IN just a single month, several tragedies have struck our schools. These unfortunate events are linked to school-sanctioned activities and violence-related chaos, turning campuses into places of bloodshed.
Among these tragedies was a university basketball team-building activity that ended in disaster, claiming the lives of two student-athletes. In another, three junior high school students perished at the hands of two fellow students in a school shooting. This does not even account for the trauma experienced by the many students who witnessed the violence or were themselves injured in the crime. Furthermore, there were three successive stabbings and another attempted shooting across different schools in the country.
There is nothing more ironic than the distressing turn of events in schools lately. We know for a fact that schools are expected to be safe spaces and second homes for children, yet they have become dangerous venues for violence-related harm and even death. Places where individuals are supposed to be formed, and characters molded, have instead become sites of physical assault and juvenile savagery.
The point of this article moves beyond the common assumption that the formation of children starts at home, where parents who have been remiss in their duties must take responsibility for the menacing behavior of their children. It also looks past the drawbacks of Republic Act 9344, or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006. Nor is it a discussion on the need for strict implementation of security procedures on our campuses, about which much has already been said.
The perspective I would like to present is a proactive stance solidly founded on one of the primary ways to end school violence: taking schools seriously not only as organizations but also as communities.
The issue arises when schools are viewed merely as organizations rather than as communities bound by a common, noble purpose. When speaking about building authentic communities, it is impossible not to mention moral involvement.
“Community” is a value-laden term in which emphasis is placed on commitment rather than just contracts. It is a place where relationships, based on a sacred pact rather than transactional interactions, are honored.
When a true community is formed in a school, it becomes a place where educators fulfill a moral duty rather than simply showing up for a daytime job. They become more conscious of their moral obligations than just the pressure to produce measurable results. Taken in this context, a teaching duty is then incomparable to a mere eight-to-five employment. Administrators, teachers, parents and the rest of the school’s personnel become positively inquisitive about what engrosses their students. They gladly go the proverbial extra mile to guarantee the safety of their students, treating them as their own. The environment they create, even outside the campus, aligns with their moral role to keep students safe and secure from destructive activities.
In his classic book on school leadership, “Building Community in Schools,” Thomas Sergiovanni writes: “Schools can never be a replacement for family and neighborhood; however, community building in schools can provide an important safety net as an interim strategy, for as schools become communities, they facilitate the strengthening of family and neighborhood.”
When a caring, nurturing environment cannot be found within the family, the school — acting as a community — must step up. The school has to underscore its long-forgotten dimension as a community rather than just an institution bent solely on achieving academic goals.
Sergiovanni writes further: “Nowadays, schools have come to be seen as organizations rather than communities. Dividing content areas into departments, separating students into grade levels, and designing explicit instructional delivery vehicles are all ways to convince the public that the school knows what it is doing; creating rules and regulations and monitoring programs convey the message of control.”
“However, such directives, over time, separate organizations from the people they are created for and end up serving their own organizational goals. The resultant self-interest trickles down to each level of the organization, leaving principals, teachers and students working solely for their own calculated reasons, seeking reward and avoiding punishment,” he adds.
What was mentioned is akin to what is observable in running our schools. That aside from the routine busyness of daily operations, immense attention and energy are spent on the following: responding to academic reforms driven by the declining quality of education; complying with technical and measurable outcomes; meeting the tall order of improving school standards; and addressing the constant need to train school personnel.
On the other hand, building communities in schools is different. It unites people under a much higher purpose that goes beyond holistic formation, focuses heavily on commitment, and relies on internal norms and values rather than external control measures.
We need to take to heart and mind once again that education is not only about academics. What the youth in our country learn, who influences them, and the values we teach them as they step outside the classroom are deeply intertwined with forming a civilized society and a stable nation.
There is a clear need to reinvent our institutions of learning. Our schools should not exist in isolation. They should not be reduced to organizations that merely shift responsibility onto the shoulders of those within the campus walls. Instead, when our schools become communities, they transform into a broader nexus of human relationships, where people go out of their way to care because of a deep moral investment in their work.
Fr. Jesus “Jay” Miranda Jr., OP, is an organization and leadership studies resource person. He teaches at the Graduate School of the University of Santo Tomas and the Department of Educational Leadership and Management of the Bro. Andrew Gonzalez, FSC-College of Education of De La Salle University-Manila.
jaymiranda.op@ust.edu.ph
jmmiranda@letranbataan.edu.ph
