Not fair that 'Peter paying for Paul & Paul paying for all' - ESHS Seniors
Tenants of TPP were notified of the controversial decision in a letter dated December 15, 2017 from Chief Executive Officer of TPP, Dona L. Regis.
The ban came after Minister for Education and Culture Hon Myron V. Walwyn (AL) had stated that students of Elmore Stoutt High School were "wreaking havoc" in Road Town and that Government was looking to end the shift system as a means of adressing the problem.
While there are persons who support and oppose the ban, many students, especially senior students of Elmore Stoutt High School (ESHS), are not in agreement, labelling it unfair.
"VINO we want you stay on this issue because all the sides must come out, Peter paying for Paul and Paul paying for all and that's not going down too well with or for us," said an emotional senior student of ESHS, who asked us to refer to her only as Danellia.
According to TPP, children 17 years of age and under must be accompanied by an adult 21 years of age or older when entering the Government owned facility. This came amidst many reports of student burgularising, damaging property and behaving disorderly at TPP, especially post 2017 hurricanes.
Hon Walwyn to blame?
"What they (TPP management) not saying is that they didn't really have these sort of problems before the Minister (Honourable Myron V. Walwyn) rushed to open school before reasoning out aĺl these issues and I feel hurt when I hear the Minister calllig us names. It's sad because while he was speaking about a certain set of bad behaving children all of us in a ESHS uniform is being looked upon in the same way. And them bad eggs are to be blamed too and those parents who can't control their children are to be blamed too."
The obviously upset student said it has now become an uneasy feeling of being policed in a place she had often visited.
"Miss this upsets us because you know how it feels when you walk into a place you are accustomed to being in and all of a sudden guards watching you strong and sometimes even walking foot to foot behind you? It look and feels bad. When them children from the cruise ships be all over throwing a fit when their parents don't get them what they want no security coming or no management putting ban on them."
According to the student, she is not a racist but she just wanted to show both sides of the issue "because I want us to be treated equally and fairly."
Junior High students the culprits!
They young woman who was in the company of three others while speaking to this news site, said the main problem group is the Junior High students who are off from school by noon.
"We have some of these lower forms or junior high students that messing up because instead of going home after they are dismissed they head down to the Pier Park and some other places and cause problems. In some cases their parents don't even know they not going straight home because by the time their parents reach home they done make their troubles."
The student recommended that the controversial ban be lifted and that security cameras be utilised to "catch them bad eggs and put them on blast. Trust me we going get justice so," suggested the student.
Some tenants support ban
On the other hand, several business operators in the facility said that they are fed up of the distraction and bad behaviour of the students. "Most of the bad kids are usually not wearing their school uniform but we know them. They sometimes have their books in pockets or on sling bags and they are very barefaced and disrespectful. We have a serious problem on our hands with this generation of children that's coming up," said one businessman.
A taxi driver said, "The thing that has to be done is [Hon] Myron [V. Walwyn] has to find a way to separate the sheep from the goat or we will have worse problems with this generation on our hands."
At least one tenant of TPP, Kareem-Nelson Hull of Sweet Tease, has called for the ban to be lifted.
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11 Responses to “Not fair that 'Peter paying for Paul & Paul paying for all' - ESHS Seniors”
In SK the youth would not dare fight on Port Zante because they respect the fact that it's a gem of their country. The difference here is nobody gives a $%&#! Our government spends almost $100 mil on a nice place and we don't care about it and do as we please. Typical BVI BS.
Where are the priorities?
Also, I understand these kids feel victimised but there are several important life lessons they can learn from this and need to learn to become functional adults with a proper moral system.
1.The world isn't fair.
2. As a child, your opinion isn't always valid or interesting and how you feel isn't always the top priority of the society on a whole.
3. You can't do whatever you want and always get away with it. Life's Newtonian, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. For every crime, there is a punishment.
4. You can't always cry and whine your way into getting what you want. No one likes being manipulated by emotional arguments. Find another way to get others to see things your way.
5. Paul pay for all and all pay for Paul is usually how the world works, particularly when it comes to bureaucracy.
6. Sometimes harsh punishments are given to set an example and discourage destructive behaviours.
7. Business people have a right to protect their businesses which sometimes mean declining customers that might harm their businesses.
8. Some things are privileges, not rights and they have to be earned. When you abuse privileges, they get taken away.
9. If you don't want to suffer along with everyone you have to encourage everyone around you to be honourable and responsible. If honour isn't upheld, the integrity of society falls apart which leads to blanket laws. (Hence lesson 5)
First I want to say that I do understand why teens would be upset just that as an adult I sympathise and agree more with the businessmen. Also, I personally don't think children should be encouraged to think that they can run society because they don't really know anything of the real world to make informed and wise decisions plus adult life is pretty stressful and too much for a child to handle and understand (it even gets too much for adults at times). This is why we don't let children do things like vote, drive, own a lease, etc. Privileges and some rights come with responsibility.
I'm sorry teens but everyone has a place in society, yours is just not at the adult's table.
Also, while I did previously say no one likes manipulative emotional arguments, sometimes they do work. If I were a business person at the park, I wouldn't want to hear innocent children telling me they're innocent. Of course, I know they're innocent. I'm not protecting my business from them. I'm protecting my business from the destructive children. I'd much more appreciate an apology from the guilty party. That would actually make me reconsider my position because the ability to apologise shows intelligence and maturity as well as responsibility.
I want to explain to teens that the 'I'm innocent, why should I suffer?' argument doesn't work because rules aren't designed to punish the innocent but protect people. Arguing that a law shouldn't exist because only a minority of people are guilty of the discouraged behaviour is like arguing that only people who get in accidents should be subjected to a speed limit or only people who get sick should pay NHI. Like I said, regulations are meant to keep order. The more people there are that follow the rules, the more people are protected versus the chaos of letting everyone do whatever they want and only reacting to the problem when one occurs. (That kind of behaviour leads to anarchy.)
Perhaps, this is a lesson for both children and adults as the same basic lesson our teens are learning now, adults have to learn now. We failed to regulate ourselves and now we're catching hell with the UK to get aid because they don't trust us to be responsible. If everyone held themselves and each other accountable for their actions, we'd have been better off in terms of how we responded to Irma and had people respond to us in aiding us with Irma.
Now back on point... If I had a teenage child who came home bothered by this issue, I'd explain to them what I said in my first post but if I really wanted to offer a suggestion to help get back what was lost, I'd suggest to my child one of two things:
1) If they or anyone they knew was engaging in the behaviours that lead to the ban, I'd encourage my child to encourage them to make a public apology and ask for leniency on others even if it being banned from the park themselves until they were 18.
Like I said earlier, if I were a business owner, I'd appreciate it. While I think it's important to teach children there are consequences for their actions, I also think it's important to teach them that mercy, respect, accountability and humility have value in society too. The right thing isn't always the easiest and most painless thing to do but it's always important to acknowledge it when it happens to encourage more productive behaviours which would create a more honest society overall.
2) With the ban, the business people are basically saying that they don't trust teenagers to act responsibly and civilly and they have valid reasons for their distrust. Something the high schools in the territory can do about this is organise a monitoring system. It could be adults or older teens. If adults, find a group of parents or even young adults from the community to volunteer during the after school hours to patrol the peer park and keep the teens under control. If older teens who are still in high school, let the schools choose the teenagers based on behaviour and grades in school.
Essentially, for a school to participate, the parents and students of that school would have to be involved too (which means that a child from ESHS can't participate in this program is no one from ESHS is monitoring, for example).
If this program were to be enacted, I'd suggest the names of students be taken in order to know who was in the park and when. I'd also suggest a one warning policy meaning that if any disruptive behaviour a student gets one warning and then after that only the guilty student would be subjected to the terms of the ban as punishment.
This way, the businessmen and their clients get a peaceful and comfortable atmosphere to conduct their business while the teens get their freedom to just relax and be outside the home. While no one can know for certain this would work without it being enacted, I think the teens would probably work harder to behave and maintain this system since the privilege was hard won and they know it could easily be taken away again if they fell back into their old ways.