Int’l school in hot water after student’s suicide

Senate discussion on the bill seeking to recognize the British School Manila as an educational institution of international character has been put on hold Tuesday following the suicide of one of its students last February.

“That bill is going to be held in abeyance first because we will put, certainly, amendments to protect the students, but it will in no way diminish the standards set by BSM,” said Sen. Sergio Osmeña III in an interview after the hearing of the Senate committee on education, arts, and culture.

During the hearing, Trixie Madamba presented  the case of her 18-year-old son, Liam, who committed suicide a day after a teacher scolded him and another classmate over an alleged plagiarized essay.

Liam, a senior high school student, was one of the three students who won the BSM scholarship for the last two years of high school, she said.

She said her son, on February 6, jumped from the sixth floor of a parking building in Makati, 14 hours after leaving their house on the evening of February 5. Liam was rushed to Makati Medical Center due to extensive injuries he sustained, but died three hours later.

She said she just learned that on February 5, her son and another classmate were scolded by their teacher, Natalie Mann, over a draft essay they submitted. She said the two were made to admit committing plagiarism.

“I want to emphasize that Liam’s letter was a first draft, and he ought to have been guided and given feedback by Mrs Mann to correct his improper citation, not condemned. Instead of teaching my son in-text referencing… Mrs Mann subject my son to humiliation and threats,” she said.

Reflection policy

Madamba said Mann made the students write an apology letter addressed to the entire student body, parents, and the BSM as an institution, as part of the school's “reflection policy.”

She questioned how a letter addressed to the whole school community is introspective.

“Why was he not supervised during this part of the process? And afterwards, why did Mrs. Mann not sit down with Liam to go over the points he wrote to help him reflect on these? This letter was not a reflection but public humiliation. Let me make this clear. This letter writing exercise was punitive,” she said.

She said such form of public flogging is within the reflection process that BSM claims to be proud of.

Madamba also said Mann herself did not read the letter, and that had she read it, she would have seen the red flags that her son was really bothered with the incident.

Red flag in the letter

“Had I seen the letter, as a mother, I would know that a red flag was up. Had a caring educator read this letter, she or he would know a red flag was up and that the child was going through seriously alarming  emotional distress. Mrs. Mann did not even bother to read Liam’s letter,” she said.

She said Liam’s letter was given to them by the BSM school head, Mr Simon Mann, more than two months after Liam’s death.

Madamba noted that in the letter, Liam used words and phrases “my unending selfishness” and “a thousand shades of the darkest emotions.” Her son also used the word “ashamed” twice.

“BSM’s reflection policy… caused my son to spiral down a deep pit and commit suicide,” she said.

She said Liam’s “words wallow in desperation and complete shame after he was threatened, humiliated, pushed to the edge by Mrs. Mann.”

“I cannot begin to imagine the indescribable anguish and hopelessness that he went through, that no child should ever go through,” Madamba said.

She said when her son came home, he was unusually quiet, his face “unusually drawn, long and sad,” which was in stark difference of his disposition earlier in the day. She said Liam even asked his father to teach him how to shave.

School's actions

Pointing out the school head’s insensitivity, Madamba said Mr Mann even asked here whether the line “fell off the building” was appropriate to use in the email he was planning to send out to the school community.

The school administration also did not put Mrs Mann under preventive suspension and was even allowed to leave the country before the investigation started, Madamba said, adding the school board even gave its full support to the teacher in a May 15 letter.

Mr. Mann, explaining to the committee, said Mrs Mann is not related to him, and that she left for South Africa where she resides because she became “very vulnerable” due to the media attention.

“She was very vulnerable, she has a young family. She felt she could not remain in the school. She was recommended to leave and spend time with her family,” he said.

Madamba, in an interview with reporters after the hearing, said she has no intention to block the recognition being sought by BSM, but changes should be made in the school for the sake of its students.

“The school is a good institution but there are certain people in that school that need to go and I reiterate that I call for the resignation of Mr Simon Mann and [Board of Governors chair Simon] Bewlay for bad governance, gross negligence of my son Liam’s case, their lack of compassion and insensitivity,” she told reporters.

Search for truth

“I’ve never wavered from that. We will continue to fight for and search for the truth of what happened to my son,” she said, adding what happened to Liam should never happen to anyone.

“It shouldn’t have happened in the first place, it is such a waste of a life and so if they (BSM) are undertaking changes, of course, that is good for the children who are  still studying there,” she said.

In a separate interview, Education undersecretary Albert Muyot said BSM officials committed lapses in Liam’s case. He also said there was lack of due process.

“Pag ang bata ay may kinakaharap na administrative offense, laging may due process yan at since mga bata ito, mga estudyante, unang-una kailangan may presence ng magulang at kung mabigat yung hinaharap pwede ring magsama ng abugado nila,” he said.

Muyot also said it is not normal that a punishment will be given without the knowledge of the parent.

He clarified that BSM is not under DepEd, but they have supervision over it as the latter signed a memorandum of agreement with them prior to the passage of the bill seeking their recognition as an educational institution. —KBK, GMA News