Irate parent trashes teacher in classroom

– Union launches investigation

A Grade Two teacher from the Craig Primary School, East Bank Demerara, was dragged by her hair and thrown on a desk and given a sound thrashing from an irate parent last Thursday. The parent allegedly abused the teacher in front of her students.

According to reports, sometime around 12:25h, the irate parent stormed into the classroom looking for another child who had earlier hit her son. After she found the child, she ordered her son to “punch” the other child and that was when the teacher intervened.
Subsequent to the intervention, the parent began verbally assaulting the teacher who ordered her to leave her classroom. After being ordered to leave the classroom, the parent grabbed the teacher and began assaulting her. The matter was reported to the Grove Police Station and charges are expected to be laid soon.
The teacher, who asked not to be named, told Guyana Times International that she was preparing the chalkboard for her afternoon lesson when she noticed the parent outside her classroom muttering and using indecent language.
“She was outside, all abusive, shouting that ‘nobody can’t knock my child because they didn’t mek he’ and then she came in and grabbed the student that hit her son and tell her son to hit him, and as the class teacher I intervened and told her she can’t do that,” the teacher said.
She added that she immediately sent for her supervisor, who arrived a few minutes after, and they tried to calm the parent, but their efforts were futile.
“She was very aggressive, even my supervisor noticed, and after she won’t stop, I told her to leave my classroom and that was when she pushed my supervisor away and grabbed me by my hair. After she grabbed my hair, she threw me onto the desk and began abusing me in the presence of all my students and other teachers. The teachers came and tried to get her off of me and she let go of me. When she let me go, she ran into the Nursery School and the other teachers there held her,” the traumatised teacher said.
The teacher subsequently went to the Grove Police Station and reported the matter and the parent was arrested.
Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) President Colin Bynoe said the union condemns the ordeal and is investigating the matter. He added that he is still awaiting the reports from his officers who visited the school.
“Once again, this is something that the union and the GTU are totally against, persons going into the school and assaulting the teachers because teachers have taken an oath to mould peoples’ children and even if a parent is disgruntled over something, he/she needs to make sure that they follow the principles and basic rules of confronting those issues to get things right,” he said.
“What I do hope coming out of this is that the police would ensure that this individual after the investigation is completed is properly scolded for the wrong she did and we would have nothing like this happening again,” he added.
Bynoe said the union is also putting measures in place to have students, who assault their teachers, to feel the same pressure as teachers who assault students.