AUTHORITY VERSUS POPULARITY

Goolbai Gunasekara writes about a dilemma faced  by school principals

Popularity among schooling teenagers often depends on athletic prowess. Students with money to spend may be popular due to their ability to treat friends or because they can contribute lavishly to class events.

At international schools, which are usually coeducational, popularity can also depend on the good looks and personality of both sexes. Of course, one gets used to only good looks without value additions.

Generally, dispensers of authority such as principals, teachers and prefects aren’t popular in schools. Unfortunately, giving into popular likes and dislikes, ignoring rules in favour of one child over another or pandering to a majority opinion simply to be popular are human drawbacks but must be firmly resisted by those who wield such authority.

As the principal of an international school, the final say on vexatious questions often fell upon me. Early in the day, I made up my mind that I could never aim for total popularity – in fact, any popularity would be a bonus! Respect was what teachers and I should aim for. Justice, as I saw it, was another vital component in a principal’s sphere of governance.

Unfortunately, in the deliverance of justice, principals often make enemies.

For instance, one of the lower school teachers was quite exceptional. Every child wanted to be in her class and every parent wanted his child to be taught by her. Her problem was that she couldn’t get on with her colleagues. Nonetheless, since she could control her students, and make them love to study and enjoy school. I was willing to smooth over little trouble spots… and soon, I became enormously popular with her!


But nemesis struck during an extracurricular club comprising older children. She pushed them so hard that they refused to work with her. She berated them in my presence so much that I had to step in and bring the meeting to a close. She was furious and alleged that I had ‘not taken her side,’ and any further cooperation with me flew out of the window.

The parents of those students who had been chastised were also annoyed with me for ‘not defending them adequately against all those accusations.’ I was able to placate the students and their parents but lost a good teacher who hardly ever spoke to me again, and left soon after.

Teachers in particular have to scold children every day – for untidiness, not doing homework, cutting class, not bringing text books to class, being noisy and so on. It’s an endless round of maintaining control, which they find onerous. But occasionally, they have a child who is different.

These differences may be very marked or slightly identify the child as being a little off-key. By this I mean that the child has his own code of dress and behaviour, and constantly clashes with authority over minor matters like long hair, not shaving when coming to school, wearing unironed shirts and so on. They’re small problems in themselves but are repeated constantly.

Such children are usually boys. They’re often very talented and genuinely unable to follow minor rules. Their mindsets are such that they find ‘normalcy’ to be a problem. And yet, they are charming people who really do try to fall in line.

Principals too are eventually roped into the corrective process and have to decide how to handle a sensitive child without causing their peers to cry ‘favouritism!’ Since the teachers and I tend to overlook a few shortcomings in dress codes, punctuality and even homework on occasion, striking a balance doesn’t make for popularity.

Recently, one of these creative geniuses justified the extra attention from his teachers by winning a prestigious literary prize and bringing credit to a school that he said ‘nurtured’ him. Naturally, it was music to the ears of his former prefects and teachers who had overlooked his minor infractions.

It also happens that such children are often enormously popular. Their very indifference to the norms of the time gives them a certain cachet with their classmates. And their special talents are frequently called upon whenever there are competitions in school that highlight their particular skills like drama, singing, writing and art.

Of course, parental understanding is of paramount importance. They are called upon to strike some sort of balance between the daily demands of school rules and the happy insouciance of their offspring. In almost every case I’ve had the pleasure of handling such children (and yes, it was a pleasure dealing with talent!), they have done well as adults and coped with the demands of society.

One hopes that prefects, teachers and principals can retire with a certain degree of popularity intact despite the necessary demands of exercising authority. I can truthfully say that such successes means the ends have been justified.