position paper 3- Mariatulkhabtiyah bt Mohd Khamzah ( 0716106 )

Position paper 3: ‘Violence in the school is a result of differences outside school. We as counselors can’t do anything about it’. Discuss.

Violence is the unwanted behavior that most of people dislike. It can happen anywhere on this earth regardless of religion, races and colour of skin. But, what I want to share and give opinion is not about the violence in society, but it is all about students in school that create violence because of the differences among them. As everyone concern and know, Malaysia is a multicultural country that consist of three major races: Malay, Chinese and Indian. I can categorize our country as ‘salad bowl’. We can spot the differences regarding colour of skin, culture and religion. Talking about the differences, we cannot hide from violence that was created by students at school. As my lecturer gave the interesting topic for position three, it is about the differences that lead the students to create chaos and violence towards their peer and other. And as a counselor, we cannot do anything to solve it.

First of all, I do agree with that statement that violence and chaos in the school is the result of differences outside the school. Malaysia systems of education build schools that open to all races to give equal opportunity for them to learn. But, some of them turn it to a war battle when they hurt the sensitivity of other races especially in term of religion. For the past few years, we heard many cases involving students from different races fought over small problems or the bigger one. They might not know and learn about other culture. As an example, a Malay girl was hug by male Chinese students in the orientation day as a warm welcome. As for Chinese, it is normal to welcome new students by hugging them, but in the other side (the girl) she must be ashamed and embarrass when the Chinese boy acting like that. She might cry and told other Malay boys about the Chinese and they might involve in fighting and so on. So, based on that situation, each of them does not know about other culture. That is why the chaos and violence happen. Thus, counselor at multicultural school cannot do anything about it. In my opinion, it is true that some counselor at multicultural school do not do anything when the violence happens inside or outside the school. The main reason is they are afraid about their safety especially female counselor. I have read in the newspaper about teacher who was hurt because of acid. The person targeted other teacher perhaps discipline teacher that always punish them but unluckily they did it to the wrong person. That is just one case. There are many other cases that might harm the counselors and teachers. That is why; they take the safe choice by ignoring and do nothing about the violence among races in school.

In the other hand, I knew that not all violence in school was resulted because of the differences in school. Sometimes, they are fighting among them (Malay verses Malay). Normally, they are fighting about small matter like love, boyfriend and girlfriend. It is not worth at all. Besides, at the teenage age they should be worried about their study. They can have relationship but make sure that it will not give harm to others. Thus, I am a bit disagreeing about the topic that say, counselor cannot do anything to improve the situation where violence are found. If counselor cannot help to find a solution to fix the situation, what should he/she do? It is her/his job to create peace at school and make a win-win situation. First of all, counselor must know about every race culture. They should know about the do’s and don’ts and so on. After that, counselor can make a program involving all students and personnel in the school to learn have understanding about other culture. For example, why not we learn about other language like Mandarin and Tamil language? It must be interesting if we can speak using their language and the barrier will be reduced. I found that by learning other language, it can make other races feel that they are important and valuable. It is my personal experience that I learnt mandarin two years ago and it help me in understand television series and in buying thing. When I want to buy a cooler fan for my laptop, normally many salesman and salesgirl are Chinese, so after buying it, I said one word ‘xie xie’ which means thank you. The man looked me in shock and he started to speak mandarin with me. I just utter one word, and he was very happy because I am learning their language. Even though I do not master the language enough but I can see that language is one of the mechanisms to create unity in Malaysia. So, back to the discussions I feel that if we can learn the other races language even one word per day, it will help to reduce violence in school setting and build positive rapport among them.

In a nut shell, I think that the violence in school among races can be reduced if every person know and understand their role. Besides, they should avoid talking about issues that might touch other’s sensitivity. We do not want the 13 May incidents happen again. We want to be a salad bowl country that unites all races regardless of any differences. So, we will be proud to be a Malaysian. That is all. Thank you.