07/04/2022
_By Kabojja, SMACK OB Dr. Roy William Mayega @ # Facebook 27.03.2022_ 👇👇🙏
Substance abuse in secondary schools is not only a problem of today - it started way way back, and as far back as I can recall. Some of our first 'innocent' cigarette puffs happened behind the latrine in Primary 6 - we were recruited and tutored by one of the staff members' university going son. Dropping the habit several decades later was one of the biggest fights of our lives but part of it involved cultivation of the sort of wit that comes with maturity, experience, and life-skills.
And for some students, therefore something worse: In SMACK, the ma*****na 'industry' was driven by Mafia gangs man of whom had switched from other schools - one of the most notorious schools for 'donating' drug users/dealers to other schools was Buddo and the other one was Ntare. Incidentally, some of the most notorious 'substance of abuse kingpins' were also the most prolific performers in the Science subjects so I sometimes felt that the school had a soft-spot for them. Ma*****na was not the biggest substance of abuse - that position went to illicit alcohol taking and ci******es. At the time we joined SMACK, the school's boundaries were very porous so students would cross the fence into the neighboring villages whenever they wanted. To eat 'sabulenya', to roam the villages, to buy pastries and ci******es' and for a few, to hit the night discos and to search for loose women. The crop of students we found was reminiscent of the substantial break-down in social order characteristic of the 80s. They did anything they wanted, but surprisingly, also read their books and excelled. In fact, there is a time when the school was hit by an epidemic of snake bites. For two weeks, an average of 2 students was struck by the extremely poisonous long snakes called black mambas. Some students were even attacked in the library while others were struck while standing on very smooth floors. Rumour has it that a notorious gang had stolen two goats from the community and roasted them in the bush and that the community members had avenged the act by be-witching the school. Problem is that witchcraft is non-discriminatory. In another incident, drunken students who were headed for a disco-dance at 11.00pm in Nkumba attempted to stop the President's convoy mbu to 'hitch a ride'. The SFC operatives whacked them with batons but never shot at anyone. One student is on the record to have marathoned 2 kilometers from Kawuku trading center to SMACK and back (4km) just because he had been promised some s*x by a ho**er and he needed a condom. Most of these idiots eventually passed their exams, some with flying colours.
The new Head-teacher initiated a dramatic turn-around in discipline but even with the best of his interventions, some of the most hard-core criminals survived and even thrived. For example, despite constructing a perimeter fence around the entire school, students (me inclusive), still went about their ways, crossing through several makeshift 'holes' in the fence. In fact, one of the safest ways of escaping was through the main gate - when you walked confidently out of the gate, no one was bothered. Some people thought you were going to the 'Marian Chapel' at the Brother's Presbytery. The true destination: Maama Teewo - she sold the most concentrated form of liqour I have ever seen. It also smelled like sweet lavender but don't be deceived: It was deadly! If you sipped on it slowly, you'd never succeed in swallowing anything as it evaporated almost instantly from your mouth. So you had to pour it vertically down your mouth in one instant gulp, head facing stiffly upwards. Then you'd gasp and rub your excoriated throat as the liquid slowly burnt its way down your esophagus and into the stomach. 'Kasese' as it was called, the drink was famous for instant results. Maama Teewo was famous among the criminal gangs. She diligently served her customers while carrying 'Teewo' on her back. Stories are told that she had no time for breast-feeding breaks for Teewo but she had adapted by developing elongated breasts - she would simply throw her breast under the arm-pits and around her chest into Teewo's mouth on her back. This uncommon body feature made her one of the most prolific multi-taskers. Teewo never complained as Maama served Waraji, Kasese, Lira Lira, Tonto and pork to her student revelers. One of the World Cups (I think it was 1990) was almost entirely watched on Maama Teewo's 14 inch Black and White CRT TV, totally ignoring the 21inch screen back at the school campus. Even when I participated in some of these escapades, I was largely a good boy. I went to church everyday. I was a member of the Legion of Mary and said the rosary regularly in the Marian Chapel. I was an alterboy and I played the organ in church. I read books like there was no tomorrow - yet I made the occasional visit to Maama Teewo. There was some sense of adventure it stirred in response to my raving teenage hormones.
My thinking therefore is that this whole hullaballoo and judgmental attitude to a certain student is uncalled for - adolescence is a period of learning and self-growth and several of the things we did as adolescents, we outgrew them. There is also a substantial difference in the way the school leaders then and those at present, dealt with the problems. The leaders of that time often owned the problem, recognizing that it was their own duty to discipline the children who had been put under their care. They were conservative with suspensions and used several other punishments before someone was sent home. For instance, we had the labour camps in the school farm. Some of the notorious criminals became prolific bush clearers. Harder core criminals were given tree stumps to uproot or anthills to flatten. The size of the tree stump/anthill was proportionate to the magnitude of the crime. The deliverables: You had to present a complete tap root from the tree stump and an intact 'queen' from the anthill. One of the most notorious criminals became so prolific in felling tree-stumps that he developed an innovative approach that substantially shortened the task: He would start the excavation several feet away from the main tree stamp, severing all the lateral roots and tertiary roots until he fully freed it and left it standing on the tap root. Then he'd chop up the tap root but leave the stump hanging by a few more chops. Then he'd call the Headmaster who would ask why he had called him without fully felling the stump. Mr. criminal would go on to give the the stump one single kick, at which it came down instantly in a thunderous crush. Criminal would be re-integrated into 'normal' society only for him to commit the same crime the following week and the cycle was repeated. These criminals were neither expelled not suspended. Some of the smaller punishments included shaving the culprits heads down to a 'shaolin cut'. In the 80's/90's, this was the most humiliating thing you'd do to a teenager. When large sections of the class misbehaved, an 'ecological level' punishment would be meted. The most painful class-action-punishment was when all 'Socials' and visits to other schools of the opposite s*x were suspended. Occasionally, students would be asked to call their parents to the school as a punishment - this was one of the penultimate punishments before suspension. You would then be asked to confess your sins in public, apologize, and lie down for a 10-lash spanking by your dad in front of your peers. The only 'crimes' that led to almost immediate suspension were theft, severe bullying, and religious fundamentalism (leaders of extremist evangelical groups that preached about the biblical rupture starting in 1986 and ending in 1993 with the battle of Armageddon (Operation Desert Storm), the destruction of Israel and that our beloved Pope would be unleashed as the anti-Christ). Incidentally, the school had a fair level of tolerance for this nonsense - only the leaders would be suspended and the followers received warnings on their termly report cards. One of the notorious cult leaders turned out to have fulminant schizophrenia and he disappeared from my world. I would love to meet him to ask him why the world never ended and why he hated the Pope. Anyways, the school also fought with same s*x acts among the adolescents and at one time there was almost an epidemic, following which about 30 students were suspended. Most of these were re-admitted after they signed a statement of commitment to abstain from s*x.
My conclusion therefore is that antisocial behaviour, experimentation and acts of poor judgment are common and expected in secondary schools. The majority of students are good, but the the occurance of antisocial behaviour is normally distributed. Because students spend a good part of their formative life in schools, school heads should take a good share of the responsibility in disciplining, shaping and forming the student. Publishing of individual acts of indiscipline in the mass media should not be one of the front-line disciplinary measures. That is amateur leadership. I also want to note that the preponderance of A-List schools to admit students of the rich and powerful did not start in 2020 - It is as old as these schools - we had children of Ministers, opposition leaders, ultra rich people and corrupt oligarchs as much then as it is now. Several of them came through 'alternative' channels but many of them also came on merit. In modern times, schools have addressed this challenge by expanding their intake numbers. Lastly, although a number of these 'kamooli' rich kinds were poor performers, several of them went on to be successful after school meaning that the objective of going to these schools is not only to get super-humongous grades, but to also learn the 'art of life'. No one should be judged solely on the basis of not being super-bright - intelligence is largely an inborn attribute but it is also one that can be learned and 'epigenetically' altered through life-skills. Likewise, being priviledged is not a crime. The only beef I had with priviledged children is the obnoxious habit of not sharing even a little. Except for a very small number of 'saintly' peers, the vast majority of priviledged children cannot share their text books, eats, or study kits. All they share is alcohol and cigarette butts. It is so baffling the level of selfishness that these snobs espouse. What they hardly know is that this kind of behaviour is never forgotten and it builds lifelong resentment and disdain from their less priviledged peers. Schools should help these children know better, by teaching them empathy, compassion, teamwork and ethics. Such soft skills might even be more important than ill-designed anti-drug crusades.
