grr I dont want to see my children gaining access to porn when il be having children :) Do you?
Dilshan
"Grr I dont want to see my children gaining access to porn when il be having children :) Do you?"
ReplyDeleteWell said anonymous Dilshan.. :)
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