JEDDAH, 7 June 2006 — With school examinations over, teachers across the Kingdom allegedly fear reprisals from vexed and irate students.
In a supposedly growing problem, students that failed their exams are going around assaulting teachers and damaging their cars. Some teachers are so afraid of callous students that they buy battered second-hand cars to drive to school with and leave their expensive shiny cars at home. The idea being that if a student intends to damage a car then the loss would be minimized.
However, Ali Al-Ahmari, a secondary school teacher, believes such cases are not as widespread as people assume. He said: “These are isolated cases and do not happen in every school.”
Al-Ahmari blames the media for exaggerating the problem. He said, “Nobody denies that it can ever happen. Of course, there are instances of things like this but this isn’t a major problem. Most of the kids that do such things come from troubled homes.”
Saad Al-Dossari, a high school student, said he feels that the problem has more to do with the violence some children experience at home. He said some students suffer violence at school and then express their frustrations by attacking teachers. “I put the blame on the family for the behavior of their children. Families should monitor their behavior. What do we expect from families that teach their children to take revenge and behave violently. They should teach them to respect people instead,” he said.
Although instances of students assaulting teachers and damaging their cars are not so widespread, there are individual cases that do need sorting out before they grow out of control, said Muhammad Al-Onaizi, a teacher.
He said, “Such behaviors are contrary to the way of our civilized society. I think schools create a lot of tension themselves by pressurizing students far too much. There are cases of students from peaceful, stable homes reacting violently. The question is why do such youngsters actually become so violent?”
Al-Onaizi said he believes some teachers strive to deliberately fail students by setting difficult questions. He said, “Teenage high school kids are capable of doing some wild things and when tempted they may react violently.”
High school student Saud Al-Shammari said students that behave aggressively are in fact the real “losers” because they feel violence is the only way they can express their frustrations. He said, “They claim that teachers intentionally fail them by setting difficult questions. If that is true then why do the majority of students pass exams with good marks? I think it’s stupid to make such flimsy excuses.”
