Paedophile: Why I can't pretend to respect my former teacher
The inappropriate actions by the paedophile teacher usually took place at the front of the class, while the said teacher caned pupils who hadn’t done their homework, or who scored below a certain mark.
What you need to know:
- During my primary school years, I unknowingly witnessed a respected teacher sexually abuse my 14-year-old classmates while pretending to discipline them.
- The abuse took place in an upscale private school, challenging the assumption that sexual predators only target children from underprivileged backgrounds.
- Years later, the awkward encounters with the teacher and unspoken understanding between former classmates reveal the lasting impact of witnessing childhood trauma.
During the last two or three years of my primary school, I had a teacher who turned out to be a paedophile. He stood out for his intelligence and sophistication, and was my class teacher at some point. Any more details will give away his identity and I am not sure that is entirely legal, so I will end my descriptions there.
I started school early. My parents have different theories about why this happened, but the most convincing one is that they struggled to find a reliable house help when they both went to work, so, they enrolled me in a nearby school. As a result, I was usually the youngest in class. That’s how I ended up in Class Eight at age 12 — still as playful as a kitten, but focused enough to pass my exams. That’s why I hardly noticed anything in class beyond what directly concerned me—like the teacher’s lessons and break time.
The inappropriate actions by the paedophile teacher usually took place at the front of the class, while the said teacher caned pupils who hadn’t done their homework, or who scored below a certain mark. These sessions lasted several minutes, time I often spent giggling with my desk mate or secretly playing the brick game I frequently smuggled into class.
Permanent fear
One day, a classmate told me to pay attention when a certain set of students were being caned. I was the debating prefect so, I don’t know if that is the reason this classmate told me. Either way, it seemed like a boring undertaking because I preferred to play brick game during this time. She insisted that I needed to see with my own eyes.
When I paid attention, I saw this teacher’s hand graze over the small breasts of two of my classmates as he pretended to cane them – they were 14 years old! I witnessed this on a number of days because I started to pay attention to what happened in my class. I did not have the language to describe what that teacher was doing but it made me develop permanent fear of him. I have met him once or twice, as an adult, and I cannot bring myself to have a conversation with him, beyond a cold and distant hello. He probably thinks I am proud or rude.
I have never had a conversation with my classmates who were groped about what happened to them. The few times we have bumped into each other or had conversations as adults, we tend to skim through our past in the same school, preferring, instead, to talk about what happened after primary school, like the universities we went to.
It is always as if there is an instinctive knowing that if we dwell too much on primary school days, we will be drawn into a conversation we are not ready for. I also cannot say if anything ever happened between these students and the teacher beyond what I witnessed at least twice in class. I, however, in my heart of hearts, hope that they got help and were able to get past what happened to them when they were children.
Sexual assault
Reflecting on this incident last weekend while having a conversation with my friend, Helen, made me realise it is easier to think of children from needy homes or marginalised communities as the prime candidates for sexual abuse. The truth is, every child is vulnerable.
I went to a private school, and the two classmates I witnessed being abused came from what seemed to me to be well-to-do families. Their parents were also active members of the parents association, and so by any standard, not the most likely suspects of abuse by a paedophile because they seemed sheltered.
On Tuesday this week, the world completed marking the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence for 2024. In reality, we know that 16 days are truly not enough. The work of raising awareness about gendered violence continues around the clock due to the extensive vulnerability of children and other groups.
I hope that in sharing this article, I will remind us that every child in any space can be a victim of sexual assault. It is also my prayer that this article will remind us to pay equal attention to children so that we do not have to play catch up when paedophiles have gone too far.
The writer is the Research & Impact Editor, NMG, [email protected]