Thought the days of stereotyping students by their school ‘quality’ were over?

Well, not quite.

Recently, one of Catholic Junior College (CJC)’s vice principals allegedly made “inappropriate” remarks about neighbourhood school students…

And suffice it to say that the Internet didn’t take too kindly to it.

What happened?

On Tuesday (7 August), Mrs Yue-Chang Teck Hui, who oversees academics at the school, appeared to make the negatory comments in passing, while supposedly addressing the JC2 students about the importance of regular school attendance and self-responsibility.

An audio recording of the speech was actually sent to Mothership, which you can check out by clicking on the inscribed link. But if you’re insistent on staying on this page, here’s what the brief recording says.

“…a lot of their families are in a mess”

While it’s unclear who she’s referring to exactly, the amount of ‘fanfare’ and noise after that all but confirms any suspicions we might have.

Did Mt Doom blow up? Oh that’s just the Internet

Unsurprisingly, the Internet blew up, with social media pages all but fanning the flames.

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On the other hand, Insta stories (coz that’s where youngsters hang out) ran rampant with quick five second summaries.

Following that, one page even sought out students’ opinions.

And students were, for lack of a better-fitting word, miffed.

Although to be fair, some actually defended the teacher’s remarks.

Though I have no idea whether it’s really defending… considering how her “bad” command of the English language was called into question.

And one was quick to clarify that not all teachers in CJC were like that.

Which I don’t doubt, or CJC would’ve been under fire a long, long time ago.

Response

In answer to Mothership‘s queries on Wednesday (8 August), a CJC spokesperson expressed that the Vice-Principal in question (though not by name) “deeply regrets her remarks”. Also, the school clarified that what she said was inappropriate, and not reflective of other CJC educators.

Here, you can check out the statement in full down below.

Transcript:

On 7 August, one of our school’s Vice-Principals addressed our JC2 students on the importance of regular school attendance and self-responsibility. Students were reminded to submit a medical certificate upon their return to school if they were unwell, or a letter from their parents is required for other reasons of absence.

The VP deeply regrets her remarks. They were not appropriate, and is not reflective of the actual situation or the mind-sets of CJC educators. The Principal stepped in to correct this during the same session.

Since its inception, CJC has welcomed and valued students from a wide variety of schools which adds to the richness of our college culture. CJC is committed to developing all students to realise their full potential.

Hmm… informative.

Seems to me like the Principal had to come in and save the day.

Which she did. Probably.

On an ending note…

If you were to ask me what I thought of this whole thing, I would only say one thing:

There’s no one size fits all for students.

As such, it’s not just unfair to group all the unruly students in one particularly ‘messed-up origin’ sector, but downright patronising.

So with that in mind, try not to be like Mrs Yue. Instead, look at the world through wider lenses.

You might just like that view better.

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