Sports Day

Last Wednesday was Sports Day at EHSM! It was held at a big stadium in Kingstown and it was pretty neat to see our students fill the stadium in their blue, yellow, green and red house tee-shirts. Very colorful. The students are grouped by house and age - Junior (under 14), Intermediate (14 - 16) and Senior (17+) - and run the 1500m, 1000m, 800m, 400m, 200m, 100m and the 4 x 100m and 4 x 400m relays.
The event ran smoothly until after lunch, when it got out of control! One of the senior students had gotten in trouble the previous day for hurting a teacher and was banned from the races. He didn't hurt her badly, but I completely agree with the principal's decision to ban the student. It is unacceptable for a student to strike a teacher. Anyway, after lunch, he tried to participate in the 800m and was, for obvious reasons, called off the field. Then he was called off the field again...and a third time...and a fourth. Finally, after he failed to respond to four announcements, a police officer was sent to escort him off the field. The officer identified the student and asked him to please leave the field, at which point the student sat down on the ground and refused to move. When the officer tried to pull the boy up, he cursed several times and hit the officer in the chest. After this incident, several police officers went on the field and escorted the boy off. As if this weren't bad enough, the entire school then decided to show anti-police solidarity and refused to participate in any events...for about a half hour. We finally got Sports Day up and running again, but the mood was definately dampened.
I'm a little scared that the students in my school are so quick to hate the police. I'm glad there's a strong sense of student bonding, but that boy was definately in the wrong and it makes me nervous that the other students can't or won't distinguish between positive and negative police action. I know that a general distrust of the police is common in every country, but it is disurbingly wide-spread here. Parents teach it to their children, who bring it to their peers, which leads to episodes like that at Sports Day. It's a chilling thought. What happens when a generation of youths who both distrust and dislike the police grows up?
I'll try to post pictures of Sports Day this weekend.