Creativity or nastiness?

As the head of the English Language department in a secondary school, Sekolah Menengah Kota Kual Muda, one of my duties was to encourage the use of the language.

One of the ways of accomplishing that was to label whatever could be found in the school. With that in mind, I pasted ‘Girls’ toilet’ on the door of one of the toilets.

A week later, an angry lady teacher came to see me.
“Do you know what your students have done?” she asked.
I shook my head for I was not able to understand her annoyance. “What happened?” I enquired.

She was fuming so badly that instead of answering, she dragged me by the hand to the girls’ toilet.

There, on the door was my label with the apostrophe and the letter ‘i’ whitewashed with liquid paper fluid. It was changed to ‘Girls to let’.

I wanted to smile at the creativity of the students. Yet, it would be insensitive of me to do that in front of this furious teacher. So, I restrained myself and told her our students are quite a cheeky bunch. Putting on a serious demeanour, I told her I would certainly look into the matter.

You see, as I have said before about accepting differing views, this situation calls for that kind of acceptance. For some people, they are of the opinion that such deeds indicate a lack of respect for the women. It could be consider that if the miscreants were adults. When I questioned the students, names were not given but according to those students I believe in, it was a fun thing. Some students were merely being creative with words. If you look at it positively, they were learning English. They were just playing with words. Those students meant no harm. I just accepted the explanation. To the teacher concerned, I assured her the cheeky students were apologetic.

Children can be mischievous. At such times they could merely be showing their skill at something. If that is so, should not the teacher accept their deed as praise-worthy. What do you think?