THIS

All I can say is

1. Your English isn't very good, but then again, I understand. Since the school in question (my alma mater) isn't known for getting students who are good in English.

2. You are childish for making such a minor issue public.

3. The man you accused and shamed does not deserve this.

Short summary if you haven't read the blog post.

The discipline master of the junior college I attended from 2004 to 2005 has been publicly shamed by an insolent student of the college. The incident involves 2 students who obviously couldn't be bothered to prepare and rehearse for a skit-styled announcement that they wanted to enact in front of the school after morning assembly. For most students (not these students), they would rehearse and seek approval from the discipline master before they would be allowed to make the announcement. These students decided that rules didn't apply to them. For one, they were unprepared and they sought permission at the eleventh hour. Needless to say, their demonstration was horrible and they were made to redo a 2nd demonstration on the morning of the actual day. So on that morning, they apparently couldn't find the discipline master (makes me wonder if they're even students of the school because there are only so many places he can be, especially in the morning). So out of compassion (I reckon), he allows them to perform their skit/announcement without the 2nd demonstration. During the announcement, the female student gives the male student a "pat", which draws a commotion from the school. So the students are made to write letters of apology for the "pat" (because conservative people within the school may question the discipline master).

The next thing we know, it's on the Straits Times Media Club website (Straits Times= company that publishes our national daily, the Straits Times).

I see absolutely NO REASON why this even has to reach the media. But it has. If the students had done their preparations, they would have gotten the proper go-ahead and the whole issue wouldn't have been raised. But due to the sheer laziness of the students involved, which resulted in a rather confusing situation, which in turn resulted in a teacher (the discipline master) exercising his compassion by letting them go ahead (seriously, he had every right to say 'no'), the school is probably going through some sort of publicity nightmare and the teacher will be implicated in an issue that shouldn't have even occurred.

I know this teacher, he taught me General Paper for a year in junior college and while he may not be the best teacher around and while I completely disagree with him regarding certain issues in current affairs, I know that he is not the sort of person the students painted him out to be in both the blog and the website. Face it, discipline masters are rarely popular teachers in schools because they enforse the school rules and many students find breaking school rules irresistible.

So maybe he's caught you without your school tie on too many Wednesdays this term, or maybe you've been late for assembly too many times this term, but to capitalise on a minor mistake and turn it into something so overwhelmingly public?

Sure, his values system might be a little outdated but you have to bear in mind that he's not looking out for his values systems, he's looking out for the value systems of the other people who will be watching the announcement, that includes his superiors, colleagues and students. Moreover, after being a student for so long, I know how good students are in twisting words (I had my fair share of twisting but I never put a teacher's career in jeopardy), so I doubt that the pat was even a pat. It was probably more or a slap. He's not that traditional, so the pat/slap probably didn't give him a mental crisis on how a girl gave a boy a slap on the back, but right now he is being punished for trying to help the students and for carrying out his job.

He may not done a great job, but nonetheless, he's done it for years without issue, until you guys. Think about it, if he were unkind and unreasonable, he could have simply said "you didn't turn up to show me your 2nd demonstration, so you will not be allowed to perform your skit/announcement". That would have been very easy and you would have been unhappy but the incident would have passed with nary a concern. However, he knew that your announcement had to go out by that morning, so he let the announcement go through, assuming that it would be similar to what he saw the last time (a raw, unrehearsed version). It was his fault for not vetting the 2nd demonstration, but it was your fault for not tracking him down (he's actually pretty easy to hunt down on normal school days). It was your fault for procrastinating. It was your fault for being unprepared.

He's a nice person, but you've managed to make him sound like an old-fashioned person with archaic values who tries to shirk his responsibilities after making an error. Truth be told, his biggest mistake was letting you make the announcement. He bent TWO rules to let your announcement go through and this is what he gets.

Right now you're probably extremely proud of what you've done, of how you've done the discipline master in and you've probably told all your friends, within the college or outside, of your antics, But in a few years time, if you mature, you'll realise that what you did has serious repercussions on the discipline master's life. If you broke a few rules, even if they were major, you'd only get a warning, a scolding or maybe a mark on your school leaving certificate and no matter what, people are going to forgive you for you were young, naive, rash and unexposed to the world.But what you did is going to cause people to question his abilities, and that includes his employer, the Ministry of Education. That, for all we know, may leave a permanent mark on his record. People are always going to remember this and how do you expect him to continue teaching in this school (he's an ex-student of the school too)?

I'm just utterly disappointed in the people that are studying in the school. Students will be students, but these students are clearly not good enough to be studying in a school like this. I wasn't proud of it but the school really deserves better students.