The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • 11

Features 11 THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD FRIDAY APRIL 18 1997 Breaking down the walls of ignorance School students stabbed teachers attacked bus and taxi drivers at increasing risk of violence Australia appears to be growing more violent every day Barbara Drury reports Top: Hate words how teenagers describe gays during anti-homophobia workshops Above: Christopher Tsakalos YOU are a 16-year-old schoolboy in possession of a bag of cannabis A 14-year-old boy approaches you within the school grounds and makes menacing demands for the drug What do you do? Stab him was the first response of the Hunters Hill High School student sentenced this week to at least nine detention Late last year a 14-year-old schoolboy was charged with attempted murder after a teacher Russell Edwards was stabbed in the back at Marrickville High At nearby Tempe High Languages School armed security guards now patrol the grounds after a spate of violent incidents Earlier this month 14-year-old student Christopher Tsakalos launched legal action against his former school Cranebrook High in Penrith Another gay student from a high-profile private school in the eastern suburbs is understood to be preparing to sue the department also These cases hit the headlines but they are not isolated incidents NSW Education Minister John Aquilina recently revealed that there were 533 assaults on school premises in 1995 with 30 per cent of those caused by outsiders However bullying and more extreme violence are not confined to the schoolyard Bullies eventually grow up and shift their attention from the backyard and the schoolyard to the bedroom the boardroom and the streets This week the NSW Transport Minister Brian Langton was forced to order an independent inquiry into State handling of violent attacks on its workers Earlier this year a bus driver Sue Benson was raped by a passenger and allegedly told by the management to back on her while another driver Stephen Metcalfe was sacked after trying to remove a passenger who punched and bit him after threatening other passengers The Australian Services Union says there were 13 attacks on drivers in January 28 in February and six in March Add to this workers setting an apprentice on fire as a drunken airline passengers assaulting cabin crew taxi drivers assaulted robbed and in some cases murdered and the menace of road rage and violence does appear to be a problem in the general community SO are Australians a violent mob? Or do we take out our frustrations on minorities and people just doing their job and leave football hooliganism to the Brits and gang warfare to the Americans? Some statistics: homicide rate is higher than that of Britain and most of Europe but less than a quarter that of the world leader the US As for the location of crime 64 per cent of murders occur in the home Assaults are more of an out-of-doors activity According to the Australian Institute of Criminology in 1995 just 23 per cent of assaults occurred in educational institutions compared with 25 per cent on the street and 36 per cent at home Fewer than 1 per cent occurred in administrative and professional premises the largest of the workplace categories The rest were in locations such as carparks retail and recreational areas In the last and only survey of assaults on school premises the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics found thdt in 1992 despite a 13 per cent increase in the number of assaults on school grounds the risk of assault was 17 times more likely in the general community While there are still those who insist boys will be boys and a punch on the nose never hurt anyone there is a growing intolerance in the community to what is perceived as an escalation of violent and antisocial behaviour However some organisations are adopting measures to tackle the problem The taxi industry is a prime example In the US where the major cause of death in the workplace is murder driving a taxi is the most dangerous occupation According to Tony Sheldon assis Th over 69 finance Now on new Range Rover TRY this quick quiz: write down every term you can think of to describe homosexuals lesbians and heterosexuals When adolescents are asked to do this they happily scribble pages of sexually explicit terms for homosexuals is the most common but it is also one of the least offensive terms produces fewer responses mostly of the variety By comparison really stumps most kids who run out of ideas after and Now imagine you are the only student in a world full of gay teachers and students and you are at a school dance How will you cope if they find out you are not one of them? What if they gang up on you? This kind of exercise is being used by Family Planning (NSW) as part of its anti-homophobia workshops for senior high school students in an attempt to combat violence against gay students They find these techniques concentrate adolescent minds powerfully on the feelings of gay students on the receiving end of peer-group abuse and violence This is the tribal world of fear and loathing in which 14-year-old Christopher Tsakalos was allegedly subject to verbal and physical violence He began a case for damages in which he alleges the school failed to protect him against anti-gay vilification including death threats and violent assault Just before the case began the NSW Department of School Education agreed to readmit Christopher to a public school after his family claimed he was coerced into signing a contract compelling him to stay out of the public system for nine months In spite of this concession the court will still decide on what damages if any should be awarded to Tsakalos According to Family Planning youth educator Dermot Ryan when asked what it is about gays they like more hostile students often say they want a gay person them Yet when they are asked whether they have ever been propositioned in this way no-one ever raises a hand When asked if they have had unwanted approaches from a sea of hands goes up Ryan says: encourage young people to say not regardless of sexuality Most of their hostility is based on fear so we encourage them to state what they feel without resorting to might involve liaison with police teacher training and a system where everyone knows who is responsible for calling the ambulance and police and arranging counselling and the like sounds basic but at most schools everyone runs around in a panic when something Toohey says The Bureau of Crime Statistics found that the typical assault on school grounds occurs during the lunch hour in the playground between two boys of about 14 or 15 years of age Helen Kerr-Roubicek manager of student counselling and welfare for the NSW Department of Education says students themselves report that it is in the early stages of verbal harassment that things can be sorted out if strategies are available literature on bullying states that where schools allow students to speak up where they know who to speak to and those people know what they should do it can have a big effect on bullying which thrives on she says Kerr-Roubicek says early prevention is a priority with aggressive kids targeted for additional social skills training as early as kindergarten in collaboration with their parents and sometimes community health centres Proposals before the NSW Cabinet include a review of children with violent behaviour in high schools and the early identification of aggressive children at primary level Two new schools for violent or difficult students have been endorsed and Aquilina is also considering proposals for an early intervention program for teachers on behavioural management you hurry) Later Gaia had it off with Tartarus the god personified the abyss of Now many of us have dysfunctional families and most of us have had the odd one-night stand or affair with a total no-hoper rat-faced embarrassment we cringe to even think of when sober but a person who officially had the gig of personifying the abyss of Hell? Probably even had the uniform? How pissed would you have to be? Gaia far from being the benign earth mother of all creation could have sustained a whole month of Oprah Winfrey shows and a self-help book called OK a Barking JamacThanks for coming and sharing that with us Gaia honey Mything you already such as the height of customer service desks and systems before during and after the event For example directing staff to diffuse potentially violent situations by removing difficult clients to another room and discussing the issue over coffee Toohey says the organisations which are slowest to move on workplace violence are those with low public contact where violence is more likely to occur between employees One recent example was the case of two employees of a Sydney automotive factory who were charged with assault after subjecting an apprentice to a series of so-called pranks including being suspended above the ground by a rope and set on fire as tax offices community services or public transport have staff training but few of them recognise systematic problems Take a typical tax office A client comes to the front desk to find out what has become of his tax return To cut costs the tax office only acknowledges returns once they are processed so no-one can tell the man where his tax return is in the system He becomes frustrated when staff resort to quoting the rule book jumps the counter and hits a desk clerk not a problem of aggression a systems Toohey says According to Toohey organisations need to assess their risks and devise ways to control them This includes everything from access points to a building office design Escape From just $1300 per month Toohey says that management often looks at incidents such as this and says it is just something the have a responsibility to provide a healthy workplace under both the Occupational Health and Safety Act and common law Ignorance is not a Transport companies and organisations with large fleets are also becoming aware of their legal liability for road rage An organisational psychologist Mark Cadman who is advising the Australian Federal Police on preemployment screening of officers says there are a variety of psychological tests which measure emotional adjustment and inappropriate reactions to situations which would be useful in screening for a wide range of occupations THE risk-management approach to violence can also be extended to schools The massacre of school-children by a lone gunman at Dunblane in Scotland and the more recent assault on Tjanda-murra by a stranger in his Cairns schoolyard have alerted many schools to their legal responsibility to provide a safe environment After the Dunblane massacre Toohey was approached by a number of private schools on the advice of their lawyers wanting help with critical incident management This could involve anything from violence by a stranger or a parent in a custody battle to the death of a child from natural causes The schools were asked to list the likelihood of various risks and assign a priority for action This fT LANDs roverJ) RANGE ROVER tant state secretary of the Transport Union recent studies have shown that on a per capita basis driving a cab in Sydney is as dangerous as driving one in the US In 1995 there were an estimated 2200 assaults and 1600 robberies in Sydney alone with an average of three murders a year Sheldon says most attacks are on non-English speaking drivers with the rate of robberies seven-times higher for Asian drivers than for those from an English-speaking background The TWU recently announced a free legal service allowing taxi drivers who have been assaulted to claim for compensation The State Government is in the process of implementing the recommendations of the Keatsdale report on taxi driver safety Safety screens are to be installed in all Sydney taxis by July 1 by which date tracking systems should also be in place for all cabs The report also recommended that drivers be trained to handle drunken or violent passengers and provided with up-to-date information on dangerous locations The taxi industry case highlights the two-pronged approach to violence: the importance of communication and social skills for conflict resolution and the need for structural and systems changes in the workplace Just as taxi owners face the prospect of mounting compensation claims the threat of litigation by victims of violence is making some employers take the issue of violence more seriously Dr John Toohey of the master of business and technology program at the University of NSW says that many high-risk organisations such WHATEVER KAZ COOKE get Britain to accept that he the head of a whole entire church should be able to go on doing the hokey pokey' in the nicky-noo nar with a woman who is not his wife because princes can jolly well do what they like except be king His consort Camilla is a horsey Brought to justice police with the boy who allegedly attacked teacher Russell Edwards (above right) with a knife Good goddess myth Sydney Arncliffe Purnell Motors Artarmon Alto Land Rover Brookvale Alto Land Rover km-Hurstville Garthon Land Rover nm Parramatta Trivett Land Rmer Mdnev CiUCil Automobiles Country ACT Freecall 1800 809 308 we the constantly premenstrual bitchface goddess type It is hard not to look for modern parallels especially because the mythically classical times seemed to be full of sex drugs raunchy pan-pipe music mad violence illogical tantrums child abuse haruspication (fortune-telling by animal entrails) ludicrous plots (people getting pregnant from looking at fruit) bad hairdos (Medusa) and other Melrose Place-style antics There was Icarus who flew too close to the sun mum who got too close to her son and now Mai Colston who flew too close to the wind and missed the frequent flyer point Another ancient classical myth-type person is Gaia who new-age types bang on about as the earth outdoorsy chain-smoky type In the classically mythical past however Camilla was a little princess escaping from soldiers with her Dad the king of the Volsci (not unlike the King of the Kombi only with less dreadlocks) Trapped the king tied his little girl to a spear and hurled it across the river (which along with boarding school is the kind of high-quality child care you can expect from royals apparently) Anyway the king promised that if Camilla survived her life would be dedicated to (oh my God this is sooooo like spooky Diana Diana accepted the prayer and Camilla turned into a bit of an outdoorsy horsey type frotting around the woods pining for past princes-sery Diana of course remained mother goddess I had always pictured Gaia as a cross between Stevie Nicks and Jabba the Hutt wearing a ratty old shawl making her own stone-ground underpants and beaming stupidly at her 567 children who would bring her sheaves of wheat and pomegranates she could sing about in a reedy way It is astonishing to And that it is worse than that She urged her son to cut off his testicles as he was about to have sex with her and then she got pregnant from her blood and the same son possibly slightly unhinged by now if you want a wild guess and also the ruler of the world ate all his children except one because Gaia fooled him into eating a stone instead thinking it was his baby (Could happen to anybody in a STUCK in a lift recently all I had was an eyeliner pencil and a newspaper with an crossword full of clues like of Hoosiebobulus ruler of Poot A righteous blonde (5 Or a nymph of Obea who was changed into a small echidna until Zeus tweaked his leather thonging making him the protector of the Smyrdian mutton wranglers (17 letters and three Sick of finding that fit it seemed time on my release to purchase the very stout Dictionary of Classical Mythology by Pierre Grimal published by Blackwell Before we get to the myth of Camilla a short word from ye olde 1990s Prince Charles is still trying to HammondDare iRl.