Kicking ‘bad pickneys’ out of school enables harmful cycle, says Bluedot research founder

WESTERN BUREAU:

LARREN PEART, the chief executive officer of research specialist company Bluedot Insights, is warning that students who are ignored and discharged from school for perceived ‘bad’ behaviour will be influenced by criminal elements, thus perpetuating a cycle where crime adversely affects children’s educational potential.

Peart gave the admonition on Wednesday while addressing the Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College’s [SSTC] Research Day at the institution’s campus in Granville, St James. The event was held under the theme ‘The impact of Crime on Education: The Western Jamaica Perspective’.

“The Jamaican ‘bad pickney’ exhibits apparent social, psychological and behavioural problems and acts out in the home or at school. This is characterised by the talker in class, the joker in class, or being very aggressive, overly promiscuous or sexualised, or the one who shows no interest in or does not want to participate or learn, the ‘dunce’ or the lazy child,” said Peart.

“Unfortunately, the usual response to the ‘bad pickney’ is that they are dismissed, suspended, expelled, punished, sent home, or back in the day they received corporal punishment. These students tend to be dismissed, not always in terms of being sent home, but being ignored, and we often give up on them,” Peart added.

“When you give up on them, that’s when the gangs come into play, because they find a home in the gangs and with certain nefarious characters. Each of these misguided responses can result in low academic achievement or illiteracy. Low academic achievement can result in them being unemployable, which creates a cyclical effect,” he underscored.

Peart listed childhood witnessing or experience of crime among the adverse childhood experiences [ACE] that can influence children’s mental development, along with physical and sexual abuse, household dysfunction, parental divorce, and parental incarceration.

“Many Jamaican youth in low-income areas witness high levels of violence, particularly in inner-city neighbourhoods. Primary school-aged children in these areas are most likely to have witnessed some amount of violence, including viewing of murders, etc., and although poverty is not initially viewed as an ACE, it is now being considered due to limited access to resources such as education or adequate healthcare and exposing children to dangerous and violent environments,” Peart explained, while noting that 34 per cent of juveniles in Jamaica may display mental illness before the age of 14.

TREAT THE DISEASE

“ACEs can be viewed as being both social and psychological in cause. Childhood trauma which occurred before age 18, and prolonged exposure to ACEs, can lead to negative health outcomes and negative health risks,” Peart continued. “One of the major contributing factors to dealing with ACEs is to start addressing issues related to crime from the individuals are young, hence looking at childhood trauma. Treat the disease and not the symptoms ... the core point is that crime needs to be addressed early, therefore, the causes of crime need to be explored.”

Meanwhile, Senior Superintendent of Police Vernon Ellis, the commanding officer for St James, suggested that teachers should be given training to better deal with children who come from disruptive backgrounds.

“What we realise since we placed the school resource officers in these schools to support the educational system, teachers are not so trained to deal with kids with adverse childhood experiences; most times, their first option is the police. We are going to have to look at how we train teachers to really start handling these situations, as sometimes the kids get really upset and the first call is to get the police in,” said Ellis.

The concern about expelled students being vulnerable to the influence of criminal elements mirrors a call from acting Director of Safety and Security in Schools Richard Troupe in 2022, that the Ministry of Education should review its expulsion and suspension policy to limit the risk of sanctioned students falling prey to gang recruitment.

Troupe made that call following a revelation at that time from Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson, that over 875 children had been implicated in major crimes over the past four years up to that point.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com