14-Year-Old Student Punches 29-Year-Old Teacher: A Slap to the Face of the Education System

Recently, a video went viral on social media. It showed a 14-year-old student punching his 29-year-old teacher in the face.

In the footage, the student and the teacher grab each other by the collar. The student grins sarcastically and says, “Come at me,” before delivering a punch to the teacher’s face.

The teacher, trying to keep his cool, dares the student to do it again. The student doesn’t.

According to the initial investigation, the student had been skipping his Physical Education class. When the teacher reprimanded him, the student became hostile. The situation escalated into a scuffle. The teacher was punched and threatened — in full view of other teachers and students.

The student has since pleaded guilty in the Kajang Magistrate’s Court to voluntarily causing hurt, under Section 323 of the Penal Code. As a minor, his trial was held behind closed doors.

When I saw the video and read about the case, it reminded me of one of the most difficult challenges in teaching.

If teaching was only about disseminating information, it wouldn’t be such a hard job. You explain some Maths or Physics, hand out exercises, and that’s it. Job done.

But that’s not what teaching truly is about.

A big part of teaching is about shaping a person — molding a student into someone who can pursue and find happiness in life, and in doing so, become a meaningful part of society.

The challenge? Most of us as teachers ourselves are still figuring that out for ourselves.

Many of us aren’t entirely sure how to find or pursue happiness in our own lives. Many of us don’t feel particularly appreciated by society either. When that happens, something important gets lost: students stop admiring you.

And when a student doesn’t admire or respect you, because they don't believe that you have found or can pursue happiness, or because they see you as someone who is highly valued or appreciated in society, giving advice becomes nearly impossible.

When people don't admire or respect you, they won’t see your guidance as help — instead, they will see it as interference, or imposition or disrespect. And when a person - be they a student or a any other person - feels disrespected or imposed upon, the reaction can often be rebellion. Or worse, violence.

Personally, if I were in the shoes of the teacher in the video, I would have walked away. I would have asked the school to assign that student to another teacher instead.

Because here’s the truth: If a student doesn’t respect or admire you, you will not be able to mold, guide, or advise them. It’s better, then, to let someone else try — someone they might look up to.

But in most school systems, that option doesn’t exist. Students and teachers don’t get matched by chemistry or trust. They get thrown together by timetables, headcounts, and admin checkboxes.

And when that happens — when the wrong student gets paired with the wrong teacher — bad things can happen. As we just saw, it can even deteriorate into a fistfight.

I don’t have a neat solution to this. But I do believe this much: For teaching to be meaningful, a student must respect and admire the teacher.

And for that respect to exist, the teacher has to look like someone who knows how to find happiness — or at least like someone that society respects and values.

If not, at least the student must come from the sort of upbringing that teaches them to respect their teachers as a matter of rule.

If a teacher who’s still struggling to find happiness, and who feels undervalued by society, gets assigned a student who does not admire them and who doesn't come from a background that teaches them to respect teachers as a rule — and who may themselves be hypersensitive to guidance or correction — things can go very wrong.

I think it is about time that schools and school administrators start thinking about matching students and teachers in order to create a more wholesome and meaningful learning experience .

Right now, I don't think schools and school administrators think about this idea of “matching” nearly enough. And even if they do, they may not have the power or flexibility to do anything about it. That needs to change.

Because when the right student is paired with the right teacher, education can be transformative.

But when the wrong teacher is paired with the wrong student, I would go so far as to say — maybe it’s better not to go to school at all.

After all, what’s the point of going to school if you don’t respect or admire your teacher? What’s the point if you're so emotionally closed off that you can’t even let anyone mold you into becoming someone capable of finding happiness, or becoming a person society can appreciate, without feeling that your self respect has been infringed? If you are teacher and you yourself are struggling to find happiness and peace of get sufficient amount of appreciation from society, how are you supposed to guide, advice, reprimand or mold a student ?

In this be the case, at best, learning and teaching would be a waste of time for both student and teacher, and at worse, it can even be a negative experience, that might engender a lot of negative qualities - like bitterness of anger - in both teacher and student , which will set the stage for more unfortunate incidents to occur in the future.

TheRealNehruism (nehru.sathiamoorthy@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!

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