The second term curse and how student unrest can be avoided

Student unrest has become a burning issue and as a country, we are feeling the heat of this menace quite literally! But as schools go up in flames, it is so easy to sit back in resignation and lament about today’s lost generation or decry the banning of corporal punishment or worse still, look for quick fixes to a problem that is slowly becoming a part of our annual academic calendar.

In the last few years, student unrest resulting in arson, sometimes with fatalities, has been reported and almost always in the second term. Anyone who has been following this trend should have anticipated it this year and if nothing substantive is done to prevent a recurrence, we shall be talking about school fires next year in second term.

But two questions spring to mind. Why always in the second term? Could it be fatigue? In the first term, students have just reported from almost two months of holiday with Christmas festivities offering the much needed stress relief. First term is also often interrupted or shortened by Easter holidays and mid-term break. In many schools, the academic programmes are always off to a lazy start and students and teachers generally tend to take it easy.

Enter the second term, the longest of the school calendar. The three weeks granted as holiday after first term, in my opinion hardly offer adequate rest for students. There are also a number of schools that find it necessary to retain students in school for bonding or other inexplicable reasons instead of releasing them for the holiday. Moreover, in second term, there is no equivalent to the Easter break and the two public holidays: Labour Day (which often coincides with opening day anyway) and Madaraka Day could be hardly considered sufficient stress relievers.

ESPECIALLY CHALLENGING

But what makes second term especially challenging for candidates is that after about 12 weeks of rigorous academic work and right at the peak of their fatigue, they are subjected to the much-dreaded trial Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams, which take the same format as the main exams.

The candidates are expected to sit a minimum of 20 papers in about two to three weeks. In many instances, trial KCSE exams are more challenging than the main examination. Many teachers believe that making the trials harder better prepares the candidates for the real deal. Moreover, these trial exams are often set at the county or sub-county level and presuppose that all the candidates have completed the syllabus in all the subjects.

The truth of the matter is that by July, when these exams are held, many schools are not anywhere near completing the syllabus. This might fill some students with fear and they will do anything not to face the trials monster. Indeed, currently many students have been sent home and will “conveniently” miss these exams.

Fortunately, many schools have found ways of dealing with the fatigue associated with second term. Packing the term with extracurricular activities involving the whole school is one effective way. Well organised sports days, talent shows, debate challenges, career fairs, etc that take students out of class and have them actively engaged and well entertained are perfect stress relievers.

Some schools have found it helpful to grant study leaves to candidates before they sit the trial KCSE examinations. Personally, I have found allowing candidates a week off before the trials helps them prepare for the tests at their individual pace and also enables them to focus on their priority areas.

Considering the revised term dates that made second term even longer this year, we as a school found it necessary to grant two breaks this term: the usual mid-term holiday with a weekend and Monday and Tuesday and another shorter break with a Friday and a weekend. We have to warm up to the fact that for the welfare of the students, these days of break are as valuable as the days spent in school.

WHY BURN?

The second question that springs to the minds of many Kenyans is why should students burn their dormitories? Watching a building that has taken blood and sweat to build reduced to ashes in a matter of minutes can be a depressing scene. Worse still, the fact that the arsonists are the supposed beneficiaries of the same facilities is downright infuriating. Who in his right mind burns his bedroom just before bed time? It defeats logic. But anyone who has closely dealt with young people will tell you that trying to analyse their behaviour using the dictates of fine adult logic often doesn’t work. This is especially the case when dealing with teenage mob psychology.

Here is an illustration. Sometime last year, concerns were raised in the US and UK over the number of teenagers injured, sometimes critically, in a daring fire challenge. The challenge involved teenagers pouring rubbing alcohol, baby oil, nail polish remover or other flammable liquids on their bodies and setting themselves ablaze. They would then film themselves trying to put out the fire by diving into a pool of water or using other less sure means. They would then post the videos online. This fire challenge was as popular as it was outrageous! Does the challenge fall into what you would consider logical? Of course to an average adult it sounds preposterous. But among the teenagers, all it took was one daring youth to post the first fire challenge video online and thereafter hundreds of young people were trying to outdo each other.

I am not trying to justify students’ bad behaviour. Arson is a criminal offence and anyone involved should be treated as a criminal. And if there is one lesson that young people need to learn is that actions have consequences and grave actions have grave consequences.

MY POINT

The point I am making is that before we come up with quick-fix measures aimed at curbing the menace, we have to consider teenage mob psychology and how it works. Students of one school burn their dormitory and are sent home. The news quickly spreads. While the adult population condemns the heinous act, a sizeable number of students in the neighbouring school consider it a daring feat and before you know it, another dormitory is set ablaze.

These copycat patterns are quickly replicated and before you know it, you have a crisis. Don’t these students consider the consequences of their actions? Inviting a mob of unruly teenagers to consider the consequences of their actions is akin to inviting a swarm of honey bees to consider the fact that by stinging you they will be committing suicide! Your fine logic or threats will not stop them!

But we can minimise, probably eradicate the dangers of teenage mob psychology in schools by empowering individual students by deliberately focusing on them. Unfortunately, in many schools, the only time students receive any form of empowerment is during school assemblies. This is done in the form of edicts directed to everyone and to no one in particular. Students hardly get a chance to ask questions or seek clarifications during school assemblies.
The most effective way of empowering individual students is through rigorous and well-structured programmes such as regular forums designed to address the needs of particular classes with a chance to ask questions, seek clarifications and offer suggestions.

Induction programmes for new students can also help. I have found these induction programmes especially helpful in passing the spirit and traditions of the school to new students. One of the things I explain to them is that as a school we are family and one of the characteristics of a functional family is the care and respect for facilities.

As an example, I explain to them that we have mirrors in the students’ washrooms that were installed over 40 years ago. The reason they are able to use them is because their predecessors did not find the need to vandalise or destroy them. I invite them to preserve them so that their sons are able to use them when they take their turn in the school. This makes the students have a sense of pride and ownership of the school property. It is unimaginable that a student so empowered will find the need to burn that facility.

MOST EFFECTIVE

Guidance and counselling remains the most effective way of empowering the youth to be independent thinkers. Unfortunately, in many schools, guidance and counselling services are only reserved for students with discipline issues. Many students are sent to see the guidance and counselling teacher whenever they are in trouble and often against their will. Never mind that in some cases the guidance and counselling teacher has been assigned that role because the school no longer offers woodwork as a subject and the teacher has to keep busy. This simply doesn’t work.

For guidance and counselling to be effective, it should target every student in the school. Your ordinary student without discipline challenges should get an opportunity to share his joys, frustrations, and aspirations with an older, more experienced person and hopefully get advice on how to navigate the journey of his or her life, get to understand that indulging in pornography will stunt his personal growth and irreparably twist his or her mind, get to appreciate that cheating in an exam may give him or her marks but in turn rob them of their honour. They may ultimately get to learn that blindly following the crowd makes them a slave of the whims of other others and may end up harming them. Such encounters will undoubtedly fill the teenager with confidence and self-assurance.

The proposed new curriculum offers us an opportunity for a new beginning; a chance to break from the shackles of the past and design academic programmes that emphasise more on values and skills and less on passing theoretical knowledge and passing exams. It offers us a chance to design a curriculum that forces teachers to be more creative and adapt to the varying needs of the learners.

Hopefully, it should also offer us an opportunity to rethink the place of guidance and counselling and spiritual direction in schools and look at ways to use present and past parents, alumni and the community around our schools in well-structured mentorship programmes aimed at empowering the students and hopefully “vaccinating” them against the power of mob psychology. Instead of burning schools, our teenagers should burn with the zeal to make their schools and the nation a better place for them and for posterity. Let’s dare to hope.