I find it incredible that in this age of alleged enlightenment there are still debates in play about corporal punishment (CP) in schools, especially in the USA.
What’s preventing God-given instincts or moral conscience from kicking-in and simply affirming it’s WRONG?
Why isn’t it obvious to everyone there is, and never was, justification for CP in schools (or homes)?
The only right time to hit a child is ‘tomorrow’… and tomorrow never comes.
Discipline – YES! Corporal punishment – NO!
CP is related to discipline like chalk is to cheese. Everyone needs discipline. Every aspect of life demands discipline. While discipline is constructive and high up in the values scale with the likes of oxygen and water, CP is diagonally opposite: destructive and harmful to body, mind and spirit.
To some ‘teachers’ CP is a kind of daily human sacrificial offering to their God (whoever or whatever theirs might be) and is simply another name for child abuse, torture, intolerable cruelty and brutality.
The perpetrators strike fear into fragile, vulnerable, impressionable and defenceless young children unashamedly. It is abuse of power, might is right, the strong overpowering the weak and a clear indication of character flaws, mental illness, lack of education (or all three) in the perpetrators.
CP is without virtue. It wrecks the confidence and stiffles the development of children; physically and mentally damaging them, and speaks no praise of the perpetrators, or of the schools, parents, or society that permits it. Inflicting physical blows and mental torture upon a child only breed’s resentment, violence, disrespect, hatred and vengeance in the child and promotes retaliation, immediately or years later.
Adults who say ‘I’m okay, corporal punishment has done me no harm’ are deceiving themselves. They’ve spent most of their lives with brakes smouldering in their brain trying to repress their inner pain and disappointment.
No doubt CP was acceptable at one time, even believed good for the child, but those were the dark ages of ignorance, DDT and asbestos.
British studies have proved conclusively that early childhood development has profound influences on health and wellbeing across the child’s entire life. CP is an enemy of a child’s wellbeing.
If you want your son to be a physical and mental wreck: violent, abusive, aggressive, a wife-beater, drug user, and all that you abhor and detest in society; send him to a school or madrasah (or some other Bangla Bhai accredited establishment) that ignores the no corporal punishment law. He will graduate with honours – guaranteed!
What parent (in their right mind) would want a headmaster, ‘teacher’, Imam or any other sadistic authority figure (not in their right mind), inflicting mental anguish, physical trauma, pain, suffering upon the child they claim to love? How loud must a child cry for help?
Does the child have to commit suicide (a person`s final scream for help) to be heard?
A University of Manitoba report said: “Children who are given CP in school or in the home, spanked, slapped, grabbed and pushed, shoved, kicked, beaten with a cane or any other means of physical punishment, may be at an increased risk for developing mental problems later in life and it may cause mood and anxiety disorders or lead to alcohol and drug abuse.”
British psychologists at Plymouth University tell us “punishment in childhood makes kids more prone to serious illness later in life and that smacking or even shouting at children boosts their risk of developing cancer, heart disease and asthma”.
Let’s put all that invaluable research to the side momentarily and just zoom-in on one side effect… stress.
EVERY adult knows that stress is responsible for incalculable minor-to-major health ailments and is the No. 1 killer globally. More people die from stress-related illnesses each year than any other disease.
Credible research has shown that stress can cause inflammation to cells, tissues and blood vessels and that hitting or even just yelling at children can trigger a significant chain of biological changes that can damage their future health.
Now put this in the context of CP. Long before the pain of CP is felt through the skin, the mind of the child goes into stress mode… thinking about the imminent pain and suffering.
Remember the girls at the Talimul Quran Mahila Madrassah in Kadamtali who were literally branded for life, in May last year, with a red-hot cooking spatula by their ‘teacher’ in the name of ‘discipline’?
Fourteen Allah-loving children stood shoulder to shoulder as their demented ‘teacher’ went shamefully along the line branding them like animals, one-by-one, on their legs with a red-hot spatula. The stench of the burning human flesh alone would have triggered humungous stress.
Now imagine you were one of the of those girls and you’re at the end of the queue… No. 14.
You would have listened to the sizzling sound and smelt the burning hair and flesh as each stumbled and writhed in pain. You would have heard the deafening cries for help and watched the tears of sadness, anger and hopelessness flow from the eyes of your friends… and worse to come… you’re next.
How stressful could that be?
How horrific? How sad? How inhuman? How wrong!
It’s almost three years since noble Justices of the High Court Divisional bench Justice Md. Imman Ali and Justice Md Sheikh Hasan Arif outlawed corporal punishment in Bangladeshi schools and madrassas. They defined it as ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and a clear violation of a child’s fundamental right to life, liberty and freedom’.
Unfortunately many headmasters and teachers don’t agree and will continue their despicable practices until they are arrested, jailed, sacked, or meet the wrath of the child’s family.
If you love and want to protect your child, it is your duty to inform the Headmaster/teachers that you do not want him/her to be given CP. Write, phone, but preferably visit the school. The gratitude, respect and love you’ll receive from your child will be priceless and eternal. Besides it’s the right thing to do.
Every newborn child is a saint in kit form… just needing proper assembly.
Sir Frank Peters is a former newspaper and magazine publisher and editor, an award-winning writer, humanitarian, human rights activist, and a dear foreign friend of Bangladesh. sirfrankpeters@googlemail.com
BDST: 0643 HRS, NOV 3, 2013
AKA/RK
