Thoughts on Corporal punishment in the school context

  It is noteworthy before starting the inquiry into the issue of corporal punishment to dismiss any assumption that it is a limited practice worldwide. Just a simple discussion with the College students will show behind any doubt that it is still practiced even though Africa seems to suffer most from it.

In the following I’ll attempt timidly to explore this practice both in reasons and effects not forgetting proposing some ‘’solutions’’.

       

    Corporal punishment is a form of punishment that takes various physical aspects. Whipping, forced walking on knees, smacking the face and various other forms. It is still a systematic policy in a number of countries meaning that it is an established practice rather than an individual abuse of power. Personally hand beating with the use a stick was the punishment that I most encountered in my primary school. The ‘’accusations’’ vary everywhere from forgetting homework to just talking with a friend. I will always remember, though, that in every class there were some kids who just didn’t undergo this ‘’ritual’ ’,they were from some special families or the teachers just ‘’knew’’ their parents.

The reasons behind this phenomenon require a serious professional investigation. But in the context of schools in North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and maybe Asia, I think I have a solid-enough hypothesis. Considering the wider social context of the societies that apply such measures on their students imposes itself. Bankruptcy, booming corruption and absence of basic freedoms are the norm!  Adults are constantly subjected to abnormal pressure (jobless or instable job…). The relationship between various components of society is thus characterized with oppression (or being oppressed). Students, especially kids, (along with women and handicapped people…) happen to be at the lowest ranks of this oppressive social latter. As it is easiest to apply physical forms of abuse on kids: they find themselves subject to such daily abuse. Society doesn’t even condemn it but emphasizes that it is natural (which further solidify the argument). Here I quote Dr. Lorraine Monroe (a school principal that turned a NYC troubled HS into a successful establishment and was featured in the ‘’IB world’’ magazine.). ‘’It breaks my heart when people look at kids and say: that’s just how they are at that age’’.

Other reasons are the lack of suitable legislation (even though when the legislation changes the behavior doesn’t automatically change.). This factor seems to be improving as most states are adopting laws that prohibit physical punishment as a pedagogical tool. Another factor that I find interesting but that is still not established is a historic one. Most countries in North Africa (and of course other parts of the continent) were subjected to the colonial rule of imperial France. As sates started gaining their independence they employed large numbers of French teachers as the starting generation of instructors in their young educational systems. As my father (and his generation…) told me these teachers were particularly cruel and unreasonably harsh (my mother told me that one of them would make the students lick up the ink if they dropped it, which happened a lot in a primary school!). A historical mistake of the independence state was to turn for the old defeated colonial power, France, for the fate of their first generation. Racism, hatred and feelings of superiority were at their height after the Algerian-French war which in turn fueled the corporal and harsh punishment in the post-colonial school. Some of the students who went through this era grew up to become the next generation of teachers, believing that beating was an acceptable, even beneficial, method of punishing the students.

The effects of physical punishment are beyond any doubt destructive and alarming. On a personal level, all feelings of security disappear and fear replaces it. As this state persists the pupil finds himself a slave to his fears. Expression abilities are limited and a seed of oppressive behavior that will carry on to the next generation is also planted. On the wider scale, creativity is slaughtered at a very early stage. Conformism is reinforced and no room is left for exceptional and innovative thinking or acting. Some even suffer disorders (because of abuse and violence). They are all reluctant of any form of authority but the rooted fear in them makes them suffer a form of schizophrenic behavior. Is it only a coincidence that violence on the national scale (civil wars…) is usually accompanied by inadequate educational methods? The answer is that the vicious circle of violence at a young age and the development of oppressive behavior later is the root cause of some of the problems encountered in troubled societies.   

After listing some of the reasons and effects of physical reprimanding on the pupils and their societies as a whole it is useful to propose an alternative.

I strongly believe that the whole idea of punishment in school is a very harmful concept. Reward is the right approach that is most effective in helping the student achieve academic and personal excellence. By this I mean encouraging productive behavior generously (marking systems, verbal approval and even candy). One might say: but how do we deal with destructive and harmful behavior. I respond that that punishment is certainly not the answer! School should provide support (via counseling and other forms of help) rather than to aggravate normal problematic situation into devastating social patterns.

     As a conclusion of the inquiry I believe it is fair to say that corporal punishment is the most harmful form of punishment and thus should not be adopted as an educational policy. Productive rewarding systems might be the most suitable future alternative methods.

 Sources:

January 2011 IB world magazine. Page 11

‘’Massive production… Of slaves: the Tunisian Educational System’’. Previous article that I posted on a social network by the date of January 5, 2011.