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Corporal punishment should be banned from our schools

Jan 18, 2023 Letters

Dear Editor,

In my analysis of some of these school invasions, I alluded to the fact that 90% of these cases stem from blatant acts of provocation.

You cannot tell me that my child comes home with hands trembling and showing visible marks of violence as a result of a beating from a teacher, and I sit calmly by and do nothing, far from it.  Any normal parent is bound to react to that situation. Or if a Teacher physically assaults my child under the guise of “disciplining him,” because he pushed ahead of him in a line at the canteen.

The point I am making is no one has the right to put his/her hand on another, period! End of discussion! Which brings me to the point of asking the following question, isn’t corporal punishment abolished from our schools? If not, why not? To physically put one’s hand on another human being constitutes violence and the Ministry of Education in Guyana has to urgently address this matter in a definitive way looking forward to solving it. Like I said, these violent Teacher-Parent confrontations are not going to cease once that slavish and archaic law is on the books.

Corporal punishment: a slap, a jab, a punch, a firm push, whether done to student, a girlfriend, or a wife constitutes violence and this is unacceptable. These are all methods used to control, or as we conveniently say in the school setting, the child has to be ‘disciplined’. There are very many ways to discipline a child other than the use of violence and these areas need to be explored and not ignored.

Corporal punishment should be banned from our schools. Let me remind my readers of an experience I had with one of my primary school Teachers. That female Teacher opened the morning with a beating of all the male students of the class. It all started after she asked for her math assignment from a known delinquent in the class and when he could not readily produce it, she resorted to that brutal slave method of beating every Tom, Dick, Harry and Beharry, we all saw and felt the blows.  Now, while this was the order of discipline during those days, the sad result was that Teacher was knowingly or unknowingly promoting the doctrine of violence, the sure pangs of which is being felt in all strata of society today.

And lest I forget, that female Teacher was just venting pure anger and frustration at her male students because of the problems she was having at home with her male partner, or reputed husband. You see, she never had a husband and the guy she was friendly with would physically abuse her, so she came to class that morning in blind fury, the frustration all bottled up inside of her. Therefore, all males, whether right or wrong, became a prime target to launch her brutal assault of hate. Teachers, keep your frustrations away from  school, because the modern day parents who are descendants of slaves, are not going to put up with that sort of behaviour and dire would be the consequences, so Teachers be aware!

Respectfully submitted,

Neil Adams

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