Imagine this scenario: A lecturer struts into a classroom holding a stack of test papers. He doesn’t bother to greet the students. He simply announces: “I have finished marking your tests.”
One student volunteers, “Sir, I can hand them out for you.”
The lecturer says, “No, I will do it myself.” And you assume it’s because he doesn’t want the student to see everyone’s mark, something a decent lecturer would do. But next, you see the lecturer takes the first test from the stack and reads, “Martha Haufiku” then proceeds to say, “20%.” The entire class roars in laughter.
Martha walks to the front of the class and gets her test. She doesn’t dare to make eye contact with the other students as she walks back. You can see tears sparkling in her eyes.
“Sarah Gowases,” the lecturer continues. “Thirteen percent.” Once again there’s a rumble of laughter in the class.
I’m sure many of us would agree this is tantamount to bullying. Nevertheless, it’s just one of the many examples of psychological abuse I’ve seen at the University of Namibia (Unam)’s campus. Quite a number of lecturers at the university seem to find pleasure in the misery of students.
When I attended the first class for one of my modules earlier this year, I saw that the lecturer didn’t want to waste time before initiating this much-relished tradition. It was a subject many of us had never done before. Yet on that first day, she wrote a few questions on the board and said, “Okay, write the answers to these questions on a piece of paper and when you’re done raise your hand.”
We stayed there for a few minutes, scratching our heads, wondering how we, as accounting students, were supposed to know what Section 3(a) of the Labour Act says. Then she began her beloved walk around the class, picking up the students’ papers, marking what they wrote and saying to the unlucky ones who didn’t have mobile data to Google the answers, “This is very wrong. Completely wrong. How can you not know this? Are you even going to pass this module?”
Still, other lecturers have made comments like, “I know I will be seeing many faces back here next year,” as well as, “students from your school always re-do this module”.
I would like to plead with Unam lecturers, as well as other Unam staff members who may have enabled this culture of humiliation, to reconsider it. It is harmful for many reasons.
Firstly, it makes students underperform. This culture of psychological abuse is also to blame.
Multiple studies have shown that children who are the targets of verbal abuse by teachers tend to underperform academically (Journal of Applied Sciences, 2010).
Verbal abuse lowers students’ self-esteem leading them to doubt if they’re ever going to pass. This, in turn, reduces their desire to learn, subsequently making them fail. You can imagine how challenging it would be for a student to write a test or an exam with a voice in their head saying, “I’m stupid. I can’t do this. Remember when she said I wouldn’t pass the module?” This internal dialogue would severely impair a student’s ability to think of the correct answers in the test, especially for subjects that require rather creative and critical thinking such as accounting modules.
Secondly, it is my belief that this culture leads teachers to be prejudiced in their marking. It makes them more likely to mark unfairly. Psychologists say if you find joy in observing something, you’re more likely to want more of it to keep happening (Dan Ariely, 2012).
Some Unam lecturers are not only eager to give low marks, but they use these marks to commend their own abilities as teachers. By that, I mean you would hear a lecturer say: “That exam paper I set up was very good. On one question, students even scored two out of 10. Yeah, I set up a good paper.” It beats me how these lecturers are seemingly not able to see that the low performance of students is also a reflection of their teaching.
They seem way too eager to colour test papers red and put those low percentags next to students’ names. And yet you would see that after a lecturer spends an entire class period shattering the self-worth of students by announcing their low marks to the entire class, more than 10 students go up to him to contest their marks.
The students end up laying forth logical arguments and getting awarded more marks.
Lastly, I am aware that I cannot rely on people to be morally conscious enough to care. Nonetheless, I will say it: You never know what a person is going through. You never know what suffering they’re carrying in their hearts. Your one belittling remark, harmless as it may seem, could be the last straw that breaks them completely. That one act of humiliation could be the thing that makes them believe they don’t deserve a place on this planet.
Indeed, it is crucial to remember that these are human beings with stories, struggles, and feelings behind those student numbers.
Nelusigwe Mbingu is a 22-year-old student at the University of Namibia. She can be emailed at nelu.mbingu@gmail.com.
