Continued from yesterday
“The word punishment sounds negative. Students are not criminals to be punished. Their mischief should be taken in the right spirit and what they need is correction and not punishment. This can be done in a positive manner. For example when I was at Bandaranaike National School, Gampaha, I formed a rugby team out of two parties of boys who have been fighting with each other. They put their emotions into play and that group became one of the best school rugby groups in the country,” Royal College, Colombo Principal B. A. Abeyratne said.
Principal of Visakha Vidyalaya, Sandamalie Aviruppola too notes that a child should be punished in a constructive way.
“At present parents give almost everything a child asks for. Children do not know their limits. Thus I believe they should be disciplined and corrected in a constructive way. In my school we mostly advice children and follow up their marks and performance. The teachers’ personality and attitudes also affect the children. So they should be trained and updated to avoid these negative issues that happen in schools,” she explained.
Many schools have refrained themselves from corporal punishment after the topic came under the limelight but punishments such as pinching, bullying, knuckle knocking on head, slapping the students’ palms with a ruler, making the students kneel down, twisting ears, blows on the back, and making the students clean the classroom, laboratory or playground are still practiced.
Painful and humiliating
Eighteen-year-old David J A, a student from Jaffna says he has experienced corporal punishment and so has everyone else in his class.
“I feel that corporal punishment is a truly awful method of attempting to discipline a child. Speaking from my own school experience, there are a plethora of reasons for why this practice should be banned. Firstly, it is naturally painful and humiliating for the child. In addition, despite what some may say, from my experience over the last six years, corporal punishment does not work in the slightest. In fact, it only causes the students to resent that teacher even more. No matter what beating is dealt out the instant that teacher leaves the classroom, the students continue to behave the same way as they did before being caught,” he said.
David says other punishments, lacking violence, are more effective in getting students to behave. “Each time I was beaten, the beating is dealt out without any inquiry or understanding of the situation. In my cases, the teacher has either failed to listen to why I've been unable to do something, or has caught me instead of the person responsible for disrupting the class. Hitting first is what has happened to me and many others in my class. There is no asking first or even later,” he explained.
Horribly wrong message
He added that most importantly corporal punishment sends out a horribly wrong message that violence is right. “In my school, there are many students who believe that corporal punishment is the right way to discipline children. Until very recently, when they were told to refrain from doing so, prefects also used this view to beat students themselves. I've even been told by a prefect, whom I'd argued with about corporal punishment, that physical punishment is a part of our culture and it is the only thing our people understand. The abuse is rarely just physical, but also involves taunting and insulting. Usually this is done in front of the entire class, and is sometimes, from what I've witnessed, even done to cause amusement for the other students. I sincerely hope that people come to understand these views and realise the kind of life many children in our country must go through, while studying in our schools,” David said.
Around 131 countries including Sri Lanka have taken an enlightened stand and significant steps to ban Corporal Punishment. The Stop Child Cruelty organization together with some experts in the field, some leading figures in the country and a number of religious dignitaries recently launched a programme to seek and end corporal punishment in schools in Sri Lanka permanently by 2020. They have roped leading entrepreneur, philanthropist and fashion icon Otara Gunawardena and former Sri Lankan cricketer Sidath Wettimuny as their patrons. Luckshi Ranasinghe is the Youth Ambassador of the campaign. ‘Walk for Genuine Change’, a walk to ban corporal punishment was held recently from Independence Square in Colombo by Stop Child Cruelty. They also delivered a petition signed by concerned citizens and the ‘Pentagon Proposal’ with five overarching key components, referring to the responsible main arms of the government essential to end corporal punishment, to President Maithripala Sirisena.
The golden rule is to make loveable to the child everything you wish him or her to love. Love the children adequately and intelligently understanding their needs, and become good models rather than critics.
Concluded
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