Wow! What on earth is this man doing teaching? What on earth is the Department of Education doing employing this kind of person? What on earth is the Principal doing, that this kind of problem has been allowed to go unchecked for a whole year?
Yes I agree children need to be disciplined, but they also need to be nutured and built up. We need to teach and lead by example! This kind of behavior just tells them that it is okay to insult people and disrespect them!
My goodness, perhaps it is time that we go back to grass roots and look at what we are doing to the school system, what we are doing to the kids that are being taught - remember these children are the future of our country and that needs to be kept in mind at all times.
Regards
Johan Schronen
December 09 2006 at 12:25PM
A teacher accused of calling his pupils "scum of the earth" and "dregs of society" before refusing to be in their official class photo, was forced to apologise during a special assembly. Ben Jordaan, a Grade 7 teacher at Table View Primary School in Cape Town, was also accused of manhandling one of the pupils and shoving him from the classroom during an altercation. But this week Jordaan dismissed the issue as a "storm in a teacup". He said: "I did shove a pupil out of the class and I did not appear in their class photo, but that was because they could not find me in the school at the time.
"It was not intentional. I was busy with a task in another room," he said. However, several pupils told Weekend Argus Jordaan had told them before the photo session that he would not be in the photograph as he did not want to be associated with them. "I've apologised to the child who I was supposed to have hurt and every one is now happy," Jordaan said. He denied insulting his pupils, but conceded: "I did say that children without ambition would end up begging on street corners with cardboard signs hanging around their necks. "School principal Kobus Smit said the relationship between Jordaan and his pupils had been "problematic and uncomfortable" the whole year and things came to a head last week when a parent took up the issue with the school. He confirmed that Jordaan had apologised to the Grade 7 pupils and to an individual pupil during an assembly. "But we've addressed the problem internally and everyone is happy," Smit said. Education department spokesperson Paddy Attwell said shoving a child out of a classroom with physical force would be "viewed as assault", but declined to comment on the allegations at Table View Primary before knowing the merits of the case. "It's always difficult to get to the truth of a classroom matter where emotions often run high between teachers and pupils. "Jordaan said that the pupils had given him a difficult year. "The ones who gave me trouble were not necessarily children with poor academic ability, but those with behavioural problems."
This article was originally published on page 5 of Cape Argus on December 09, 2006
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