Though Thursday’s bizarre incident of Chennai school teacher being murdered by her own student in the class room shocked the people, psychiatrists and psychologists say the incident is aprelude to many such ‘events’ to be occurred in the future.
“Social scientists and psychiatrists have been warning both the teaching community and the parents about the stress they give to the students. Too much of academics are putting a heavy toll on the psyche of the students. The murder of Uma Maheswari is the fall out of the stress suffered by children brought out in protected environment,” Prof Mridula B Nair, head, department of psychology, Mahatma Gandhi College, Trivandrum told DNA.
She said that students have become impulsive. “The boy might not have been able to take the comments made by the teacher in the right sense."
"Are we providing an avenue for our children to release their anger and other feelings? It is inhumane to expect that children do not have any feelings. We should compulsorily make them play football or basketball so that they get a first-hand experience of defeats, wins, losses and humiliation. They should be personally exposed to all these situations,” said Prof Nair.
Had anybody consoled the ninth standard student for the admonition he got from the teacher, she asked. “I am sure even the parents might not have consoled him,” she added.
Dr Lakshmi Vijayakumar, consultant psychiatrist, who runs a NGO to help and counsel people in distress, feels a thorough probe on the personal background of the student was a must to find out the reason for the murder.
”He might have experienced some kind of violence in his family. Otherwise it is impossible for such a thing to happen in a state like Tamil Nadu and even in India,” said Dr Vijayakumar. She pointed out that the kind of stuff shown in feature films, TV serials and violent video games are causing havoc with the minds of innocent children.
Comments: 1