What Is Education When The Teacher Is The One Who Is Doing The Bullying
Pent-up anger led the student to create a vengeance plot using bottle bombs and three classrooms were torched leaving nearly collapsed roofs.
On Tuesday, June 27th, a school in Temanggung Regency, Indonesia, was torched by a 14-year-old student due to feelings of resentment triggered by constant verbal and physical bullying by his peers. According to the police statement, the student had filed a complaint to the teachers about bullying and yet no response was given.
Furthermore, the peak of the unfortunate incident happened when the student felt unappreciated, as one of the teachers tore into pieces the student’s handicraft assignment right in front of the class. The pent-up anger led the student to create the vengeance plot, by preparing weeks prior using bottle bombs that he created himself using trial and error.
After successful completion of the initial trial, the student prepared three bottle bombs. One of the fires spread from a room stored with wood and cardboard materials. The incident burned two other classrooms and resulted in damages such as the nearly collapsed roof.
The Temanggung Adjunct Police Officer explained the student had admitted to intentionally burning the school. For that, he was charged with committing a crime according to the Juvenile Criminal Justice system law; Article 81 paragraph 2 of Law Number 11 (2012), with an up to 12 years jail sentence according to Article 187 of the Indonesia Penal Code.
Now, this is a picture of a bullying victim who appears closely guarded by police carrying a firearm.
The police have given an apology statement concerning the news that sparked fierce criticism online including a commentary from the former commissioner of the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI), Retno Listyarti.
The police press conference has precisely violated the law of Indonesia’s Juvenile Justice Law (UU SPPA), which presents an opportunity to protect children in contact with the law. I only wonder why they (the police) forgot to implement a very basic core of the law.
My consciousness was preoccupied with high school memory as soon as I heard the news. The 15-year-old me had been stabbed in various synchronous directions by life. I guess it was the first time I discovered how difficult life is. At that time, home felt like an abandoned building with no electricity or heater for winter. When parents were ghosts and I wished to never see their presence. So, I went to the counseling teacher as I craved clarity, understanding, a point of view from adults about life.
In my country, a counseling teacher is not someone who has a psychology degree, but a general teaching degree. They (my school) only had two counseling teachers to facilitate 21 classes, 35 students in each class so it made a total of 735 students.
Generally, a counseling teacher’s office was a nice place for smart students to consult on their future strategies about college stuff. And a bad place for a student who chooses to not obey school regulations, especially in terms of clothing and morning school starting hours.
I was the first type of student but the future is dark at that time. So, I used the facilitator as a place to talk about my problem, openly as I couldn’t care less about my college plan.
It was good to find a place of sanctuary. For a couple of months, I could see a rainbow started to appear after the rampaging storm hit my nation. But, things became unexpectedly violent after that.
A million words of my private story happened to be leaked to another teacher. Not just a regular teacher but a homeroom teacher or one teacher to represent each class which is responsible for students’ development during each academic year.
Perhaps, it was logical for the counseling teacher to tell my “complaint” words about life to the homeroom teacher. For the sake of student development?
But, not when my story was leaked in front of the class. Not when she vomited the word of how I must be a jelly-weak-wobbly kind of person, she really mentioned how I must be a weak person. What kind of person tells a story about their family situation like that?
I also shared my “complaint” about how difficult my financial situation was with the counseling teacher. Specifically, about buying a piece of equipment for a group assignment given by the homeroom teacher subject class. It was only IDR 100.000 ($8) and I needed to bring the money in less than 5 days. But for me, the money was worth 14 days of school meals. School is already free by the government, why it’s so hard to dig into your pocket for only IDR 100.000?
She was quite wise enough to not mention the exact name of the almost 1-hour section of rage-staged preaching. But, everyone knew it was me. And after that, everyone seemed to activate their blocking system toward me, as in the Black Mirror’s White Christmas episode.
The temperature of my nation became minus 92 degrees, without a heater or blanket. My life was about surviving pain that was not only physically painful, I guess it was also attacking my soul and nerves as life became so meaningless after that.
The funny thing about the whole phenomenon was that the counseling teacher became very clear about where she stood and how she really felt about my story. She asked me “How is everything at home?” when we were 4 meters apart. She was almost yelling as we met on the stair — she often happened to take the stairs up as I came down them.
Maybe in her mind, she complained about how this 15-year-old doesn’t really know about life. Yeah, life is hard but I’ve been through hard times so stop fucking complaining. Maybe for a hundred of the thousand seconds that I spent sharing my vulnerability she wished I would stop talking and terminate the session more quickly. Or maybe she just never actually cared or listened.
After all this time, I was so wrong to think she would stand beside me. She was above my head and ready to push me upon the cliff.
Anyway, I have found a handful of peace now. Although healing is certainly not a linear process. I have accepted the past as what it is, but to forget the event of a dreadful nightmare might happen…never.
The Student (R) who torched the school building might have done something against the law. But, if we choose to look at the incident from this angle, then there will be no room to evaluate the pedagogy of our educational system. You will blame the 15-year-old me for being someone who seeks attention and label a criminal The Student (R) by resisting contextualising his story.
The solution might be systematically complicated, but the question needing to be asked, as I raise my hand up high with curiosity, humbleness, and reflective vision because I would not want any student to go through the same tragedy as I did, is: what is education when a teacher is the one who is bullying their student?
News Source for Temanggung School Incident: VOI, Antara News, Kompas, BBC News Indonesia, CNN Indonesia.
