Recently, the secondary four in Hwa Chong institution went to the auditorium to listen to a talk. Our discipline master, Mr Sung went about his usually routine around the school when he found out that the doors of all the secondary four’s classroom were left unlocked. He felt that he should teach them a lesson and went into one of the classroom and sweep everything valuables from the classroom. From laptops to wallets to ipod. For each items he took, the took a picture of it. The students were asked to collect their valuable after school and a message was posted up on SMB to notify them. In the end, a student felt that the teachers violated his privacy and was enraged by this and decided to post it up on STOMP to get the opinions of the general public.

I feel that this student make a mountain out of a molehill. This problem was actually very small and minute and can easily be solved, yet he choose to post it up on STOMP and thus gratifying the matter.

When the students got back from the auditorium and found out that all their valuables were lost, they thought that a real thief actually came into the class and steal all the valuables. They were shocked and heart-broken. Although Mr Sung posted a message on the SMB, those people whose laptops are confiscated would not be able to check the message. Furthermore, they are secondary four students and need to use quite a lot of their laptops during their lessons. If their laptops are being taken away, how will they be able to carry on with their lessons? Moreover, their minds would harbour thoughts of their parents reprimanding them and grounding them, causing them to be unable to concentrate entirely in class. When they finally found out that their laptops are only being confiscated instead of being stolen, they will definitely feel a bit cheated and thus, posted the message out of anger.

I think that the root cause of this incident was the lack of communication between the teachers and students. This is because Mr Sung didn’t inform the student before he confiscate their valuables, causing the students to think that it is really stolen by thieves. If Mr Sunk had written on the whiteboard that he had confiscated their valuables and asked the student to collect it from him after school, the students might not feel angry at all and can only blame themselves for being so careless and accept the punishment.

However, it is not entirely the teacher’s fault as the students also play a part in the blame as well. Had they secured their valuables in the lockers instead of putting them carelessly on top of their tables, this incident might not even happen. Therefore, since it is their fault, they have no reason to go blaming the teachers should they confiscate their things so as to help them “safe-keep” to prevent it from really getting stolen.

The school provides lockers for a reason and thus the students should fully utilize them so as to prevent this incident form happening again.

I strongly disagree with the student for posting the incident up onto STOMP as it not only does not benefit the school but also caused harm. It will cause the general public to think that Hwa Chong’s educational system is flawed as it fails to handle this case effectively and it will affect our school’s image significantly. It also does not go with our school value of “win –win”.

The school should also have a forum whereby students can voice out their comments or opinion about the school instead of voicing them to the general public. In this way, the problems can be solved internally without the general public finding out. The school is more than willing to listen to the students’ opinion as this is evident from the incident whereby the time of the assembly is pushed back 5 minutes because a student voice out his opinion about it as by pushing back by 5minutes, it would prevent students from ever being late for assembly. And if students are still late even though the assembly is pushed back by 5 minutes, then he would have no excuse to defend himself and has to accept the punishment without any complain.

In conclusion, this incident was just a small matter. But it was just blown up due to the post on STOMP, attracting many general public’s attention and comments.