Letter from a Reader: Thoughts on the British School Manila Suicide Incident

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Dear Fashion Pulis,

I have seen the post on your site about Liam Madamba's suicide and have read all the comments. They all say "it's not the teacher's fault" and that the parents should have been more responsible. I believe that the story on the news is incomplete. All it does is make Liam Madamba look like a petty and spoiled child who committed suicide just because he got scolded. I, and the rest of the BSM community, can assure you that this is not what happened. 

Liam was a straight A student. His mom says he was on target for a 44. IB students take 6 subjects and study them in-depth. They are given grades from 1-7, 7 being the highest. Additionally, they are forced to submit a 4000-word extended essay and several Theory of Knowledge essays to the IB Organization for their bonus 3 points. IB students often sleep at 3 or 4:00 in the morning - some even get no sleep due to the intense workload. Furthermore, they have to complete 150 hours of Creativity, Action & Service. Additionally, most of them take part in a range of extracurricular activities, as most of these kids aim to go to top colleges abroad. This is how stressful it is.

All of Liam's classmates describe Liam as a wonderful, well adjusted, and thoughtful boy. He was well mannered and respectful with elders. He's the kind of kid that parents wanted to see hanging around with their kids. He is what everyone would call "a good kid". This teacher - on the other hand - is nothing but bad news. She screams at students, her voice can be heard from adjacent rooms, kids try to avoid taking her classes. There are many bad stories about her, but I will set them aside for brevity.

The bulletin board on the second floor of BSM shows the grades of the top graduates of 2014, and there is only one student there with a perfect score of 45 - a kid who went on to study at Harvard. The next highest grade was a 42. This person went on to Stanford, if memory serves me right. When I last talked to Liam (which was about a month ago), he told me he was aiming for UBC (University of British Columbia), as he had relatives in Vancouver, but I think now he was probably being modest as his grades would have been good enough to get into any school in the world. The only issue is - would that school offer Liam a scholarship? Tuition in these schools is stratospheric - costing more than P3M a year.

Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge - what a dream that might have been. Most parents would give their right hand to have a son that good. 

When his teacher discovered that one paragraph in Liam's essay was the same as his classmate's, all she should have done is given him 15 minutes of detention as written in the rule book and advised him to cite his sources, or paraphrase the offending paragraph. She obviously abused her authority. Instead, she went ballistic. Let me remind you that what was submitted was a rough draft, and as consequences of not meeting deadline in BSM are very severe, teachers often pressure students and tell them to just "submit what they have". Thus, many students have elements of copied work or uncited sources in their essays, which they plan to remove or change in future edits. This is because everyone knows that plagiarism is strictly forbidden by the IB and if caught doing so, you will not be given an IB diploma and you will be blacklisted. Let me remind you that this teacher is known to abuse her power especially ever since she was promoted as IB coordinator. Liam was humiliated, bullied and made an example of.

She asked Liam and his classmate to apologize publicly. She asked them to write their public apology on a sheet of paper. She threatened Liam with the loss of his scholarship. Then she told Liam that he might not be allowed to graduate. She screamed and humiliated Liam in front of a lot of people.  I think she suspected that either Liam and his classmate were collaborating or that one had copied from the other. She separated the two, hoping to extract a confession.  Unsatisfied, she later sent Liam an email, asking him to talk to his parents about the events of the day (Thursday), or she would be forced to talk to them on Friday, the day Liam died.  Then she told Liam to junk his TOK essay and come to her office on Monday, whereupon he would be given a new topic and would be given two hours to do his new TOK essay, WHICH TAKES MONTHS TO PLAN AND RESEARCH ABOUT by the way. Then, he was ordered to apologize in front of the whole ASSEMBLY where 900 students and several teachers & staff would be. Let me remind you that he was a few months from graduation and taking his final exams... Imagine all the pressure he felt plus other factors such as his dad having cancer. Is it really fair for her to do this, when her job is to advise students and ensure that they get the highest IB grade possible?

Liam, on the other hand, probably believed all these threats, and did not want to be humiliated in front of the entire student body, lose his scholarship, see his grades plummet, and dash his dreams of getting a scholarship to study abroad. This is a kid who would sleep at 3am and get up at 5am to go to school. So you can better understand how devastating this is to the boy.

Clearly this was cruel and unusual punishment. It was certainly against IB rules (I woudn't be surprised if BSM were later sanctioned severely by the International Baccalaureate Organization).  It would certainly cause Liam's TOK grade to plummet, and probably dash his hopes of getting into a premier school.

What gets me though is, why does the school refuse to discuss the events that transpired on Thursday?  Why does the school mass email every BSM parent, on the day Liam dies, a study that says 90% of people that commit suicide are mentally ill, implying that Liam was probably mentally ill?  Why does the school refuse to share any details? Why desecrate Liam's memory?

They are making the said teacher look like a victim. I know that she cannot be fully blamed, but to say she has no responsibility in all of this is UNFAIR and obviously UNTRUE. THEY ARE TRYING TO COVER UP THE ISSUE AND PROTECT THEIR REPUTATION. The way the school is handling this matter disgusts me.

He was a good kid. Anyone that remotely knew Liam will attest to that.  I've known him since he was in grade 1. Liam was the kind of boy parents wanted their kid to hang out with. He was kind, thoughtful, polite. He was, what parents call "a good influence".  Not a day goes by that I do not think of Liam.

All the students know what happened. However, they are afraid to speak up as any statement they make can be used against them. The school even warns them not to use social media. There is an immense culture of "deal with your own problems" and you just sit there and take in all the teacher's BS if you don't want your grade pulled down for unknown reasons. All of Liam's classmates are upset, and have been going to school wearing black. However, there's nothing they can do.

I don't know why the teacher was so hard on Liam that day. Perhaps she was having a rough day. Perhaps she had problems at home. I do know that for her to heal, and for everyone involved to heal, she will have to come clean and tell the truth . If she really believed that Liam had to apologize publicly, then she knows that she owes it to Liam to apologize to his parents, and to apologize to the school. And the school needs to take steps so that this sort of thing never happens again. Only then can any sort of true healing be possible. 

Yours truly, 

Hippie Mom

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