Teachers, students subject to ethical standards

Teachers, students subject to ethical standards

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): When a teacher punishes a student in an
outrageous manner, what happens?

In most cases, nothing. In certain cases, the bureaucracy
says, "We have not received any report yet concerning the
incident."

Thus, again nothing happens. In special cases, when there is a
public outcry, the bureaucracy says, "Those terrible mistakes
were not committed by our teachers, but by oknum (meaning
undesirable elements within a working unit).

"There are still many excellent and dedicated teachers in our
schools. The public should not be upset by mistakes conducted by
a number of oknum."

When a student beats a teacher until he or she is knocked out,
what happens? The educational bureaucracy immediately says, "This
is an unforgivable act. The student must not only be expelled,
but he must also be prosecuted."

In the mind of the public, this is a double standard. I have
talked to a number of parents about this situation. Most of these
parents think that the teacher who punished some students
recently by ordering them to run naked around the schoolyard must
be fired and prosecuted.

The teacher who poked a burning cigarette in the thigh of a
student must at least be reprimanded or given a kind of
administrative punishment. Applying no sanction whatsoever to
teachers who administer educational punishments in a brutal
manner is certainly not a good practice of educational
management.

I am not defending students who physically attack their
teachers. They must be punished and expelled from schools if the
entire teaching staff is convinced that the school no longer has
the capability to constructively guide such students.

What I absolutely reject is the policy of not applying any
sanction on teachers who have employed atrocious methods in
punishing students.

From an ethical point of view, ordering students to run naked
is a more serious abuse than hitting a teacher. The mental damage
caused by having to run naked, and watched by the entire teaching
staff, is much greater and has a more lasting effect than the one
caused by being hit by a student. Why, then, must the student be
expelled and prosecuted, while the teacher declared innocent and
protected?

I think it is appropriate to ask why a student would
physically attack a teacher. In any normal Indonesian school, any
normal student would have enough respect towards any normal
teacher. So the idea of physically attacking a teacher would not
normally enter a student's mind.

The fact that such incidents happen suggests that there is
something basically wrong in the particular schools where they
occur. What or who is abnormal in these cases: the school, the
student, the teacher, or all of them?

It would be wise, I think, to reflect upon this question. It
is only after we have figured out the set of circumstances that
triggered such an incident, that we can be able to prevent a
similar incident from occurring again in the future.

But pronouncing hastily that the student must be expelled and
prosecuted without carefully analyzing the case would not
guarantee that the event would not be repeated.

I find this situation very appalling. It clearly shows the
inability of our educational managers to combine bold thinking
with human feeling as a guide in making important decisions.

With this kind intellectual shortcoming we are bound to
stumble upon the same mistakes again and again. What will
ultimately happen to our society if justice is no longer observed
in our educational institutions?

I can see only one prospect -- that is further disintegration
of our social institutions.

Another disturbing phenomenon about this situation is the
habitual practice of declaring a member of an institution who has
made a blunder an oknum.

This seems to be the standard practice among high-ranking
officials whenever something goes wrong in their working unit.
Whenever pilots are caught smuggling ecstasy pills, they suddenly
become oknum, and their identity an aircraft pilot is brushed
away.

Whenever police are caught red-handed while extracting
"protection money" from shop-owners, for instance, they are
immediately declared oknum.

They are denied their identity as a police officer. And
whenever teachers are caught administering an unacceptable method
of punishment, they are declared oknum, and thereby their
association with the teaching profession is publicly denied.

The purpose of this practice is -- and this is just my guess
-- to clear government units from involvement with any
wrongdoing. A government institution must keep its reputation
clean. This is, of course, a very noble goal.

But is it effective as a policy? I don't think so. The stigma
that is caused by illegal, unethical or unprofessional conduct by
a member of a government organization while performing his or her
official duties would not be washed away by declaring such an
individual an oknum.

Public disapproval and condemnation would persist until the
stigmatized government bureaucracy shows in a convincing manner
that it can control its members and that it honors the public
sense of justice and decency.

After so many unhappy incidents in our educational system, I
think the public trust in our educational system has been eroded.
The public is aware that there are indeed more trustworthy
teachers in our schools than unreliable ones. What has made our
system lose its credibility, however, is the fact that it is
unable to prevent ethical misconduct among its teachers and
administrators. Disavowing members of the system who offend the
public sense of good professional conduct will not restore its
credibility.

The public perception of a reputable system of education
includes strict observance of ethical standards and even-
handedness in judging violations of such standards.

As long as the public still feels that ethical misconduct by
teachers is judged more leniently than similar misconduct
committed by students, the public feeling that our educational
system is in dire crisis will not go away.

In the public mind, teachers and other educational
administrators should be subjected to more rigorous standards of
ethical conduct. This is because they, being adults, are supposed
to be more mature in their ethical consciousness and firmer in
their observance of ethical standards.

Teachers and educational administrators who fail to meet this
public expectation are bad educators who, in the opinion of
Gilbert Highet (1906-1987), just "waste a great deal of effort"
throughout all their activities, and "spoil many lives which
might have been full of energy and happiness".

Are we doing enough justice to the young generation by keeping
such elements in our system?

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.