YouTube is doing to schools what WikiLeaks has done to governments. It is threatening to blow the lid on the kind of events that used to remain hush-hush. Yet again, a damaging YouTube clip has surfaced, that exposes the violence in our schoolyard. No longer can we pretend it doesn’t exist:
Click on the link below to watch the video.
School fight club.
DRAMATIC footage of a punch-up between students at a Melbourne high school will be investigated.
The clip, posted on YouTube, shows two Hampton Park Secondary College students trading blows while being egged on by up to 20 onlookers.
One combatant suffers a bloodied nose, while spectators call “Knock out, knock out”.
Acting principal Sue Glenn said she was shocked by the footage, and would investigate and punish those involved.
“I was completely unaware of this incident or video. However on now seeing it, I am totally appalled,” she said.
“This is not the behaviour we accept at Hampton Park Secondary, which has 1300 students who are well behaved and great kids.
“I will be taking this matter extremely seriously and definitely investigating this incident and then taking the appropriate action.”
Ms Glenn said the two students involved in the fight were no longer at the school, but the involvement of all onlookers would be investigated.
Students are heard calling “Go crazy at him” and “Do it, do it” as blood drips from the nose of one of the fighters.
At least two people filmed the fight last year. It was put on YouTube in January.
Education Minister Martin Dixon said the internet posting of schoolyard fights and bullying was a concern.
“We still have a real issue out there in our schools and we still need to be doing more in terms of educating our children and teachers and parents,” he said.
Mr Dixon said the Government had committed $14.5 million to anti-bullying programs in schools in this week’s Budget.
He said social media had made tackling bullying and schoolyard violence all the more difficult.
“It’s a complex problem, and when we see it manifested in these sorts of videos, it just shows there’s a large degree of misunderstanding (about the consequences),” Mr Dixon said.
“It shows an abject ignorance to what bullying and violence is doing to victims.”
Where do I start?
Firstly, here is another case of a Principal unaware of a major fight in the very schoolyard they preside over. Where are the teachers? Who is supervising? How did this big crowd and the attention this fight would have garnered, go completely under the radar of the authorities? How was a child with what looks like a broken or at least badly bloodied nose, able to hide his injuries? And don’t tell me this was the first incident of such a nature. Those onlookers seem like they have seen it all before.
And what about the minister who shows concern, not for the violence at school, but instead to the filming and public dissemination of the violence:
Education Minister Martin Dixon said the internet posting of schoolyard fights and bullying was a concern.
It sounds like a case of ,” I am not too bothered by schoolyard fights, just as long as they don’t go viral.”
I am very happy to hear that the onlookers are going to get punished for their involvement and I think that filming acts of violence is abhorrent. However, now that the clip has been broadcast, it is important to use it as an impetus for positive change.
The following is my advice to schools:
Hampton Park Secondary School is now going to have to make swift and decisive changes to its procedures. It is going to have to improve its quality of supervision, enforce stronger consequences for taking part in acts of violence in the schoolyard and punish passive onlookers. Take note of what they do, and employ their new policies in your school instead of waiting for something like this to make your school look bad.
As uncomfortable as it is to be exposed in the way that WikiLeaks and schoolyard YouTube clips have been able to do so well, it does teach all involved a very important message.
It’s high time you started lifting your game!
Topical Teaching 