Sunday, May 3, 2009

Corporal punishment

The recent case of Shanno dying under known circumstances is a very shameful act of the teacher making an 11 year old girl stand in scorching sun in a crouching position which was unjustifiable. For a trivial reason of not being able to recite English alphabet string she was given such a harsh punishment that it lead to her death. Instead of Supreme Court having banned corporal punishment in schools in Delhi and various other states it seems still many school authorities have no fear of this law. Nowadays we are getting to hear a lot about corporal punishment. Every second day we hear about corporal punishment and the students dying because of that. It is shocking to know that everyday a child dies in the world due to corporal punishment. Teachers punish the students for some trivial reasons and what a student has to face is death. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ still doesn’t seem to have come out of people’s mind. It seems the trained teachers too don’t seem to implement what they learn in educational psychology. By inflicting pain to a child, a child is not only hurt physically but also mentally. There is a great deal of mental impact on a child. Child hesitates to come to the class next time. He may also develop aggression towards students as well as teachers. And this is one of the reasons of aggression among the students nowadays in school as well as at home. It is very important for a teacher to handle the students psychologically. First they should try to know why student is having such a behavior, what kind of company he stays in and what kind of background he comes from and then tackle it accordingly. She/He can also take the help of other educationists in this. Raising hands or cane on the child is not the solution. What we need is understanding the students. ‘Taare Zameen pe’ is a parable for all those teachers who inflict injuries on students and hurt them physically and mentally. It’s high time for all the teachers that they try to understand the student in every aspect. Workshops are conducted for the teachers by governmental bodies but it is just for the sake of conducting it and attending it. Nobody tries to learn anything from there. Sometimes teachers out of their own frustration take out all their rage on their students. Educationists should seriously think about it and some stern action should be taken by school authority for those who use canes to change a student's behaviour. Even students who have aggressive behavior should be counseled by the educational psychologists and it should be conveyed to the student’s parents about their behavior. Many times it so happens that parents don’t know about the student behavior in school. So frequent Parents Teachers meeting is much required by which certain solutions can be taken out. But corporal punishment of course is not the solution to such cases. And the teacher cannot show such an amount of boorishness in her behavior that she/he can snatch a child away from a mother. Such teachers should be given the harshest punishment


  1. What could be the harshest punishment for such a teacher.. making her stand outside the class or calling her parents to school..!!
    nothing can change unless school authorities themselves take strong punitive steps to tackle such teachers.. and behavioral assessment must be incorporated periodically..

  2. Very true Subhankar. Regular behavioural assessment must be done in schools and school authorities should take stern actions against such teachers.