Sorry, Sans Souci teacher, but yours was only the second most newsworthy slap last week.

The dubious honour of top spot goes to EFF MP Marshall Dlamini, for his effort at SONA, but we’ll be talking about the Sans Souci incident here.

When we covered the story last week, students had come out in support of the teacher who dished out the slap.

Since the story broke, the student involved in the physical altercation is facing five charges in her disciplinary hearing, and both the student and the teacher have been suspended.

News24 spoke with the mother of the student:

Reacting to the pending charges, the mother of the learner, whose name is known to News24, said she is currently “at peace” and knows her child will get through this ordeal.

“I don’t know what the outcomes will be but I trust God in everything,” she told News24…

“The body language from the teacher told me a story. I saw the body language of the teacher. I didn’t see my daughter get up, I didn’t see her raise her voice.”

The mother conceded that the right thing to do would have been to leave the classroom when the teacher told the learner to get out.

“But how do you leave your property [the cellphone] behind,” she asked.

“My child then pushed past the teacher and reached out to grab her phone.”

She added that she was highly upset when she saw the teacher smack her child through the face and grab her by her shirt.

On whether the pupil assaulted the teacher when she pushed the desk into the teacher’s legs, the mother said that her child may have pushed the desk too hard, but asked where else was she supposed to have moved it.

“My daughter was angry. She can be angry, I don’t know how I would retaliated. I don’t know how others would be in that position.”

She finished by saying that she “maintains that there was provocation on the teacher’s part”.

Whatever your view on who was to blame, I think we can all take a moment to thank teachers for putting up with arguments like these on the daily.

Before we go, let’s also take a moment to laugh at Black First Land First (BLF), who have come steaming in with their usual rhetoric. The Citizen reports:

BLF considers the suspension of the student an “outrageous travesty” which “proves that the school is extremely complicit in the gross racism, dehumanisation and violence inflicted on this young girl who is now being denied an education.”

“In the video that was shared with BLF, the incompetent racist bigot stands over the child and verbally assaults her, then goes further to dehumanize her by violently slapping her. This racist white woman in no way deserves to be called a teacher,” the statement continues.

The party is also outraged at the teacher, who they describe as a “racist settler”, for “screaming at the pupil, ‘you won’t speak that language here’, alluding to the African language, IsiXhosa. This attempt to erase this black child’s cultural identity is a gross human right violation,” the party claims.

Sorry, this from the ‘party’ that celebrated the death of schoolchildren in the Hoërskool Driehoek tragedy? Nah, not buying it.

Just another copy and paste from their last statement looking to divide South Africans along racial lines.

Please, remember to laugh at the BLF whenever the opportunity arises.

[sources:news24&citizen]