[speech] check
 

Students and teachers,
Thank you for being so kind to sacrifice some of your precious time to come here to listen to my words. I’d like to say something concerning Stephen. He’s excused from being here today, but that’s not an objection to point you at some things that were forgotten when condamning Stephen. I’d like to ask you: Did one of you mention any bad behaviour before? Speak now or keep silent forever. Does someone know him as violent, rude or impolite? Speak now or keep silent forever. Who was the best pupil the math’s teacher has even known? Who was always there when you needed to copy homework? Judging from your reactions you mostly agree with me that I’m describing Stephen as he really was.
Adolescence is far the most difficult period in a human life. Combined with the situation at home, Stephen has to have a very strong personality not to collapse under the pressure. After divorce of his parents, he stayed with his 2 brothers and sister with his mother. With one salary less, there was no possibility to make the ends meet with only child support, so his mother found a job, by circumstances she has to work in the evenings so that Stephen has to baby-sit on his brothers and sister. This makes going out with friends impossible and there was no time left to be young, to enjoy life. He hardly got a childhood because he had to grow up very fast.
I’m not trying to justify what he did, hitting a teacher is not be tolerated. But referring to someone’s personal life in front of the class is also on the very edge of the acceptable. On that specific moment, Stephen blew his fuse and did something he regrets until now.
He is very vulnerable inside and it’s the teacher’s task to notice that in an early stadium and prevent it of growing worse. Students are human beings as well, with their own limits, their own needs and their own thoughts.
May I be so free to refer to an other case, 9 years ago, where a teacher hit a pupil but could stay at school because of good references in the past. I don’t compare a teacher to a pupil, I compare a human to a human.
So I’m asking the principal to think once again about the decision to exile Stephen from school, keeping in mind all the things I told and all the indistinctions I’ve cleared out. You cannot blame someone for one single mistake, an action of 2 seconds.

hitting a teacher is not be tolerated is fout, ik zou het woord be weglaten.

he regrets until now: Moet dit zijn hij heeft er spijt van tot nu of hij heeft er tot op de dag van vandaag spijt van? In dat laatste geval is het fout. Ik zou ... and he did something he still regrets er van maken.

...the teacher's task to notice that: that veranderen in this.

To think once again about the decision: to reconsider the decision.

Oke, verder geweldig verhaal!

Niks gelezen, maar mijn oog viel op dit woord :D

edit: moet dus condemning zijn he..