Stop buying everything the Americans sell us

Dec 03, 2014 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Why are we beating around the bush about corporal punishment and indiscipline in schools?  Let’s face it. We are followers of the so called developed countries, adopting wholesale whatever they implement and sell to the world, whether there are negative effects or not.
For instance, they lined up a slew of experts to malign corporal punishment, removed it from their school system in most states, and today we have a system free of corporal punishment but one where there are metal detectors and a branch of the police department assigned to each school.
We ignore the fact that there is a financial aspect to banning corporal punishment in so many schools in the U.S. Look at the big picture.  No corporal punishment resulted in children acting up since there is no consequence to their actions (time out?  Please).
These delinquent behaviors are then given names by the experts and medication is prescribed. Here is where the big bucks are made.  Medical personnel in New York City recently complained about educators dumping mal-behaved kids in hospital for medication which is costing the state millions of dollars.  Pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer are minting millions as a result of these programs.
Let’s for a minute, examine the argument against corporal punishment.  The claim by the so-called experts is corporal punishment damages the child and causes him to be violent.
This would suggest several generations of us who are over 35 are damaged since we all grew up in an era where corporal punishment was the norm.  Yet, I dare say we are a much more disciplined and productive generation as a whole than the current generation brought up on no CP.  Very few are aware that the U.S. via the UN is pressuring developing countries to ban corporal punishment.
Their intention is to have our youths popping pills (their products) to moderate their behaviour.  It turns my gizzard to see Guyanese arguing in favour of a system of discipline that has failed and continues to fail in developed countries.
The bottom line is always financial for the U.S. and we’re following foot to foot.  Of course CP is unpleasant to a child which is why said child wouldn’t cross certain boundaries to get a spanking.  You learn to obey the rules and operate within the “law.”
Today we have a generation of youths who have no respect for said boundaries.  When they hit eighteen years of age of course they have no respect for the law either and end up in the blossoming prison industry.
There is another money maker; another reason for banning CP.  Tons of money to be made by the pharmaceutical industry as well as the prison system.  There are private companies running prisons in the U.S.  No doubt “the man that look like the devil” (see “Dem Boys Seh”) or one of his acolytes will soon capitalize on this industry in Guyana.
The question is: what can we lose from bringing back corporal punishment in schools?  One thing we can is the aid the UN would threaten to cut since we will not dance to their tune.  What can we gain?
We’ll definitely have more discipline in schools.  Students will learn there are immediate consequences to their actions.
I often ask myself what would have become of me if I grew up in an environment free of corporal punishment.  I don’t think I would have finished high school.  If there was nothing to stop me from doing what I wanted, no one could’ve got me to study anything.
The fear of corporal punishment motivated most of us to do the right thing.  Throughout my five years in high school, I got spanked (two lashes) once. Fear of CP made me conscious of operating within the rules, both at school and at home. By the time I was eighteen, this was part of me and I never ran afoul of the law. This applied to most of us at that time.
I’m well aware that the generation of today is more than ever exposed to distractions my generation did not have to deal with. From television to the violent video games and the ever present distractions of cell phones (with which, as poor a nation as we are, each student seems to be equipped), the last thing students need is the lack of discipline.
So, to the Brendon Mounter’s of our world who give Corporal punishment the “ebola” treatment, let’s get real and recognize the fact that the removal of CP in our schools is one of the main contributing factors for the decline of discipline in our schools.
Stop buying everything the Americans sell us. Mr. Mounter claims that the violence in schools is global.  He’s probably right. But show me a country where CP was not removed from schools and I’ll bet they do not suffer from this epidemic.
I dare you.  Look up “School corporal punishment” on Wikipedia and after reading other countries’ approach, ask yourself why it is still in place in so many countries.  I can answer that for you.  Corporal punishment works.
Nathaniel Hinckson

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