‘Only when somebody is seriously injured reality comes back’

An increasing number of high-school girls are reportedly taking to social media sites to bully peers, the practice sometimes ending in physical violence when rivals meet face to face.

The concerns were high on the list of worries for some principals ruing the deteriorating impact of social media on their students in recent years; and also the practice of some male students engaging in violent stand-offs which spill over into schools from war-torn communities.

They were highlighted following this year’s annual general meeting of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools.

Last week, footage surfaced of a fight between a male student and a dean of discipline at Kemps Hill High in Clarendon, the latest of a string of incidents since the resumption of classroom learning last year.

“There is a lot of hearsay. Social media has become a dangerous weapon now for them to attack each other and the girls, when they fall out, that’s where they go to post and bully each other,” shared Valentine Bailey, principal of Camperdown High School in Kingston, which caters to a melting pot of students, many from tough communities.

“It is not my boys who are giving problems. The problem is with my girls, and most times it is just some foolishness, especially on social media,” he argued, adding that in yesteryear, the focus of crime in schools was targetted at males.

Today, he posits, female students have gone mostly unnoticed, and while suspension and counselling at the Conflict Resolution Foundation has offered some reprieve, it has not worked “perfectly”.

Bailey admitted that although poor parenting is a major factor, sometimes problematic children are far contrasts to the deportment of their parents.

Unresolved conflicts

Kevin Facey, principal of Meadowbrook High School in St Andrew, said the return of students to school after COVID-19 forced classes online brought with it many unresolved conflicts, many of which were brewing online through memes and posts before erupting when rivals met face to face in regular classes.

“And what you find is that a simple thing can move from heated words to direct action to sometimes things outside of schools,” continued Facey, whose school houses students from a mixture of social classes, including hard-pressed communities on Red Hills Road. “Interestingly, some of the girls they come back more aggressive.

“You find now that girls will have a disagreement and they end up in a physical altercation quicker,” he posited. “A lot of these kids have consumed so much social media that for some, it has actually desensitised them to violence and the nature to violence. It is only when somebody is seriously injured that you will see the reality coming back.”

He said that his school is working on a conflict-resolution programme, particularly for girls as one of the measures to deal with the challenges.

At Campion College, the issue around social media is not so much about bullying, said Principal Grace Baston.

“It is more about the amount of time they are on it that takes away from the quantity and quality of their work. So what you are seeing is underperformance and underachievement,” she said.

Principal Texal Christie of Kellits High School in rural Clarendon said that at his school, the focus is to ensure that some female students keep far from intimate relationships.

“It is mostly the boys that are giving us trouble. There is a negative culture and it is as if they just find it hard to settle their differences. Things that could easily be dealt with are dragged out,” he said.

Meanwhile, Principal Christopher Wallace of the St Mary-based Horace Clarke High School said students from Annotto Bay and its environs, who are exposed to gang violence, tend to be most problematic. Most incidents that involve students that end up before the law come from those communities, he said.

“There is not much issue with violence at the location of the school; it is more so from the communities that the students come from, and sometimes it does spills over on the school compound,” he said.

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com