Plan Your Career: ‘Corporal punishment is not the method to correct a student’

This issue is getting more attention than before. It is also being debated widely. The dilemma you have expressed prevails among most of the teachers and the schools. It is only natural that your school administration forbids you against corporal punishment. The Indian Constitution upholds this right in Article 21 with ‘Right to Life’. 

The Child Rights Charter of 2003 of India specifically addresses corporal punishment saying, “All children have a right to be protected against neglect, maltreatment, injury, trafficking, sexual and physical abuse of all kinds, corporal punishment, torture, exploitation, violence and degrading treatment.” 

Later, the National Plan of Action for Children made a firm commitment stating that “corporal punishment will be firmly excluded from the educational systems.” Therefore, constitutionally it gives clear direction and warning that no child shall be subjected to physical punishment or mental harassment. 

Corporal punishments involve both physical and non-physical — hitting with hand or any tool to belittling or humiliating with words. Let us keep the legal part aside and take the growth and development of our children. Most of the studies vividly state that escalations of violence, conflict or unwanted behaviour are related to even a little slap. 

Children subjected to physical punishment have shown more aggression in their adolescence. Corporal punishment brings psychological damage to children. It leads to undesired impacts on health, discontinued education and acceptance of all forms of violence. Paulo Pinheiro stated in the UN General Assembly in 2007, “Children are sick of being called ‘the future’. They want to enjoy their childhoods, free of violence, now.” 

How true it is! In the name of shaping the children for their future, we ruin their present. It is also found that boys suffer physical abuse more than the girls. And often, children suffer silently due to other threats from teachers. Is it not shameful on the part of the teachers? 

Corporal punishment- based systems are faulty and repressive. It is indeed not an exaggeration on the part of teachers that it is difficult to control the children. It is also due to factors like crowded classes, family backgrounds and extravagant use of media and social media. But all these or other reasons do not justify beating or harassing a child. 

There are alternatives to corporal punishments. I am not sure whether you have heard of Preventive Pedagogy, a system of time immemorial and later shaped by one of the 19th Century Italian Saints Saint John Bosco. Today, his followers run numerous schools all over the world, 132 countries to be precise and almost in all states of India, based on this principle of education. The system is founded on reason, religion and loving kindness. 

Among these, the religion that he spoke about was in his context. But the most important tools for extracting positive disciplines are the reason and loving kindness. 

According to Don Bosco, there is no proper education possible without being reasonable. It also demands the capacity to understand the psychology of each student. Rationality should guide both students and teachers through clarity of ideas and not through emotions. 

Always explain your reasons. Observe each student and act according to his or her character. The loving kindness brings relationship of confidence and affectionate collaboration between the students and the teachers. 

If you as a teacher, love your students, you will find ways of positive discipline methods, like reward for good behaviours, focus on specific children and find reasons for their misbehaviour, be present for the students and make them realise that you are present for them, listen to the students, give simple and clear instructions, explain your rules and be firm on them, learn to ignore some mischiefs that are not harmful, and be exemplary. The students will find a leader in you and follow you.