Corporal Punishment

malik 99 and paindupastry: thanks for liking the article...abuse is the worst form of educating a kid....all through my school years I hated going to school because of a few insane teachers...I have this wish that one day I can meet them face to face and inflict the same type of punishments on them just the way they inflicted on us...i was lucky enough to have a loving family and guidance and so moved on with my life on the right track but not everyone can cope with these kinda experiences easily...

kaurasach, fuzair: I compeletely DISAGREE with you...I do agree however, that disciplining is required for kids but that can be done through other means like for instance setting up good examples. There`s a big difference between a parent disciplining a kid (even if it involves minor spanking) and a teacher spanking a kid in front of the whole class...

BeeJay: totally agree with you...nice comments...i can feel what you must`ve gone through after watching that humiliating episode at your school...no doubt, these things haunt u forever...

Chow,

Kinza Farhan

Corporal punishment has been legally banned by the Supreme court in India but cases of children being severly battered are still being reported.Till now i have heard only of one incident in which the teacher was suspended from duty for his act.Parents,whose children report being beaten up at school,also usually ignore it,thereby becoming also guilty to some extent.

Hitting with a ruler,fist,book or slap constitutes physical abuse.More painful is the blow to the ego of the child because this is done in open in front of the whole class,sometimes the whole school.Studies have proved beyond doubt that children exposed to physical abuse at school or home grow up to become violent adults.At the same time it is unfair to blame teachers solely for this because they are not properly trained to handle the psychy of young children.Child psychology has to be a compulsory subject for teacher training courses(which I suppose is at avery rudimentary level at present).
Teacher-student ratio is another problem in our part of the world.There may be 50 to 100 students in one class and at some places,single teacher handles 2-3 classes at the same time.Plus there are poor woking conditions,no electicity,poor buildings,adhocism,pressures from beaurocracy etc. which always weigh on teacher`s mind.Expecting teachers to behave in ideal manner under these conditions amounts to asking too much.Frustrated teachers sometimes displace their anger on helpless children.There is no point in comparing American or English teaching system with Pakistani or Indian one.

Note: This is a serious topic, and so are my comments here.

To #1 kaurasach, #2 fuzair, and #3 paindupastry

I must respectfully disagree with all three of you. Here is why.

Even if you say that “a little bit” of spanking is okay, how do you ensure that you are not opening the flood gates? Once those grown-up hands have been raised in anger, they have a way of taking over. Who is going to be present there, monitoring that just the “proper” amount gets administered, no matter how “peeved” the teacher is. That “little” bit may end up as being a LOT for a “receiving” child. Some kids can be more fragile than others, so what is a “proper” amount?

There should be absolutely NO physical punishment allowed in this whole equation between an adult and a child, because it is always unequal in favor of the adult. The onus must always remain on the adult to keep his temper, no matter how maddening the circumstances.

Kids are always learning: from their parents and family members, from school peers and teachers, from surrounding society, media, and so on. Even when a teacher is spanking a child, the child is still learning: learning that it is okay to use physical violence to settle an issue. At the same time, the child misses an opportunity to learn how to communicate even under very trying circumstances! Therefore, children who are victims of abuse (whether at home, school, or elsewhere) are likely to grow up into adults who are uncommunicative and violence prone – perpetuating the vicious circle of the abused children growing into abusive adults.

I still have occasional nightmares about one particular episode from my childhood. I will never forget that day in grade 6 (in North Bihar) when this Science teacher made an example of this one errant student. In retrospect, I don’t even remember the infraction that kid had committed, so it may have been very minor. But boy that teacher was mad! Not only he broke several canes on the back of that kid, he humiliated him further by forcing the kid to spit in the kids’s own outstretched palm, then making him lick that palm clean right in front of the class! I am not sure if it helped that one kid’s conduct become any better, but I am reasonably sure the other members of that class, who were not even touched, got indelibly damaged too and the whole class still carries that memory-I certainly do even after all those years. In retrospect, I realize that particular teacher was probably a disturbed individual, maybe even an abuse victim himself in childhood. But the system that allowed him to operate in that setup where he exerted such a degree of control was the real culprit!

There, I have said it.

Sincerely,
BeeJay.

I studied in a boarding school in India. and teachers were not allowed to touch a child. To enforce discipline through punishment, we were made to do physical exercises, detention or revocation of certain privelages. I am sure that these forms of punishments can be adapted for day school as this is a far better way of correcting a child.

I remember that we had an art teacher who at times could not control himself, and would end up slapping a student. The next scene would usually be of the student heading towards the Headmasters office and the art teacher running after the child and apologizing !!!

Kinza - This is a very well written article. I fully agree with you that corporal punishment, in ALL its forms, should be banned from schools and from homes. For a short term benefit, they cause a long lasting damage. This violence that is ingrained in children`s minds then carries over to society when those children grow up to be adults. Beating of a human being is not a way to correct that human being.

Whats good for the goose is good for the gander. If children can become better human beings after getting these beatings, then parents and teachers should recieve the same treatment to help them excel as well.

i feel sorry for what u may have experienced as a very young child. your particular experience may have been quite damaging but i do feel small punishments are not only okay but sometimes required to teach a child. as for physical abuse, thats a different story and itll be good to hear what chowkies vies are on the subject and thier own experiences.

There is a difference between punishing a child and child abuse. A couple of raps on the palm of the hand with a ruler for misbehaviour does NOT constitute abuse; neither is spanking a child. Hitting a little girl several times on the head with a heavy textbook is abuse. We risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater if we ban all corporal punishment because some sadists abuse children.

Using some mild type of punishment is OK to discipline students. All this student teacher `friendship` is pile of crap. Students in US lack respect in general. Few want to teach these days.

Corporal punishment in extreme is damaging and leaves negative impact thru life.

In old days. When classrooms did not have walls or doors (under a tree), many a students tired of corporal punishment, would let their sentiments know about corporal punishment to the ``masters`` in choicest Punjabi abuse and run away. Those were the good old days.